Pine to Potomac: life of James G. Blaine (2024)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73345 ***

Copyright, 1884.
By James H. Earle.

To All,
Young and Old,
THE WHOLE WORLD OVER,
WHO LOVE THE NAME
America,
IS THIS LIFE OF
JAMES G. BLAINE,
The Typical American,
DEDICATED,
By the Author.

Mountains are the homes of giants,—giants inbrawn and giants in brain. The giants of brawn maybe the more numerous, and in the sense of muscleand fisticuffs, more powerful; but not in the senseof manhood and power that achieves results that arefar-reaching and that endure,—results that thrill anation’s heart and command the admiration of theworld.

Whoever makes you proud that you are a man,—thatyou are an American citizen,—makes youfeel that life is not only worth living, but that tolive is joy and glory,—such an one lifts you uptoward those higher regions from which man hasevidently fallen, and gives some glimmer and hintof the old image and likeness in which we werecreated. That man who comes from nearest to thenation’s heart and gets nearest to the world’s heart,brings with him lessons of wisdom, goodness, and lovewhich shall work like leaven with transforming power.

[4]Great not only in brains, but great in heart, also,are the giant men of true greatness, who come downfrom the mountains into the arena of the world’sactivities. They need no introduction. The worldawaits them, recognizes, and hails them. They knowand are known; they love and are beloved. Placeawaits them, and they enter; fitness fits; life is atriumph, and they are happy. Such men, fresh fromnature’s mint, bring consciences with them,—consciencesunseared, into the battle of life.

These are not only the germ of character and thesource of joy, but chief among the elements of thatstupendous strength which makes victory their birthright,and victory is the birthright of every good,true soul that will work to win. Only the false andthe indolent are sure to fail; the true and industriousare ever succeeding.

Especially great in powers of will are the men whocome forth from the nation’s strength and give themselvesback in exalted service to a nation’s life. Thegreat streams that flow into the ocean, went forthof the ocean in mists and clouds of rain. Thegreat men of Rome were the products of Rome. Thegreat men of Germany and France are the productsof those respective countries. And so the great men ofAmerica are the products of America. It took generationsto produce the heroes of the Revolution,but when the hour struck, they came forth, full armed[5]with a purpose that blood could not weaken, clad ina panoply that no host could destroy. Washingtonblazed forth as an orb of greater magnitude in thechair of state, in time of peace, than in the saddlein time of war. As a warrior he cut out the work,as statesman he made it. Statesmanship is more thework of the whole man and of a life-time. Garfield wassplendid upon the field of battle, but while there heshone as a star among suns, while in the halls ofstate he shone as a sun among stars. There was asteady grandeur of purpose, a magnificence of character,a wealth of intellect, a power of thought, aloftiness of courage, of that high, heroic type whichmoral stamina alone can produce, which created agreater demand for him in the councils of the nationthan in the battle-front when warriors were the nation’ssorest need. Others could take his place inTennessee, but not in Washington.

Among the nation’s great productions, born midwaybetween the war of the Revolution and the war ofthe Rebellion; born in times of peace, for times ofdirest carnage and divinest peace again, a very princeof the land; born to lead, and born to rule; springingat once with the bound of youthful blood intothe foremost ranks of the nation’s monarchs of forces,and emperors of kingly powers, is he who leads to-daythe giant forces of the great nation’s conqueringhost, the Hon. James G. Blaine, not of Maine, or[6]of Massachusetts; not of Minnesota, or the GoldenGate, but of America. He is a man of the nation’sheart, a man of the nation’s brain, a man of conscience,and a man of will; large, vivid, and powerfulin his consciousness, wherein he realizes, in mostbrilliant conceptions, both the power and glory ofmen and things. He came forth from the mountainsof the Alleghanies, a giant from the nation’s side.

Never since the nation’s youth was there such demandfor any man. He is emphatically the typicalAmerican, and the yeomanry would have him. Theycaught his spirit, and would not shake off the spellof his genius. They forget not to-day that he wasGarfield’s first choice, and sat at Garfield’s right hand.They remember, as only they who think with theheart can remember, that as his pride and confidant,he was by Garfield’s side in that awful hour of holymartyrdom, thrusting back the terrible assassin withone hand, and with the other catching the fallingchief. Garfield knew him, Garfield loved him, Garfieldsanctioned, honored, trusted, and exalted him. Andthe sentiments of that great heart which beat out itslife-blood for the nation’s glory then, it is firmly believed,are the sentiments of the nation’s heart to-day.

[17-18]

[19]

[20]

“OLD Hickory is coming! He willbe along in his great coach to-morrow,before noon,” rang out the cheeryvoice of Uncle Will Blaine, whoseemed glad all over at the prospect of oncemore seeing the Hero of New Orleans and theman of iron will.

“Well, let him come,” said the Prothonotary.“I would not walk up to the cross-roads to seehim,” and the face of the old Whig grew sternwith determination.

“You will let me take Jimmy, will you not,to see the old General?”

“O, yes, you can take him,” the politic useof General instead of President having relaxed,somewhat, the stern features of the sturdyScottish face.

[22]“He’s coming! He’s coming! Hurrah! Hurrah!Here he comes,” shouted voice after voiceof the great crowd assembled on the morrow,from valley and mountain, Uncle Will leadingoff at last, with the regular old-fashioned continental“Hip, Hip, Hurrah,” with three-times-three.

Martial music, of the old revolutionary sort,rang out, with fife and drum, as President Jackson,who had just been succeeded by MartinVan Buren, after serving from 1829 to 1837,stepped from his carriage, and after a heartygreeting, spoke a few incisive words, as only theold hero could.

A boy seven years old was held above thecrowd, just before him, by the strong arms ofUncle Will. The General saw the large, wonderingeyes, and the eager face, patted himon the head, saying, “I am glad to see you,my noble lad.”

The boy was James G. Blaine.

The impression of that moment remains tothis hour. Little did General Jackson think hewas looking into the face of a future candidatefor the presidency.

The National Road over which the congressmenand presidents, and the great tide of travelfrom the west and south, passed to and fromWashington, was near his father’s door.

[23]This National highway, built by the governmentbefore the days of railroads and steam-boats,was a strong band of union between remotesections of the country. It was a highwayof commerce as well as of travel, andformed one of the chief features in the country,so rapidly filling up after the fearful storms ofwar were over and the settled years of peacehad come.

It is a remarkable fact, that inspired penmenhave sketched the infancy of most of the greatmen whose lives they have portrayed. This isbeautifully true of Moses, the great emancipatorand leader, a law-giver of the ancient Hebrewpeople. How they glorify the childhood of thisgreat man, and make us love him at the start!So, also, are the infancy and childhood of Samuel,great among the prophets of Israel, disclosed.The voice of his heroic mother is heard asshe gives him to the Lord. The infancy ofJohn, the mighty man at the Jordan, and ofJesus, are most impressively revealed. No lovelierpictures hang on the walls of memory; nosweeter sunshine fills the home than the littleones with their joy and prattle, and with thesublime possibilities to be unfolded as they fillup the ranks in humanity’s march, or take thelead of the myriad host.

As we go back to study the beginnings of a[24]world, so may we well look back to behold thedawning of that life, great in the nation’s loveand purpose to-day.

We shall find there a child of nature, bornin no mansion or city, but on “Indian farm,”upon the Washington side of the MonongahelaRiver, opposite the village of Brownsville, andabout sixty miles below Pittsburgh, in the oldQuaker State of Pennsylvania.

It was at the foot-hills of the Alleghanies, aregion wild, romantic, and grand, well fitted tophotograph omnipotence upon the fresh youngmind, and impress it with the greatness of theworld. It was a section of country whose earlyhistory is marked with all that is thrilling inthe details of Indian warfare, which constitutedthe chief staple of childhood stories.

Daniel Boone and the Wetzells had been there.The startled air had echoed with the crack oftheir rifles; the artillery of the nation had resoundedthrough these mountains; the blackclouds of war had blown across the skies, and thesmoke of battle had drifted down those valleys.

All that is terrible in nature had its birth andhome in that section of our country, which ismost like the great ocean petrified in its angriestmood and mightiest upheavals. The bears andwolves, in their numbers, ferocity, and might commandedin early days the respect even of savages,[25]while elk and deer, antelope and fowl, andfish in endless variety, birds and flowers of everyhue, and foliage of countless species, won the admirationof these rude children of nature.

