vernment, and that any departure from this time-honored
custom would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our
free institutions.

The passage of this resolution, the scandals in the administration,
the hard times, and the bitter and determined opposition to General
Grant at this time, put an end temporarily to all third-term talk.

But during his absence, when he was making his tour of the world,
after he had retired from the Presidency, Senator Conkling, General
Logan, Don Cameron, and other leading politicians concluded that
they would nominate him to succeed Rutherford B. Hayes, who was
not a candidate. After his return to the United States, they
secured his consent to use his name as a candidate for the nomination
in 1880; but after a bitter fight in the Chicago Convention they
failed, and General Garfield obtained the nomination.

Mr. Blaine, before the Convention met, was the leading candidate
against General Grant. I had been a warm friend of Mr. Blaine's
in Congress; but as General Grant was a candidate from my own State,
and as I was at that time Governor of Illinois and a candidate for
renomination, I did not feel that I could take any part in the
contest between Grant and Blaine.

When the State Convention met to select a candidate to succeed me
as Governor, the contest between Grant and Blaine was very bitter.
Mr. Blaine and I had been very friendly in the House; indeed, I
was one of the few personal friends who brought him out as a
candidate for Speaker of the House. From our past relations, he
felt perfectly free to write me, and about the time of the Convention,
I received a letter from him, in which he said, among other things,
"Why cannot you put yourself at the head of my forces, and lead
them? If you are not careful you will fall between."

The tone of the letter annoyed me, and I did not answer it until
the contest was over, which resulted in my own nomination, and
until after the National Convention met, in which Blaine was
defeated. I then wrote him a letter, informing him that I had been
nominated; but, of course, I did not refer to his defeat.

During the session of the convention in Springfield, about the time
it was to convene, General Logan came down from Chicago, proceeding
at once to my house. He told me that he desired I should help him
to secure the delegation for General Grant.

I replied: "General Logan, if you are my friend, and I suppose
you are, you will n