CLEVELAND -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas spoke Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, but he did not endorse Donald Trump for the presidency. Instead he encouraged Americans to "vote your conscience" in November.

The night moved quickly past Cruz, however.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence accepted the party's nomination as Trump's running mate, and his speech closed the third day of the convention on a more party-unifying note.

"You have nominated a man for president who never quits," Pence said. "Until now, he's had to do it all by himself against all odds but this week, with this united party, he's got backup.

Pence's speech focused on Trump rather than policy, toasting the businessman with words like "genuine," "independent," "no-nonsense" and "tough."

"I'll grant you, he can be a little rough with politicians on a stage, and I'll bet we see that again. But I've seen this good man up close, his utter lack of pretense, his respect for the people who work for him and his devotion to his family," Pence said to cheers at Quicken Loan Arena in Cleveland. "And if you doubt what I'm saying, remember, as we say back home, 'you can't fake good kids.'"

Trump joined Pence on stage, applauding his new political partner and humorously leaning in to nearly give him a kiss on the cheek.

Before Pence spoke Wednesday night, Cruz took the stage. During the party primaries, Trump's attacks on Cruz got personal. He had made references to the physical appearance of Cruz's wife and said Cruz's father was associated with Lee Harvey Oswald before President John Kennedy was killed.

In his speech Wednesday night, Cruz said: "Vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution." While he backed some of Trump's policy proposals, including building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, he mentioned the GOP nominee by name only once.

Interrupted by chants of "Trump, Trump, Trump," Cruz paused and said with a smile, "I appreciate the enthusiasm of the New York delegation."

But as Cruz closed his remarks, and the crowd of more than 2,000 delegates waited for him to say something kind about Trump, he demurred.

"And to those listening, please, don't stay home in November," Cruz said. "Stand and speak, and vote your conscience."

The delegates responded with angry boos. Cruz backer and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli escorted his wife, Heidi Cruz, off the convention floor as she was heckled by Trump delegates.

"He's a chicken," said Eugene Delgaudio, a delegate from Sterling, Va. "He needed to toughen up like every other Republican loser of any nomination battle in the last 100 years since Abraham Lincoln and just suck it up, be a man and back the nominee that he was beaten by, fair and square."

The crowd's boos quickly switched to cheers when Trump entered the arena. His daughter Ivanka and other members of the Trump family turned their backs on Cruz to stand and applaud Trump, who sat down in the front row of his VIP box to watch his son Eric deliver the next speech.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called Cruz's decision "totally selfish." Christie, who like Cruz was bested by the real estate mogul in the GOP primaries, said the voters made clear that Trump is their choice.

"If we're not going to do that, why do we have elections? Because Ted Cruz has decided that he knows better than all of the people who voted in the elections?" he said.

But supporters of the Texas senator said his refusal to back the billionaire showed "true leadership."

"I support it 100 percent," said Dalton Glasscock, a Cruz delegate from Wichita, Kan. "If someone feels they can vote for Trump, great. If they can't, vote for someone they can believe in. He left the door open to more."

Taking the stage shortly after Cruz, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to explain away the Texas senator's lack of support for the nominee.

"Ted Cruz said you can vote your conscience for anyone who will uphold the Constitution," he said. "In this election there is only one candidate who will uphold the Constitution."

The evening was the most prominent national event for Cruz since he dropped out of the party primary race in May, effectively handing the presidential nomination to Trump. His invitation to speak was only recently set in stone after careful negotiations with Trump and his top advisers.

Trump criticized Cruz after the speech, saying Cruz "didn't honor" the pledge that Republican primary candidates had made to support whomever became the eventual GOP nominee. Trump said he saw a copy of Cruz's speech two hours earlier "but let him speak anyway."

Cruz aides said the senator informed Trump on Monday that he wouldn't endorse him.

Cruz was harshly critical of Trump in the waning weeks of their primaries battle. He called the businessman a "pathological liar" and "utterly amoral." He arrived in Cleveland with an eye on his own political future, holding a rally with hundreds of supporters who greeted him with chants of "2020" -- suggesting that Cruz's backers have no interest in seeing Trump become a two-term president.

Pence, however, was the night's most anticipated speaker for Trump's cause. Pence and his family, along with Trump's adult children, greeted the businessman as his helicopter landed beside Cleveland's picturesque lakefront.

"What begins in Cleveland will end in the White House, I'm convinced," Pence declared as they greeted a small group of supporters.

Other speakers

Speaking Wednesday was another of Trump's former primary rivals: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida made an appearance via a pre-recorded video message.

Walker suggested that he was driven as much by a desire to keep Clinton out of the White House as by any admiration for his party's nominee.

"Let me be clear: A vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary Clinton," Walker said.