Here in this Scotland of America, born of asturdy ancestry whose muscle and brain, courageand mighty wills, had made them masters ofmountain and glen,—here in the heart of the continent,—JamesG. Blaine was born. Eternal vigilancehad not only been the price of liberty inthat bold mountain home for generations, but theprice of life itself.

It was in a large stone house, built by hisgreat-grandfather Gillespie, that James GillespieBlaine was born, January 31, 1830, one of eightstrong, robust, and hearty children, five of whomsurvive. It was midway between the war of 1812and the Mexican war of 1848, and in a countrysettled nearly fifty years before by soldiers of theRevolution. Few are born in circ*mstances ofbetter promise for the full unfolding of the facultiesof body and mind than was this child of fourand fifty years ago, cradled in the old stone houseon the ancestral farm. The house itself tellsof the Old World; and those mountains whoseheights are in the blue, tell of Scottish and Irishclans that never lose the old fire and the old love,and that marched from the conquest of the Oldto the conquering of the New World.

[26]The father, Ephraim Lyon Blaine, was of Scottishorigin, and Presbyterian of truest blood, withsign and seal and signet stamp of the old ScotchCovenanters upon life and character. His ancestorscame to this country in 1720,—one hundredand ten years before the birth of James.

His mother, Maria Gillespie, was of an Irish-Catholicfamily from Donegal in Ireland. Theybelonged to the Clan Campbell, Scotch-Irish Catholics,and descended from the Argyles of Scotland.They came to America in 1764, and were Catholicsthrough and through. They were large land-ownersin America, and resided wholly in oldcolonial Pennsylvania.

The great-grandfather of Ephraim Lyon Blaine,father of James G., was born in 1741, and diedat Carlisle, Penn., in March, 1804. He was acolonel in the Revolutionary war from its commencement,and the last four years of the warwas the Commissary General. He was with Washingtonamid the most trying scenes, and enjoyedhis entire confidence. During the dark winter atValley Forge, he was by the side of the Commander-in-Chief,and it is a matter of history thatthe army was saved from starvation by his vigilantand tireless activity. It is not difficult to seehow stupendous was the task of subsisting brokenand shattered forces in the dead of an awfulwinter, upon an exhausted country. It required[27]skill and courage, tact and force of personalpower, not surpassed even in the daring march ofNapoleon across the Alps. But he did it, brave,determined spirit that he was. Others might falter,but not he; others might break down fromsheer exhaustion or dismay, but not GeneralBlaine, so long as the fires of the unbroken spiritof the old Covenanters heated the furnace of hisheart, and their high resolve for liberty was enthronedin his affections.

From such parent stock what shall the bloomand blossom be? What the fruitage and harvestingof other years from the seed-sowing of suchsplendid living? Not what the height of stature,but what the stature of soul,—not what thebreadth of back, nor bigness of brawn, but whatthe breadth of mind and bigness of brain?

Let the history of our day and generation makereply.

Eight years before the old patriot Generaldied, at Carlisle, his grandson, Ephraim LyonBlaine, the father of James, was born in thesame quaint old Scottish town. At DickinsonCollege he received his education, and settled asa lawyer in Washington County, Penn., wherefor years he lived an honored and useful life asProthonotary of the Courts; and here, amid thelull in the storm of battle-years, the boy, JamesG. Blaine, was born.

[28]His cradle-songs were the old songs of theNew Republic. It is pleasant to think of sucha personage coming to consciousness, clear andstrong, among such hallowed scenes of a landredeemed, a nation born, a people free. Allabout our youthful hero were the scarred facesand shattered forms of those who had come backfrom the fields of strife.

The stories of Monmouth and Brandywine, ofConcord and Lexington, of New Orleans andYorktown, were lived over and dreamedabout. Living epistles, walking histories, wereall about him. Instead of reading about them,they read to him, poured out the dearly-boughttreasures of a life, painted scenes that were foreverimpressed upon their minds; with allthe shades of life and death, unrolled the panoramaof the great campaigns, through thoselong, dread battle-years. What education this, inhome and street, in shop and store, on farmand everywhere, for patriot youth! It gave alove and zest for historic reading, which must betraced when we enter more largely upon hisliterary and educational career.

At five years of age the systematic work ofan education began by sending James toa common country school near by. The oldUnited States spelling-book was the chief textbook.Webster’s spelling-book was not then in[29]vogue. Nothing remarkable transpired, except tonote the proficiency and steady progress he madein mastering the language he has learned sowell to use.

The intensity of his life was that within, ratherthan the outer life. He was observing, drinkingin with eyes and ears. Robinson Crusoewas his first book, as it has been with manyanother boy, and from this beginning he becamea most omnivorous reader.

His first two teachers were ladies, and arestill living. The first, a Quakeress, Miss MaryAnn Graves, now Mrs. Johnson, living near Canton,Ohio, eighty-four years of age; the otherwas Mrs. Matilda Dorsey, still living at Brownsville,just across the Monongahela River fromWashington County, where Mr. Blaine was born.While speaking in Ohio, five years ago, duringGovernor Foster’s campaign, his old teacher,Mrs. Johnson, came forward at the close of hisspeech to congratulate her old scholar. Howlittle these two women dreamed of the splendidfuture of the young mind they helped start upthe hill of knowledge; how little they thoughtof the tremendous power with which he wouldone day use the words, great and small, hespelled out of that old book; the great occasionsupon which he would marshal them, as ageneral marshals his men for effective warfare;[30]of the great speeches, orations, debates, papers,pamphlets, and books into which he would puta power of thought that would move nations.

It was merely a country school-house, and theold frame-building has been torn down, and a newand more modern brick house substituted. It wasnot simply to spell words, but also to read andwrite, and, indeed, gain the rudiments of a thoroughEnglish education.

As a learner, he exhibited the same quick,energetic traits of mind he has since shown inthe use of the knowledge gained.

It was upon the hardest kind of high, roughseats his first lessons were learned, with none ofthe splendid appliances of the graded school ofto-day. Then was the time of the rod andfool’s cap, which many remember so distinctly.Boys that fought were compelled to “cut jackets,”as it was called. The stoutest boy inschool was sent with an old-fashioned jack-knifeto cut three long switches, stiff, and strong, andlithe. The offending boys were called upon thefloor before the whole school, and each onegiven a rod, while the teacher reserved thethird. They were commanded to go at it, andat it they went, to the uproarious delight of thewhole school. Nothing could be more ludicrous,as stroke after stroke thicker and faster fell,on shoulders, back, and legs, while the blood flew[31]through their veins hot and tingling. The contestended only when the switches gave out.When one was broken and cast away, the teacherstepped up and laid his switch on the back ofthe boy whose switch was whole, while the otherfellow had to stand and take it from the boywhose switch was yet sound. So they kept atit, stroke after stroke.

The demoralizing effect for the moment had agreat moralizing power afterward. No boy everwanted to take the place of one of these boys.

Master James was seldom punished at school,except to have his knuckles rapped with the ruler,or ears boxed for some slight offence; buthe never failed to take full notes of the fracas,when other boys received their just deserts. Hisobservations have always been very minute, andhis remembrances distinct. Among his earliestrecollections is one in 1834, when he was but fouryears of age, the building of a bridge across theMonongahela River to Brownsville, by the companythat constructed the National Road. HisUncle Will took him by the hand and led himout upon the big timbers, between which hecould look down and see the waters below. Thebuilding of this bridge was a great event to thepeople, and one of special interest in the Gillespiefamily, as his grandfather owned the ferry,which of course the bridge superseded, and which[32]had been a source of revenue to the extent offive thousand dollars a year to him. But in themarch of progress ferries give way to bridges, asboyhood does to manhood, and by a sort of muteprophecy that bridge made and proclaimed theway to Washington more easy. It was to himthe bridge over that dark river of oblivion fromthe unknown of childhood to the consciousnessof youth and manhood. This same uncle, WilliamL. Gillespie, who held him by the hand while onthe bridge, was often with his favorite nephew,and exerted a strong influence for good upon him.He was a fine scholar, a splendid gentleman, anda man of infinite jest. The impressions receivedfrom one so accomplished, and yet so genial, loving,and tender, during these walks and talks,of almost constant and daily intercourse, are seenand felt to-day in the character of the nephewof whom we write.

