In default of him the time of you people has come." He subsequently
showed me this letter and General Sherman's reply. My recollection is that
the General declared that he would not take the presidency if it were
offered him, earnestly invoking Mr. Elaine to support his brother, John
Sherman.
This would seem clear refutation that Mr. Blaine was party to his own
nomination that year. It assuredly reveals keen political instinct and
foresight. The capital prize in the national lottery was not for him.
I did not meet him until two years later, when he gave me a minute account
of what had happened immediately thereafter; the swing around the circle;
Belshazzar's feast, as a fatal New York banquet was called; the far-famed
Burchard incident. "I did not hear the words, 'Rum, Romanism and
Rebellion,'" he told me, "else, as you must know, I would have fittingly
disposed of them."
I said: "Mr. Blaine, you may as well give it up. The doom of Webster,
Clay, and Douglas is upon you. If you are nominated again, with an assured
election, you will die before the day of election. If you survive the day
and are elected, you'll die before the 4th of March." He smiled grimly and
replied: "It really looks that way."
My own opinion has always been that if the Republicans had nominated
Mr. Arthur in 1884 they would have elected him. The New York vote would
scarcely have been so close. In the count of the vote the Arthur end of
it would have had some advantage--certainly no disadvantage.
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