Rubio had similar words in his video.

"After a long and spirited primary, the time for fighting each other is over. It's time to come together and fight for a new direction for America. It's time to win in November," he said.

On the convention floor, Wednesday's night's theme was "Make America First Again." After two nights of low-energy speeches, the crowd in the packed arena was noticeably more energetic Wednesday night. People danced in the aisles and waved signs reading, "America Deserves Better Than Hillary."

Florida Gov. Rick Scott kicked off the night's speeches, advancing an argument that Democrats have failed the country across a range of issues.

"Today, America is in terrible, world-record-high debt," he said. "Our economy is not growing. Our jobs are going overseas. We have allowed our military to decay, and we project weakness on the international stage. Washington grows while the rest of America struggles. The Democrats have not led us to a crossroads, they have led us to a cliff."

Speakers continued previous nights' attempts to draw contrasts between Trump and Clinton on national security, the economy and the future of the Supreme Court, among other things.

Radio host Laura Ingraham decried a lack of "respect" -- for the police, for the government and veterans, among others, and called on GOP holdouts to fall in line behind the nominee.

"Hillary Clinton thinks America is just another nation in a global order. Donald Trump -- he understands that American greatness, it comes from her people," she said.

Speakers have painted an apocalyptic vision of the U.S. if the former secretary of state wins, and have aggressively challenged her character.

"When you hear about Hillary's dishonesty, or the emails, or taking millions from the Saudis and other Middle Eastern dictatorships, remember: This is not about politics. The cost of Hillary's dishonesty could be the loss of America as we know it," Gingrich said.

Clinton's campaign, seeking to take advantage of the GOP divisions, echoed Cruz on Twitter, writing, "Vote your conscience" and linking to her website.

Trump formally became the presidential nominee Tuesday night. Some delegates at state gatherings around Cleveland were still struggling Wednesday to come to terms with their unorthodox new standard-bearer.

Iowa delegate Cecil Stinemetz called Trump "the worst nominee that we have put forward for the Republican Party in the history of the Republican Party" and said he didn't plan to return to the convention floor the rest of the week.

For at least some delegates, the party leaders' negativity crossed a line.

"Certainly races can be won based on focusing on the opponent," said U.S. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. "But I think we're at a place in our country's evolution where it's particularly important now, with all that's happened and the concerns that people have, for a positive vision to be laid out."

Flag-burning protest

Outside the convention hall, tensions briefly escalated Wednesday afternoon when demonstrators burned an American flag outside an entrance point for delegates. Police arrested 17 people after a melee broke out during the flag-burning.

It was the most turbulent protest since the convention started. The chaos briefly prevented delegates and members of the media from getting into Quicken Loans Arena for the evening's proceedings.

Among those arrested was Gregory "Joey" Johnson, whose torching of the flag at a GOP convention three decades ago led to the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said flag-burning is speech protected by the First Amendment.

Two officers were assaulted and suffered minor injuries, police said. One officer was seen bleeding from his elbow. Two of those arrested were charged with felonious assault on a police officer, the rest with failure to disperse.

Police Chief Calvin Williams said a protester whose pants caught fire got defensive when a police officer tried to put out the blaze. The man assaulted the officer, and "things escalated from there," Williams said.

The melee raised to 22 the number of people arrested during the convention, far fewer than some law enforcement authorities had feared.

"Right now, I think so far, so good," Williams said Wednesday night. "We're still out there, we're still vigilant, to make sure we finish this day and the last day tomorrow on a positive note."

The protest took place just outside an entrance to the arena and near a row of popular restaurants where cable news networks had set up for the week.

Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party said the group organized the burning of the American flag as a "political statement about the crimes of the American empire. There's nothing great about America."

Moments after the flag was set on fire, officers charged in to put it out with an extinguishing spray that some in the crowd thought was pepper spray because of similarities in the design of the canisters and the eye irritation caused by the fire-suppression substance.

"You're on fire! You're on fire, stupid!" a Cleveland officer shouted at a protester while firing the extinguishing spray.

Pushing and shoving broke out, and police quickly had several people on the ground in handcuffs. Some in the crowd jeered the officers, yelling, "Blue lives murder!"

About 10 more minutes passed before the crowd was under control.

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace, Jill Colvin, Jonathan Lemire, Kathleen Hennessey, Steve Peoples, Barbara Rodriguez, John Hanna, Meg Kinnard, Michael R. Sisak, Michael Hill, Mark Gillispie and Thomas Beaumont of The Associated Press; and by Sean Sullivan, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Marc Fisher, Jenna Johnson, Louisa Loveluck, Wesley Lowery and Jose A. DelReal of The Washington Post.

A Section on 07/21/2016