The first outbreak in the nature of young James,and which shows latent barbarism so common tohuman nature, was a little escapade which happenedwhen about five years old. A Welshman,by the name of Stephen Westley, was digging awell in the neighborhood; in some way he hadinjured the boy and greatly enraged him. Theman at the top of the well had gone away,and Master James, who never failed to see anopportunity, or to estimate it at its proper[33]value and improve it promptly, stepped upon thescene.

He found his man just where he wanted him,and without reflection as to consequences, beganimmediately to throw clods and stones upon him,which of course was no source of amusem*nt tothe man below. He screamed lustily, and onbeing rescued went to the house and complainedof the young offender, saying,—

“He has too much spurt” (spirit).

It cost James a good thrashing, but the Welshmanis not the only one who has had just causeto feel that “he had too much spirit.” Indeed itis the same great, determined spirit, trained, tempered,and toned by the stern conflict of life,which is the law of fullest development, andbrought under complete control, that has givenMr. Blaine his national prominence, and filled theAmerican mind with the proud dream of his leadership.

His grandfather Gillespie was the great man ofthat region. His Indian Hill farm, with its severallarge houses and barns, was a prominentfeature of the country. He was a man of largewealth for his time; built mills and engaged invarious enterprises, damming the river for millingpurposes, which was a herculean task. In 1811,in company with Capt. Henry Shreve, later ofShreveport, he sent the first steamer from Pittsburgh.[34]It was not until the year following thatFulton and Livingston began building steamers inthat city.

This grandfather, Neal Gillespie, was five yearsold when the war of the Revolution began, and asa boy received the full impression of those scenesfrom the very midst of the fray in his Pennsylvaniahome. It doubtless helped to produce andawaken in him that great energy of character,and force of personality which enabled him toamass a fortune in that western wild, and inevery way help forward the country’s development.

It was the good fortune of James to spend thefirst nine years of his life in the closest relationsof grandson to grandsire, with this remarkableman; and doubtless much of that magnetism andrich personality for which Mr. Blaine is so justlynoted, may be traced to this strong-natured andpowerful ancestor upon the side of his mother,as well as to Gen. Ephraim Blaine, on the sideof his father. He inherits the combined traits ofcharacter which gave them prominence and successin life.

The little country school and its slow, monotonousprocesses, were not rapid enough for theswift, eager mind of the boy. He had learnedto read, and a new world opened to him. Hecaught its charm and inspiration. He had read[35]Scott’s Life of Napoleon before he was eightyears old,—a little fellow of seven, on a farmin an almost wilderness, devouring with hiseager mind such a work! Half of our publicmen have never even heard of it yet. Butwhat is perfectly amazing, before he was nineyears old he had gone over all of Plutarch’sLives, reciting the histories to his grandfatherGillespie, who died when he was nine years ofa*ge.

He acquired all that Isocrates and Alcibiadestell of, before he was ten years old, and itis a conviction with Mr. Blaine that the commonideas of the average boy’s ability need tobe greatly enlarged. Certain it was, that heinherited a hardy mental and physical constitution.Life on that great farm kept him engagedand associated constantly with men who bothenjoyed and appreciated learning, and who lovedhim and saw in him at least a remarkablybright boy.

Especially did his father, who was a college-graduateand member of the bar, see that hewas steadily and persistently drilled, and to hisfather Mr. Blaine freely gives the credit solargely and justly due. His reading was notthe careless, hap-hazard doing of a big-brainedboy, who read from curiosity simply to whileaway time, but there was method in it,—a quieting[36]hand was on him,—it was all done underintelligent, wise, and loving direction.

There was none of the hard, rough, and bitterexperiences in his boyhood days or early manhood,to which so many of our nation’s greatmen were subjected. He had none of the longand desperate struggle with poverty and adversitywhich hung on Mr. Garfield’s early years.He knew nothing by experience of the privationsand hardships through which Mr. Lincolncame to the high honors of the nation and theworld; but sprang from the second generationafter the Revolutionary War, and from a longline of ancestors who had been large land-ownersand gentlemen in the sense of wealth and education,as well as in that finely cultivated sense,of which Mr. Blaine is himself so excellent anexponent.

James worked on the farm, carried water tothe men, and carried the sheaves of graintogether for the shockers, and did just as anyschool-boy on a farm would do;—hunt the eggs,frolic with the calves, feed the pigs, drive upthe cows, run on errands, pet the lambs, bringin wood, and split the kindlings. He loved thesports in which boys still delight; went fishing,played ball, rowed his boat on the river, andwould laugh, and jump, and tumble, and runequal to any boy. All the boys about him were[37]sons or grandsons of old Revolutionary soldiers.They had a lesson which this day does not enjoy,to talk over and keep full of the old theme. Thenation was then young, and new, and fresh.The Fourth of July was celebrated as it isnot now; when old soldiers passed away, theirdeeds and worth were all talked over. Theresult was an intense Americanism, for which hehas since become noted, and which has madehim an American through and through, of themost pronounced loyalty and patriotic type, asto deem a stain upon his country’s honor anindividual disgrace.

Empty sleeves and nothing to fill them, limbsgone and no substitute for them, were as commonthen comparatively as they are now, onlynow there is an artificial substitute.

James enjoyed the benefits and blessings of alarge family home. It was the practice of hisfather to read aloud to his family, and thus theevening-hours were utilized in the early educationof his children. Home training, so often neglectednow, was in vogue then, and the legal, scholarlymind of Mr. Blaine could well choose in his fatherlylove and pride, just what was best suited tothe young minds about him, while he was amplycompetent to give intelligent and suitable answersto the numerous questions called forth by the narrationin hand. That great National Road to the[38]cities of the Union, and its larger towns, was ahighway of intelligence. Not only did it bring themail and all the news, but many a book, magazine,or other periodical they were pleased toorder.

Beside, the direct communication by steamerwith Pittsburgh and points above, which had beenthe case eighteen years before the birth of James,supplied abundant means for travel and correspondencewith other quarters. Living where thesteamers passed the highway, they were morehighly favored with facilities of commerce and thenews than perhaps any other portion of the land.They could get all there was going. There wasno telegraph, and none of the swifter means oftravel so common now; canal-boats were a luxurythen. But all was life and energy. The enthusiasmof manhood was on the nation. Then, indeed,it was in manhood’s glory. It had grown tobe its own ruler and governor; was truly of age,and did its own voting. British interference hadlearned its lesson of modest withdrawal, and forthe same period of eighteen years no unnaturalizedEnglishman had been found on American soil witha uniform on and a gun in his hand.

There was a fine piano in the home of Mr.Blaine, and the good wife and mother was anexcellent player, and frequently delighted thehousehold with music. Songs abounded; a harpsichord[39]was in the home, and it added its quaintmusic to the melody of the circle.

But James could not leave books alone, especiallyhistory. The history of the country was read byhim over and over again. The books he had read,and that had been carefully read to him by thetime he was ten years of age, would surpass innumber, size, and literary value, the libraries ofmany a professional man, outside his purely professionalworks, and not only had the principalones been read, but studied and recited. Seldomis any boy so highly favored with the interestedpersonal efforts of such a trio of educators aswere the father, uncle, and grandfather of Mr.Blaine.

It is frequently said by college-graduates, thatthey learn more outside of the recitation-room, fromassociation with teachers and students from librariesand in the societies, than in the room forinstruction. It was in associating with these relatives,cultured and gentlemanly, able and instructive,that he was encouraged and inspired to histask of learning. James mastered the spelling-book;in fact, he was the best speller in theschool, and was called out far and near to spelling-matches,and every time “that boy of Mr.Blaine’s” would stand alone and at the head,when all the neighborhood of schools was“spelled down.”

[40]One night the word was “Enfeoff.” It cametoward the last, and was one of the test words.The sides were badly thinned as “independency,chamois, circumnavigation,” and a host of otherdifficult words had been given out. But the hourwas growing late; some of the young fellowsbegan to think of going home with the girls, ofa big sleigh-ride down the mountain and throughthe valleys, and one big, merry load belongedover the river at Brownsville, and they began tobe a little restless. But still there was goodinterest as this favorite triumphed, and that onewent down. Finally the word was given, allmissed it and sat down but James. Every eyewas on him as the president of the eveningsaid “Next,” and our little master of the situationspelt “En-feoff.”

No effort was made to restrain the cheers.The triumph was complete.

