While there was no name before the convention commanding universal popular assent, as had been the case at the second nomination of Lincoln and the two nominations of Grant, still there was one which, in so far as its possessor was known, inspired strong, if not enthusiastic, confidence. It was not pronounced in the first balloting so loudly as that of the brilliant Blaine, or the stolid Morton, or the arrogant Conkling, but, as the voting continued, more and more of the ballots contained it, and at last on the seventh round, it received a majority of the votes. The choice was a wise one. Mr. Hayes had been a good soldier, a valuable member of the National legislature, and an excellent Governor of his native "State," in which office he was serving for a third term at the time of his nomination for the Presidency. He was a man of sound sense, unimpeachable character, generous feeling, pleasing manners, and resolute will. There was a tendency at first on the part of the friends of some of the disappointed aspirants to belittle his qualities, and to represent him as a weak man, and his conciliatory methods were often mistaken for weakness by those who were not his rivals or his enemies, or the friends of his rivals or his enemies; but as history sets his character and his work in their proper perspective they both stand out more and more strongly, and make his Administration appear to be one of the most important in American annals. Especially does it honor him for his earnest, faithful and successful battle for sound money and the maintenance of the public faith, and for his determination to put an end to the support by Federal {282} bayonets of the "carpet-bag," negro "State" governments of the South. [Sidenote: The National Democratic Convention of 1876.] [Sidenote: The platform.] A fortnight after the nomination by the Republican convention of Rutherford B. Hayes for President and William A. Wheeler for Vice-President, the Democratic leaders met at St. Louis for the purpose of issuing the campaign creed of their party and choosing its candidate for the chief magistracy of the Nation. The platform put forward by them was remarkable for its length, its language of fierce vituperation, and its loud calls for reform. Its specific propositions were the reduction of the duties on foreign imports to a revenue basis, and the repeal of the Resumption Act of 1875, on the strange ground that it obstructed the return to specie payments. [Sidenote: The nominees.]