subsequently
proposed the name of Arthur, Dennison responded with a spirited
second, followed by delegates from New Jersey, Illinois, Mississippi,
Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. This array of backing
brought McCarthy to his feet, who withdrew his second to Washburne and
moved that Arthur's nomination, under a suspension of the rules, be
made by acclamation. This required a two-thirds vote and was lost.
Then Campbell of West Virginia, amidst the loudest cheers of the
evening, seconded the nomination of Washburne. "Let us not do a rash
thing." he said. "The convention has passed a resolution favouring
civil service reform. Let us not stultify ourselves before the
country."[1702]

[Footnote 1702: New York _Tribune_, June 9.]

At first Arthur's strength was confined to the Grant delegation,
twenty-five States showing an increase of only seventy votes, thirty
of which came from the South. But as the roll-call proceeded New York,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania brought other States into line, the ballot
giving Arthur 468, Washburne 193, and other favourite sons 90.

Arthur's nomination was a distinct disappointment. To many it was an
offence. Within the State leading Republican journals resented it by
silence, while others were conspicuously cold; without the State it
encountered even greater disadvantages, since his dismissal as
collector of customs had advertised him as the enemy of reform, the
apostle of bossism, and the friend of whatever was objectionable in
politics.[1703] Yet his friends found a creditable record. He had
successfully opposed the well-known action of Jonathan Lemmon, who
sought to recover eight slaves which he incautiously brought into New
York on his way from Virginia to Texas; he had established the right
of coloured people to ride in the street-cars; and he had rendered
valuable service in the early years of the war as engineer-in-chief
and quartermaster-general on the staff of Governor Morgan. He
possessed, too, an inherited instinct for keeping faith with men. In
his relations with politicians of high or low degree there was not a
trace of dissimulation or double-dealing. His career is a study of the
evolution of character. It is not strange, perhaps, that in the days
of custom-house investigations and bitter partisan strife, when he was
known as an henchman of Conkling, there was a lack of public
appreciation of the potentialities of a unique personality, but the
Arthur heritage inclu