AT the death of his grandfather Gillespie,who was worth about one hundredthousand dollars,—a large sum forthat early time,—Mrs. Blaine inherited,among other things, one-third of the greatIndian Hill Farm, comprising about five hundredacres, with great houses, orchards, and barns,—asmall village of itself.

This, with his father’s office in the courts,and other property, placed the family in goodcirc*mstances, and it was decided to give Jamesa thorough education. He was now nine yearsold, with a mind as fully trained and richlystored as could be found for one of his years.He was a ready talker, and loved discussion,and so frequently showed what there was in himby the lively debates and conversations into whichhe was drawn.

Thus his ability to express himself tersely andto the point, was early developed. He came tobe, almost unconsciously, growing up as he did[42]among them, the admiration and delight of thelarge circle of friends and loved ones, whose interestcentered on and about the farm, as wellas among neighbors and acquaintances.

Bullion’s Latin Grammar was called into requisition,and mastered so well that he can conjugateLatin verbs as readily now as can his sonswho are recent graduates, the one of Yale, andthe other of Harvard.

The thoroughness with which he did his workis a delightful feature of his career. One is notcompelled to feel that here is sham, and thereis shoddy; that this is sheer pretense, and thatis bold assumption, or a threadbare piece offlimsy patch-work.

One word expresses the history of the man,and that one word is mastery. It fits the man.Mastery of self; mastery of books; mastery ofmen; mastery of subjects and of the situation;mastery of principles and details. He goes tothe top, every time and everywhere, sooner orlater. And it is largely because he has been tothe bottom first, and mastered the rudiments,one and all, and then risen to the heights, notby a single bound, but “climbing the ladder,round by round.”

The amazing power of dispatch in the man,as well as thoroughness, are only the larger developmentof his youthful habit and character.

[43]It was not so much an infinite curiosity asan infinite love of knowledge that made hisyoung mind drink so deeply. His was a thirstysoul, and only by drinking deeply and longcould the demand be met.

When ten years old, the great campaign ofGeneral Harrison came on. He was ready forit, and soon filled up with the subject. His impulsivenesswas powerful and intelligent, vastlybeyond his years.

Few men were fresher or fuller of the history ofthe colonies and states than this boy. He was,in fact, a little library on foot, filled with incidents,names, and dates, familiar with the exploitsof a thousand men and a score of battles,posted as to the great enterprises and measuresof the day, by reason of his distinguished relationsand his abundant facilities and sources ofinformation. Perhaps, too, no campaign was evermore intense and popular, or entered more intothe heart and home-life of young and old, thanthat of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” “Log Cabinand Free Cider.” The great gatherings, barbecues,and speeches, and multiplied discussionsand talk everywhere in house and street, inoffice and shop, would fire any heart that couldignite, or rouse anyone not lost in lethargy.James was not troubled that way, but wasalways on hand; he would sit in the chimney-corner,[44]or out on the great porch, while theold-line Whigs gathered to read, and hear, anddigest aloud the news.

The political world had dawned upon him.He was in it for sure, and in earnest. His historicalmind was gathering history ripe fromthe boughs. It was luscious to his taste. Hewas somewhere in every procession that wendedits way with music and banners and mottoesinnumerable to the place of speaking, and absorbedthe whole thing.

Few could have voted more intelligently thanhe when election day came, for few had takena livelier interest in the whole campaign, ortaken the matter in more completely.

In three years he was admitted to college, sothis was no spurt of mental power, but a steadygrowth, and but marked an era of intellectualunfolding.

It was a genuine and profitable source of mostpractical education, for all through the great andexciting campaign he did nothing else butattend the monster demonstrations. Dr. WilliamElder and Joseph Lawrence, the father ofHon. George B. Lawrence, now in Congress,were particularly powerful in impressions uponhim.

Among the prominent speakers going through,who stopped to address meetings, was Wm. C.[45]Rivers, of Virginia, who is particularly rememberedby Mr. Blaine.

Hon. Thomas M. T. McKenna, father of thepresent Judge McKenna, was a distinguished personagein that portion of the state, and took anactive and influential part in the contest,—a contestfull of vim, as it was the first Whig victoryon a national scale, but as full of good nature.Jackson’s severe methods and measures, throttlingthe Nullifiers, sweeping out of existence thegreat United States Bank at Philadelphia, withits $150,000,000 of capital, and sundry other measures,had filled the people with consternation, anda great change was imperatively demanded.

Newspapers were numerous in the home of Mr.Blaine, and never escaped the vigilant eye of theyoung and growing journalist and statesman. TheWashington Reporter made a large impression uponhim, as did also the old Pittsburgh Gazette, asemi-weekly paper, and the Tri-weekly NationalIntelligencer (Gales and Seaton, editors) was ofthe strongest and most vigorous character; also,the United States Gazette (semi-weekly), publishedat Philadelphia, and edited by Joseph R. Chandler,of that city, and later on Joseph C. Neal’sSaturday Gazette. Surely the incoming of thesenine or ten papers into the home every week, countingthe semi- and tri-weekly issues, would furnishmental pabulum of the political sort in sufficient[46]quantity to satisfy the longing of any youngmind. No wonder his growth was strong andhardy. We have heard of an American boy often or twelve, who followed the Tichborne Claimcase at its original trial through the Englishcourts, but he was a bright high-school boy,who had every advantage of the best gradedschools, and improved them steadily, and yet itwas greatly to his credit. Graded schools wereunknown in 1840, yet James, who had finishedreciting Plutarch’s Lives the year before to hisGrandfather Gillespie, watched eagerly for theheavily loaded sheets as they came by post orsteam-boat, and posted himself on their contents.Besides these numerous papers, two magazineswere taken and steadily read by the boy. Theywere both published in Philadelphia,—Graham’sMagazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book. The onewas dinner, and the other dessert, to the everhungry mind.

The magazines will be remembered as amongthe very best the country afforded at that time.But things that do not grow with the country’sgrowth are soon outgrown in the day of steamand lightning.

The boy who read those periodicals then hasnot been outgrown, but he has outgrown muchthat then caused him to grow. They constitutedthe chief part of polite literature, as it was[47]called, of that form, and helped in the culturingprocess which has resulted in harvests soabundant.

Can we imagine the deep joy and satisfactionof that mere boy of ten years at the electionof General Harrison, for whom he had cheereda hundred times? And when he came through onhis way to Washington, to be inaugurated president,he stayed over night at Brownsville, justacross the bridge over the river, and James waspresented to him.

No camera obscura ever photographed a faceso distinctly, and no curious eyes ever took inthe details of the scene more perfectly.

In addition to the two lady teachers whobore a part in the early education of JamesBlaine, there are four men who held a conspicuousplace as instructors in the neighboringcountry school he attended, and who are rememberedwith gratitude to-day. These are AlbertG. Booth, Joshua V. Gibbons, Solomon Phillips,and Campbell Beall. Mr. Booth is still living, andhas doubtless rejoiced many times that he did hisfoundation work so well.

Mr. Booth was one of those patient, careful,devoted workers who do good, honest work.

Joshua V. Gibbons bore a striking likeness toAbraham Lincoln. When an old man, he visitedMr. Blaine in Congress, at the time he was[48]Speaker of the House. Mr. Blaine invited him toa seat beside him, in the Speaker’s desk. It wasa worthy honor to a noble teacher, a moment ofthrilling interest to the great national assembly,and attracted universal attention.

Mr. Gibbons was a man of heavy, strong mind,and forceful personality, and made himself deeplyand strongly felt in the progress of young Blaine’smental growth. He did solid, accurate, and enduringwork.

Homely people, as a general thing, have quite afund of native goodness, a sort of genial love andsympathy, to atone for physical defects. Suchseemed to be the case with the man who so resembledMr. Lincoln, and it drew all hearts to him.There was no rod or ruler in school so long ashe taught, and no need of any. Such thingsare generally used in the school-room or familyto supply deficiencies of wisdom, tact, and genuineability. He simply won their love andrespect, and it was their joy to give it. Hetaught them, also, things outside of the books,and told them plenty of good, wholesome stories.One day, in speaking about the heathen beingaway round on the other side of the world, hesimply remarked,—“Of course you know the worldis round,” but of course they did not.

The great eyes of James dilated, but he saidnothing. He could not help thinking and taking[49]a child’s view of it when school was out. Itdid not hurt much to fall down four or fivetimes as he went home that night, with his eyesupturned toward the Heavens, and the greatthought revolving in his brain. The first questionhis mother heard was,—

“Is this world round, anyhow, and how is itround?”

