ine!" Instantly the audience
was on fire. The burst of applause brought out by Smith's opening
reference to the "never vanquished hero of Appomattox" had been
disappointing because it lacked spontaneity and enthusiasm, but the
sound of the magic word "Blaine," like a spark flying to powder, threw
the galleries into a flame of cheering which was obstinate in dying
out. Conkling, in closing the debate on the resolution, showed his
customary audacity by hurling bitter sarcasm at the people who had
presumed to applaud. It was in this address that he recited Raleigh's
famous line from _The Silent Lover_: "The shallows murmur but the
deeps are dumb."[1672]

[Footnote 1672:

"Passions are likened best to flowers and streams;
The shallows murmur but the deeps are dumb."
--_Works of Sir Walter Raleigh_, Vol. 8, p. 716 (Oxford, 1829).]

Conkling's purpose was to put district delegates upon their honour to
obey the convention's instructions regardless of the preference of
their districts. He did it very adroitly, arguing that a delegate is
an agent with a principal behind him, whom he represents if he is
faithful. "For what is this convention held?" he asked. "Is it merely
to listen while the delegates from the several congressional districts
inform the convention who the districts are going to send to the
national convention? Is it for that five hundred men, the selected
pride of the Republican party of this State, have come here to meet
together? I think not. Common sense and the immemorial usages of both
parties answer the question. What is the use of a delegate? Is it a
man to go to a convention representing others, and then determine as
he individually prefers what he will do? Let me say frankly that if
any man, however much I respect him, were presented to this convention
who would prove recreant to its judgment, I would never vote for him
as a delegate to any convention."[1673]

[Footnote 1673: New York _Tribune_, February 26, 1880.]

Earlier in the day Newton M. Curtis of St. Lawrence, the one-eyed hero
of Fort Fisher, had insisted with much vehemence that district
delegates represented the views of their immediate constituents and
not those of the State convention. Others as stoutly maintained the
same doctrine. But after Conkling had concluded no one ventured to
repeat the claim.[1674] Indeed, when the several districts reported
their delegates, the Stalwarts openly called upon the suspected ones
to