My summer was given up partly to recreation mingled with duties of various sorts, including an address in honor of President Woolsey at the Alumni dinner at Yale and another at the laying of the corner stone of Syracuse University. Noteworthy at this period was a dinner with Longfellow at Cambridge, and I recall vividly his showing me various places in the Craigie house connected with interesting passages in the life of Washington when he occupied it. Early in the autumn, while thus engrossed in everything but political matters, I received a letter from my friend Mr. A. B. Cornell, a most energetic and efficient man in State and national politics, a devoted supporter of General Grant and Senator Conkling, and afterward governor of the State of New York, asking me if I would go to the approaching State convention and accept its presidency. I wrote him in return expressing my reluctance, dwelling upon the duties pressing upon me in connection with the university, and asking to be excused. In return came a very earnest letter insisting on the importance of the convention in keeping the Republican party together, and in preventing its being split into factions before the approaching presidential election. I had, on all occasions, and especially at various social gatherings at which political leaders were present, in New York and elsewhere, urged the importance of throwing aside all factious spirit and harmonizing the party in view of the coming election, and to this Mr. Cornell referred very earnestly. As a consequence I wrote him that if the delegates from New York opposed to General Grant could be admitted to the convention on equal terms with those who favored him, and if he, Mr. Cornell, and the other managers of the Grant wing of the party would agree that the anti-Grant forces should receive full and fair representation on the various committees, I would accept the presidency of the convention in the interest of peace between the factions, and would do my best to harmonize the differing interests in the party, but that otherwise I would not consent to be a member of the convention. In his answer Mr. Cornell fully agreed to this, and I have every reason to believe, indeed to know, that his agreement was kept. The day of the convention having arrived (September 27, 1871), Mr. Cornell, as chairman of the Republican State committee, called the assemblage to order, and after a somewhat angry clash with the opponents of the administration, nominated me to the chairmanship of the convention.