“Yes, my child,” and the old story of theship was told, and he was examining the picturein the atlas when his father came in, andhe was sounded and agreed with the assuredfact of science; and that night when he wentup the hill to grandfather’s house to recite Plutarch,first of all he asked,—

“Grandpa, did you know this world was round?”

Grandpa took him up in his great arms,and told him all about it, and showing himthrough the window the great round haystack,on whose top and sides there was room fortwenty boys like him without falling off, and how“the earth keeps turning around and around allthe time, and a great power holds people on,just as the roots hold the trees, so no one canfall off,—and the fact is, it is so big, and large,and round, and wide, they cannot fall off,” Jimmythought he saw it and felt that it must beso.

But the next week when he went to Pittsburgh[50]with Uncle Will, on the steamer, he was lookingall the way for proof that the world was round.

But what puzzled the boy fully as much, wasthe grave assertion, made without proof, that thesun does not move, when he knew that it didrise and set. Grandpa, and his parents, andUncle Will, had to hold court every day untilthese questions were all settled, the testimonyall in, and the dreams of the young learnerreflected other scenes.

His youth had a great sorrow. No grandsonwas ever loved and petted and cared for andhelped in a thousand ways as his GrandfatherGillespie had helped and loved and cared forhim. Though a man of affairs, and carrying onbusiness operations on a large scale and in distantparts, he loved his home and all abouthim, and took special pride in this boy. Theheart of James was truly won. It was his specialjoy to be up at grandfather’s. It was not the bigred apple-tree, nor the great clock on the stairs,nor the old rusty sabre and flint-lock musket, andthe many relics of the Revolution that attractedhim, but grandfather himself.

But grandfather did not get up, one morning,and the doctor was there, and nobody went towork, and there was general alarm. The deliriumof fever was on him, but his strong constitutionresisted its ravages of inward fire for days and[51]weeks. Now he went there oftener, walked moresoftly, asked more eagerly. It all seemed so verystrange. There was his great chair vacant, andthe hand that had so often lain on his headseemed void of touch and power now. Everythingseemed to stop. Books had nothing inthem now; papers were unopened. The worldgrew darker and darker, until one black night,amid a terrific storm, word came that grandfatherhad just died, and father and motherwould not be home for some time. The sunseemed to set to James, and he cried himselfto sleep, while the other children bewailed theirloss.

The morrow was bright and clear, but full ofsadness, and as he looked upon the dear oldman lying there, and felt his cold face andhand,—he had never seen death before,—he wasfilled with wonder. The loss, indeed, was greatto him. But his memory was an inspiration, andknowing what grandpa would have him do, hereturned to his study with renewed energy andto feel more than ever the worth and power ofbooks the departed one had prized so highly.

Solomon Phillips was a Quaker and a farmer,but a man of strong, powerful intellect, honestas the day was long, painstaking and persevering.Mathematics were his special delight. Itis a triumph of skill in teaching to love a hard,[52]difficult science so as to get others to love it,also. In this he succeeded. He felt its worthand power. He would divide 0 by 1 (zero byone), and get infinity, and sit and gaze outinto its clear, white depths; and reversing theprocess he would divide one by zero, and getthe same result, and again gaze upon the whitedepths of a world most beautiful to thought, inits clear, unclouded, not nothingness, but somethingness,and that something infinity. Heseemed almost to worship at the shrine of thiskingly science, and would tell again and againhow brilliant and beautiful, and with what delightfulaccuracy, the labyrinths of the mostgnarled and vexed problems opened to him.

This was the man to give Master James hisgreat lift in preparation for college.

He followed promptly wherever the Quakermaster led the way. Week after week, andmonth after month, and term after term, thedrill went on. There were no bounds or limitsthen, as in academies now, so these werepassed as ships pass the equator, or railroadtrains pass state or county lines. Hard studywas the work of the hour, but hard study madework easy, and this was the secret, of all hisprogress,—constant study brought constant victory.

When his Grandfather Gillespie died, his fathertook up the drill in history, and Hume’s England[53]was gone over carefully, beside Marshall’sLife of Washington and a volume of Macaulay’sEssays which he got hold of as a young boy.

His father had a fine, large library, in whichhe delved by day and night, and aroused hisson not only by example to constant application,but also by persistent pressure. Here isthe real key to that early career of youthfuldays so thoroughly utilized,—the father’s intelligentwatchfulness, and careful method, and constantdirection. Only gauge the wheel to thestream, and the grist to the wheel, and therewill be no danger.

The father determined his son should be educatedto the utmost, and planned and wroughtaccordingly. No time was lost, and no unduehaste made; it was the persistency of constantpressure that won the day.

His boyhood was a happy, healthy period.He could swim across to Brownsville, discardingboth ferry and bridge.

He went nutting with the boys, as is theirwont when autumn days are on the woods, andNature, glorified with a thousand tints of foliage,is, in the poet’s sombre language, “in the sereand yellow leaf.” Black walnuts, butternuts,shellbarks, hickory nuts, and chestnuts rewardedtheir search, and gladdened winter evenings withtheir cheer.

[54]There was nothing unnatural about youngBlaine. He was no prodigy; no marvel, exceptof industry and constant training. He was simplya fair exhibition of what a good average boy,well endowed with pluck and brains may becomein the hands of good teachers, and underthe guidance of intelligent love and the unyieldingpressure of a strong paternal will. Whathis Eulogy says of Garfield is equally true ofhimself:—“He came of good stock on bothsides;—none better, none braver, none truer.There was in it an inheritance of courage, ofmanhood, and of imperishable love of liberty, ofundying adherence to principle.”

Mr. Blaine could also speak of himself as“fifth in descent from those who would not endurethe oppression of the Stuarts,” and hadfought under Prince Charles in the affair of1715 and 1723.

So satisfactory had been his progress thus farin the school, that the plan of his education involved,in 1841, sending him to Lancaster, Ohio,where for one term he was in a school taught bya younger brother of Lord Lyons, so long ourMinister from England, who according to Englishlaw inherited nothing from his father’s estates, theeldest brother receiving all; and so he made hishome in the New World, and worthily engaged intraining future presidents of the great Republic.

[55]During his term in Lancaster his home wasin the family of Hon. Thos. Ewing, his mother’scousin. Mr. Ewing was a United States Senatorwhen James was born, and entered the Cabinet ofPresident Harrison the year before James’s appearancethere as student, as Secretary of theTreasury, and in 1849 in Taylor’s Cabinet asSecretary of the Interior, both of whom diedsoon after their inauguration. In 1849 GovernorFord appointed him to the Senate in the placeof Hon. Thomas Corwin, who entered Fillmore’sCabinet.

This first and only term of school away fromhome and out of that little country school-housein preparation for college, under the broadeninginfluences of such a home and the inspirationof such a teacher, was a long stride forwardtoward the desired goal. It was a great journeyin those days for a boy only eleven years old tomake, but it added another large chapter to hisalready wide range of knowledge and experience.

The other James, only a year younger, wasliving with his mother in the woods of Orange,in the same state of Ohio, improving the modestprivileges of school, and maturing slowly,the winter James G. Blaine spent at Lancasterin the spacious home of that distant relativewho had enjoyed all the high honors of thegovernment, next to the presidency.

[56]These boys were probably not over one hundredmiles apart that winter, and both at school,—investingmore largely in themselves than inall besides, using themselves as capital, theirown powers and endowments. Surely no courseis wiser, as their careers amply prove. It isgathering what is outside that one may get outwhat is inside, that is the process of education;not getting what is outside regardless of whatis within, that may be developed into treasuresof transcendent worth, more valuable than thecontents of forest and mine.

American history furnishes few examples ofthe practical value of cultivated brain moreillustrious and potent than James A. Garfieldand James G. Blaine, and each the oppositein temperament and opportunity, but bothbrought up on a farm, and both getting theirfirst start up the hill of knowledge in a countryschool.

Where are the two boys who, forty or fiftyyears from now, will take the helm of stateand guide the ponderous ship farther on hertireless voyage?

No ever-recurring problem for the nation’swisdom and the nation’s choice, is greater thanthis one problem of presidents. It is the nation’soffer of greatness and renown to any boywho, through long years of patient and persistent[57]endeavor, will seek full and honorable preparationfor the prize she proffers.

The brief stay at Lancaster was soon over,and James once more harnessed into the oldrégime at home, with Campbell Beall for teacher,in the same old house that seven years beforehe entered, a boy of five years old.

