On the 8th of June, 1880, the Republican Convention at Chicago selected Garfield as their standard-bearer on the thirty-sixth ballot.  No one, probably, was more surprised or bewildered than Garfield himself, who was a member of the Convention, when State after State declared in his favor.  In his loyalty to John Sherman, of his own State, whom he had set in nomination in an eloquent speech, he tried to avert the result, but in vain.  He was known by the friends of other candidates to be thoroughly equipped for the highest office in the people’s gift, and he was the second choice of the majority.

[Illustration:  INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.]

Mary Clemmer, the brilliant Washington correspondent, writes of the scene thus:  “For days before, many that would not confess it felt that he was the coming man, because of the acclaim of the people whenever Garfield appeared.  The culminating moment came.  Other names seemed to sail out of sight like thistledown on the wind, till one (how glowing and living it was) was caught by the galleries, and shout on shout arose with the accumulative force of ascending breakers, till the vast amphitheater was deluged with sounding and resounding acclaim, such as a man could hope would envelope and uplift his name but once in a life-time.  And he?  There he stood, strong, Saxon, fair, debonair, yet white as new snow, and trembling like an aspen.  It seemed too much, this sudden storm of applause and enthusiasm for him, the new idol, the coming President; yet who may say that through his exultant, yet trembling heart, that moment shot the presaging pang of distant, yet sure-coming woe?”

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, who was the President of the Convention, in a speech made not long afterward, paid the following just tribute to Garfield’s character and qualifications: 

“Think of the qualifications for the office which that man combines.  Do you want a statesman in the broadest sense?  Do you demand a successful soldier?  Do you want a man of more experience in civil affairs?  No President of the United States since John Quincy Adams has begun to bring to the Presidential office, when he entered, anything like the experience in statesmanship of Gen. Garfield.  As you look over the list, Grant, Jackson, and Taylor have brought to the position great fame as soldiers, but who since John Quincy Adams has had such a civil career to look back upon as Gen. Garfield?  Since 1864 I can not think of one important question debated in Congress or discussed before the great tribunal of the American people in which you can not find the issue stated more clearly and better than by any one else in the speeches in the House of Representatives or on the hustings of Gen. Garfield—­firm and resolute, constant in his adherence to what he thinks is right, regardless of popular delusions or the fear that he will become less popular, or be disappointed in his ambitions.