In one year he is to pass his examination toenter Washington and Jefferson College, in thevillage of Washington, their shire-town of threethousand inhabitants, twenty-four miles away.Will he be ready? Much depends on CampbellBeall, much on his father, and much on himself.

The common English branches are well wroughtover, languages and mathematics have come tobe a delight, and in the old atmosphere, andthe old ways, with the old inspiration on him,progress comes anew. Lines of reading from thelibrary are kept up; the papers and magazinesare not neglected; political matters are settled;bad news comes in from every quarter; Tyleris at the head of affairs; Ewing has sent inhis scathing letter of resignation as Secretary ofthe Treasury, charging him with violating everypromise the Whig party made to the people;but there is no campaign, no voting to be done,so the thing is settled.

Mr. Beall proves a good teacher. The Latin[58]begun at Lancaster is renewed at home, andso the winter goes by. Time seems literallyto be alive and drifts like the snow as it goesrushing by. As Benj. F. Taylor has it:—

Father, mother, teacher, Uncle Will, all seemconvinced that James can pass and enter college;so, though only thirteen years of age, his fathertakes him in the carriage, and they drive overto Washington.

It is a great experience for older heads, butfor one so young, a veritable epoch in his history.

It does not take long to convince the presidentthat he has drawn a prize, and he is enteredwith about forty other bright, smart boys,for the Freshman class in the autumn. Afterthree months of vacation, the great work is tobegin in real earnest, and the stuff those boysare made of is to be thoroughly tried andtested.

There was none of the hard, rough, and bitterexperience in his boyhood days and early manhoodto which so many of our nation’s greatmen were subjected. He had none of the[59]long and desperate struggles with poverty andadversity which hung on Mr. Garfield’s earlyyears. He knew nothing, by experience, of theprivations and hardships through which Mr. Lincolncame to the high honors of the nation andthe world, but sprang from the second generationafter the Revolutionary war, and from along line of ancestors who had been large land-ownersand gentlemen, in the sense of wealthand education, as well as in that finely cultivated.

THE summer of 1843 was bright withthe anticipations of college life to theeager boy. Manhood seemed dawningupon him, in all its glory. Since hisexaminations, the great Dr. McConaughy hadgrasped his hand so kindly and drawn him to hisside; then putting his arm around him had said,as he brushed the long, light hair from his forehead,—

“You are a brave boy; I am glad to see youand know you. We shall have a good place readyfor you September third, and I shall be glad tosee you in my home.”

The president of Washington and Jefferson Collegecould appreciate to the full the fact beforehim, that this boy, without the aid of highschool or academy, was more than ready for thestudies and honors of college.

The three months of summer were not lost.A general review was had, and particular attentionpaid to toning him up physically. He would[61]plunge into the river and swim to his heart’scontent; dash away on horse-back for a goodride; go over to Brownsville, where they all didtheir trading, on errands, and regularly for thepapers and magazines; go on excursions up anddown the river, and, withal, help in the field,especially at harvest-time, and fill up regularhours with his best endeavors at study. Sothat he was not rusty and broken in habit,when September came; and it came very soon.His going to college was quite an event for thecommunity. The neighbors took pride in it, forJames was greatly beloved. His exploits withbooks were known to all. Teachers had reportedhis progress and rejoiced in it.

It took a long while to say all the good-byes,but early Monday morning he was off, andsoon nicely settled in a good boarding-place, andwhen the great bell rang out the beginning ofnew school-year, James G. Blaine was in his placetaking in the situation in all its magnitude andinterest.

There were one hundred and seventy-fivescholars present, all boys and young men.There was a young ladies’ school, or seminary,in another part of the town, but they wereentirely separated, and boys and girls were notmingled together, as now in some of our colleges.

[62]James devoted himself strictly to study, andretired promptly at ten o’clock each night. Hefound himself in a large class of bright, energeticstudents, full of pranks, jokes, and fun,but still boys of nerve, and pluck, and amplebrain; boys who had been well fitted for thetask before them, many of them in the preparatorydepartment of the institution itself, so thatthey were familiar with the place, and hadknown each other for several years. They werenot long in finding that the new boy, who camefrom down near the big bridge, knew aboutGreek and Latin grammars, and could read withoutdifficulty when his turn came.

He did not have the town-boy sort of lookthat many of the others had, but his goodmanners, and kind, easy ways made them feeland acknowledge that he was a little gentleman,anyhow. His mother had never neglected herboy, and his father, being a professional man,knew the joy and worth of being a gentleman;and, if they had done but little, his grandfatherhad planted seeds of kindness in him enoughto produce a bountiful harvest. He mouldedand shaped his ways and manners to the clear,strong model that was never wanting in theold Scottish clans and seems to remain in thevery blood and very atmosphere of life andcharacter.

[63]There was nothing brusque or acrid abouthim. He took on and wore the air and atmosphereof the enlightened, quiet, and culturedhome-life in which he was brought up. He wasmodest and retiring, there for a purpose, anddevoted to its accomplishment. It was not hard,distasteful work to him, but a loved and longed-foropportunity. He had no ills or aches tonurse, or trouble him. He felt greatly theabsence from home. But he was not off inOhio now, only four and twenty miles from old,familiar Indian Hill farm. But his books absorbedhim; study roused and cheered him;competition electrified and nerved him. Nothingwould sting him like missing a question, or anypetty failure. But these were few and simple.He took first rank at once, and held it steadilyto the end.

His life at college was a comparatively quietone. He never appeared upon a public exhibition,although he entered the societies, and tookpart in debates, read essays, contributed to thecollege paper, and delivered orations.

He was rather retiring in his disposition, andsought rather to be a worshiper at the shrine ofknowledge, than as is so often the case, be worshiped.

The quiet reticence and reserve referred tomay strike some, owing to their knowledge ofhis dashing brilliancy of later years. But as a[64]surprise, the modest, unobtrusive habit was happilyconducive to study, and served as a guardagainst many of the intrusions of a student’slife. While kind and affable, he was not of thehail-fellow-well-met order. But he was not a recluse,—nomonk with monkish ways. He wasa student, through and through, and he lovedstudy; it satisfied him and served his aspirations.

He was a boy no longer; he had come tohimself, to self-consciousness; a consciousness ofhis powers, to a recognition of his own personalidentity. Manhood was fast coming on him; hewas out of childhood. It was a new world inthought to him, and life at college a new worldin fact. He was respected and honored andtrusted now, in a sense different from beingloved and petted and cared for at home. Therewas not so much praise, but more power in it.He was on his own responsibility now, and mustrely largely upon his own resources. Manlinesswas the needful quality. It was everywhere indemand. At study it was the prelude to victory;in the recitation-room it was the well-poisedharbinger of success, and in associationwith others it always won. This was just thequality that those who loved him had sought todevelop in him, and they had not failed. Hewould take hold of the hardest task with a marvelous[65]energy of resolve. His will was a strongfeature of his personality. It was an element ofpower that served him now. He had reached along-sought height and was pushing on.

Good teachers are not long in finding goodscholars in a new class. They look for themas a miner watches for gold, and prize them ashighly. There was such a teacher in the facultyat Washington, and to Professor Murray Mr.Blaine feels a deep and lasting debt of gratitude.

Like all good teachers, he felt the dignity andpower of his profession. He could help theweakest into strength, and put a window in thedarkest mind by his varied questionings, illustrations,suggestions, and explanations. He wasquiet, but forceful, genial, but severe if lazinessor wanton disregard showed its hydra head. Inhis own peculiar way, by virtue of an immensepersonality, he would light up and enthuse awhole class-room.

The Professor found in young Blaine a pupilto his mind, and James found in the teacherjust the man of his heart. He learned to lovehim. A genuine teacher can incarnate himselfin his pupils, just as Napoleon seemed to reproducehimself in his armies, firing them with hisspirit, arming them with his purpose, so thatthey would move with the solid impetuosity of[66]his own daring, scaling the Alps, triumphing atAusterlitz, until they came to look, and breathe,and act him out long after; but Professor Murraywas training men and citizens of the greatRepublic. His was a solemn, sacred work, ofgrave responsibility. It was worthy of life andmanhood’s strength and prime, as the greatideals which burned in the heat of his glowinglife fully assured him.

To sit in such a light, to dwell in such apresence, was to be lead over the fields of conquestby the hand of Alexander after he hadconquered the world. No wonder this man isloved and honored, and his memory cherishedsacredly.

Outside of the regular college course, Mr.Blaine read through the New Testament inGreek with him three times. This was a SundayBible-class exercise, and shows how deeplyhis mind became imbued with the truths of theChristian religion, which have since made hima devoted member of the Congregational Churchin Augusta, Maine.

James was no book-worm in college. He wasa severe, close student. This was his chiefbusiness there. He was on his honor, and lovedhis work, and so did it well.

Prof. E. B. Neely, superintendent of schools inSt. Joseph, Mo., an old class-mate, says of him:—

[67]“James G. Blaine was always looked up to asa leader, by his class-mates, being universallyrecognized as such. While a close student, hewas genial in his habits, and decidedly popularwith all, being the very reverse of what isknown as a book-worm.”

This is just what those who know him nowhave reason to expect was the case, and yet it isvery remarkable, from the fact that he was seventeenand a half years of age when he graduated,and in a large class of thirty-three, seventeenof whom entered the Christian ministry.

At the end he was one of those to dividethe honors of his class, and here again we are indebtedto Professor Neely.

“Third, by reference to my class-book youwill see that at the time he graduated Mr.Blaine was given the second of the three honorsof the occasion. The first, the Latin salutatory,was delivered by Jno. C. Hervey, ofVirginia; the second, English salutatory, byJames G. Blaine, of Pennsylvania; and thethird, Greek salutatory, by T. W. Porter, ofPennsylvania.”

When Mr. Blaine graduated he delivered amasterly oration, most of which he can speakto-day, after a lapse of thirty-seven years. Thesubject was,—“The Rights and Duties of AmericanCitizens.” How fitting such a theme for[68]such a man, and how admirably it shows histrend of mind!

During his course at college, in 1844, occurredthe great campaign of Henry Clay. It hadbeen Mr. Blaine’s privilege to meet Mr. Clay,and he took the liveliest interest conceivable inthe contest. He was a very positive man, decidedand aggressive, especially in his politicalopinions. Of course the great question of theday was debated in the college-society, and Mr.Blaine was on hand. He usually was on suchoccasions, and had a large part in the discussion.He was so well read in the history ofthe country and of parties, had entered so intothe merits of the campaign of General Harrison,four years before, that with all his growthand acquisitions since, he was well qualified totake his position and maintain it against all whochose a tilt with him. His was the force ofaccumulated strength, the weight of reservedpower. He was so full of his subject, that itseemed to require no effort to bring out thefacts and figures and formulate the argumentsthat demolished his antagonist. He joined, as ifby instinct, the fresh young Whig party of progressand of power. Clay was their idol, andthis was the hour of his destiny. No younglife was ever given with more ardent devotionto any cause than did the young collegian give[69]heart and thought, sympathy and endeavor, tothe star so surely rising. He lead in the fightamong the boys, and won the day; and wherevervoice or influence could reach, he energizedothers with the wholesome truths of politicalequity, justice, and common sense that filled hissoul. No wonder his theme on Commencement daywas so near the nation’s life. It was near his heart,and so his first great triumph was celebrated byconsidering, back in those times of the slave-power,Rights and Duties of American Citizenship.

Washington and Jefferson College was famousin those days for sending forth great men. Itwas a great institution of the times. Indeed,it was two colleges united. Jefferson Collegehad been located at Connersburgh, some fourmiles distant, and was merged into WashingtonCollege at Washington.

This gave increased advantage in picked teachers,fuller endowment, larger classes, and betterappliances. To go to such an institution, amere boy and a total stranger, and take thelead and keep it through his entire course,argues for the mental power and furnishing ofthe boy, as well as his other qualities of heartand character. He led his class in mathematics,as a fellow-student testifies, and thus showedthe unabated influence of his old Quaker teacher,Solomon Phillips.

[70]The college-library was a great resort forhim, a sort of second home. Here he coulddelve, with no thought of time or weariness. Itwas his delight and joy. Books seemed a partof him; he was seldom without them, and yethe utilized, by good mental digestion and strongpowers of assimilation, the substance of whathe read. He ranged over a wide field, principallyof English works then, as works of Americanauthors were comparatively few. Indeed, itis only within the last quarter of a century thesneer, “Who reads an American book?” hasceased to sting. Vacation was his busiest timewith books. He was never empty, but alwaysfull.

But all his study and meditation; all his reading,thought, and observation; all he had gleaned,gathered, and garnered from books, teachings, andassociations; all that had come to him fromnewspapers, periodicals, travel, great men, foundtheir fitting and powerful culmination in thegreat oration he delivered on Commencement day,in June, 1847. It was sound and convincing,patriotic and manly, and would do credit to anygraduate to-day, though twice his age. It wasthe key-note of a life-long career, which hasever since been urging in a most potent waythe rights, and discharging the duties of Americancitizenship.

THE world opened grandly to youngBlaine at his graduation. His collegecourse had been a triumph, his receptionhome an ovation. The heart ofthe great class beat with his; their hopes werejustly high, and high especially for him whomthey had learned to love and honor. His powerto make friends and hold them was remarkable.Those who knew him best loved him most.

One who knew so much of the world mustsee some of it, and as yet he had traveled butlittle; but a good rest is taken, and the summerspent at home. Old, familiar scenes are viewedthrough larger eyes. Books are reviewed, freshvolumes read; the news, home and foreign, isseized with a new avidity by one whose businessof life is just beginning. As yet, though, hehas not been earning money, he has gainedsomething he can never lose, and that can neverbe stolen or borrowed from him. It is his fortune;his father’s wise plan has been carried out,[72]and he is ready for business now. A call comesfor a teacher in Blue Licks Military Academy,at Georgetown, Kentucky, and he is selectedand recommended by the faculty for the place.He has never taught an hour. Shall he go?He knows enough, has good command of himself,and from careful observation, a fair knowledgeof methods. He believes he can do it, for,as yet, he has never failed, and has always beenable to make himself understood, whether inprivate conversations and discussions, or societydebates in college.

The question is decided. He is to receive asalary of five hundred dollars a year, while boysof his age are working for eight and ten dollarsa month. It is a man’s work. He is to startSeptember first, and he will not be eighteenyears old until January. There is not a hairon his face. But there is a man within, strongin manly powers, and rich in stores of knowledge.

He had a fine address, clear and strong ofspeech, large lustrous eyes, fine conversationalpowers, and in all respects, of good appearance.His youth was in his favor, since it made hisaccomplishments all the more marvelous. He hadbeen well written up and highly recommendedbefore going, so that anticipations were high onboth sides.

[73]It was harder than ever to say good-bye, especiallyfor mother and son, but it must bedone. They recalled the time when their ancestorsleft native land across the seas, to come tothis country, and were reconciled. His fatherand Uncle Will tried the name of Professor onhim before he started, and it seemed to fit,though at first it startled him. It weighed himdown with the gravity of his position, and drovethe last remnant of pedantry from him. He declineda tall hat and discarded a cane. He wassimple, genuine, and true, and went for justwhat he was worth.

The trip to Pittsburgh, and down the river toLouisville, and out to Georgetown by public conveyance,was full of interest to him, because itwas his country he was seeing. A steam-boatexplosion, and talk of an insurrection among thenegroes, made him a little nervous. But thefact that he was going to the state of HenryClay, gave him a sort of home feeling, andmade him feel they were his sort of folks, andthen some of the students were from down thatway, and he had met several of the public menfrom Kentucky, besides Mr. Clay.

There happened to be an old Jacksonian Democratin the stage-coach, who had been attractedto the young professor by his manly bearing,his quiet urbanity, which cost him no effort,[74]and especially by his politeness in giving alady from the Blue Grass region a back seat,insisting “that she take it” in a most gentlemanlymanner, while he took a far less comfortableone, riding backward. This brought himface to face with a full-blooded Kentuckian ofthe old type.

“You are a native of the soil, I take it,sir?”

“Yes, sir, but not of this state.”

“Of what state, may I ask?”

“The Keystone state of Pennsylvania, sir,”with a suppressed air of pride.

“Indeed, then you are from the North?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Clay has a good many friends up there, hashe not?”

“Yes, sir, a great many.”

“Well, it was an awful whipping he got.”

“Yes, and he did not deserve it.”

“Didn’t deserve it?”

“I think not; he is a royal man, and wouldhave made an excellent president, in my judgment.”

“If he had not been a Whig; that spoilshim. Strange how much good and smartness aman may have, and not have good sense.”

“But he has good sense, in my judgment, ifyou will pardon me.”

[75]“Young man, slavery is a Divine institution.That is fixed; the Bible decides that!”

These words were said with great emphasis.

“Then what of the Declaration of Independence;does that conflict with the Bible? Isthat a Divine institution?”

The man was puzzled, but finally said,—

“Well, the Bible don’t have to agree witheverything.”

James had just finished the study of the Constitution,of Political Economy, of Moral Science,was thoroughly posted regarding political partiesand all the great questions of the day, andslavery had a black, villanous look to him.Some of the sights he had witnessed had rousedhis blood, and taking it altogether he was readyfor quite a campaign.

He had never been placed under any particularrestraint, but had talked right out the besthe knew how, and so followed the person upwho encountered him pretty closely, until thequestions were all answered to their satisfaction,and a few difficult ones asked to his satisfaction.But when the identical lady whom he hadfavored with a seat, asked right out,—“Wouldyou marry a nigg*r?” he seemed lifted from hismoorings all at once, and replied almost instantly,without inspecting his words,—“No,ma’am, would you?” A fair amount of indignation[76]was in the air, without any perceptible delay,and sundry epithets, so common in thosedays, such as “nigg*r-lover,” “nigg*r-stealer,”and “black abolitionist,” found expression. James’only apology was,—

“Madame, I only asked you the very respectfuland lady-like question you had so kindlyasked me.”

“I admire your courage and independence ofcharacter, sir,” said a young lady opposite, withsome warmth, who, though rather large, andwith a look of rare intelligence, and a voice ofpeculiar sweetness and volume, was evidentlystill in her teens,—possibly sweet sixteen, in itsfullest glory.

The driver stopped at the foot of a big hill,and, as was their privilege, several passengersgot out to walk up the hill. James was amongtheir number. It was a real relief to be in theopen air.

“Give us your hand, young man,” said a fellow-passenger,as the stage passed on. “I likeyer pluck; brains is good, but it ain’t muchwithout pluck. I tell you, you sot the truthright home that time. You are a right smartkind of a boy. Do they raise meny sich up inthe old Keystone or Yellowstone—What didyou call it? I reckon that that Missis wasright down put out when you axed her what[77]she axed you. But, then, they do say a heapof jokers don’t like to be joked. But my ruleis, tit-for-tat. I tell you, a little nip and tucknow and then is a mighty edicating sort ofthing, and I guess you’ve been educated,haven’t you?”

James shook hands and followed up the conversationuntil the top of the hill was reached.

All had a good dinner, and felt better.

It was a simple act of courtesy which theoccasion demanded, to help the young lady ofsixteen, more or less, from the coach, as she wasready to step out after James had alighted, andas she thanked him very graciously he could butoffer to escort her to the table, and with raregood grace she assented.

James had done such things before, and donethem very handsomely, in connection with theircollege-exhibitions and socials in the town, towhich he occasionally went.

Kentucky is a great country for quail, and thecolored cook had broiled and buttered them thatday exactly to the taste of an epicurean. Theywere simply delicious, and just in season. Theyenjoyed them hugely, and chatted with the cheerand gusto of old friends, mostly speaking of theglories of the North, in which they perfectlyagreed, and upon their homes. “One touch ofnature makes the whole world kin” may be true[78]or not, but that little touch of nature in thestage-coach had made them kin.

Another fresh brace of the savory quails hadjust been placed before them, when the coachdashed around to the door, and the lusty voice ofthe driver crying “All aboard!” resounded throughthe hall and open door of the dining-room.

There was no alternative, so without delaythey resumed their old seats, and conversationwas discontinued.

The political status of the company had beenpretty well defined, and James had made twofriends, the names of neither of whom, however,he had learned.

There was a lull in the conversation, andJames was going over his scheme of study andrecitations for the twentieth time, when at threeo’clock Georgetown was announced. He badehis two friends good-bye, and expressed the hopethat all would enjoy their journey.

The stage had but just started, when the oldJacksonian said, “I dunno but the boy is moren’r half right, anyhow.” The young lady knewhe was, but the lady number one did not knowabout it.

“Well, it’s mighty sartin the Declaration isagin’ Slavery, and the Bible can’t stand up forboth, nohow,” said the man who walked upthe hill with James.

[79]James was now in his lodgings, and liked thelooks of things. He had just brushed anddusted up when he heard the tap of a drum,and looking out he saw a line of cadets forming,and ascertaining that that was the academy,he walked over and saw one hundred and fiftyfine-looking young men, handsomely uniformed,each with a musket, marching to music of fifeand drum. They stood erect and stepped together.It was a fine sight to him. They wentthrough the evolutions, marked time, marched,and countermarched.

The entire faculty were present. He venturedin, and soon heard a messenger announce thatMr. Blaine had come, but he had missed him.He simply said, “I am Mr. Blaine,” and thePrincipal grasped his hand with evident delight,placing his left hand upon his shoulder andsaying, “I am glad to see you, Mr. Blaine,”and introduced him to the other teachers, andthen turning to the students he said, “Battalion,permit me to present to you our new professor,James G. Blaine, of Washington, Pennsylvania;you will please receive him at present arms”;instinctively Mr. Blaine removed his hat in recognitionof his reception. “Perhaps you have aword for the boys,” said the Principal, and thebattalion was brought to a “shoulder arms,” an“order arms,” and then to a “parade rest,”[80]when, stepping forward, he said,—“I am gladto see you, gentlemen, in such fine form andspirit, and so accomplished at your drill, for Iwatched you several moments yonder, unobserved.We had nothing of this kind where I studied,but I think it must be a fine thing for you.I hope you will never be needed in your country’sservice, though it does begin to look alittle as though there might possibly be warwith Mexico. But as I have been nearly twoweeks on my journey, and as we shall haveample time to get acquainted, I will not detainyou longer.”

Three cheers were proposed for Professor Blaine,and given with a will. The Professor was thelion of the hour.

The Principal said, “You will take tea withme, Professor Blaine?”

“With great pleasure.”

And to the other professors, “You will pleasetake tea with Professor Blaine, at my house.”

The hour spent in the study with the Principalwas not without a purpose on his part. It confirmedall that Doctor McConaughy and ProfessorMurray had written about him, and afforded certainknowledge that they had drawn a prize.By an adroit, yet careless method of conversation,introducing a general discussion of the textbooksof the day, with their general contents,[81]their defects and excellences, the great knowledgeof the new man was made evident, and itwas not restricted to the mere curriculum ofstudies.

“Surely,” thought he, “I am in for it now inearnest,” as he was left alone for a few momentswhile his host went down to receive his otherguests.

There was not a soul within three hundredmiles who would think of calling him Jim Blaine,or Jimmy, nor dare to, if by some strange, unnaturalprocess it did occur to him.

He was treated, respected, and honored as aman and a scholar. The world had opened tohim, and he had entered. It was well therewas no show or shoddy about him, and he knewit. The stamp of the mint was on him, andhe passed at par, with the ring of honest coin.

There is a power in some men to meet anyemergency when it is fairly on them. They risewith the tide, become a part of the occasion,and adjust themselves to it with a quiet dignity.He had this power, and felt it on him now.As he was going down-stairs to be presentedto the ladies, he said to himself, as he threwback his hair with a quick, decided toss, “Nopolitics to-night”; and this prolific subject wasmentally abjured.

They received him as an equal, spoke of the[82]favorable opinion they all entertained of him,and the joy his coming had given them.

He thanked them, and spoke of the pleasurehe experienced in coming to a state so great inthe nation’s life.

It was a matter of conscience with ProfessorBlaine to know where he was going and wherehe had been, so that he had made his ownstate as well as that of Ohio where he hadspent the term at school, and the state ofKentucky, a special study; so that when they werefairly seated at table, and after repeated questionshad been asked, he fairly eclipsed all hisformer attempts at conversation, by the brilliancyof his historical allusions, extending far backinto colonial days.

He had learned, by his early drill in Plutarch’sLives, where a brief biography of aRoman and a Greek are alternately given, andthen comparisons and contrasts between them introduced,so to deal with states and individuals.He had thus dealt with political parties andtheir leaders, but not to-night. This methodhelped him greatly.

Events, dates, names, places, fell into line andwere marshalled like troops just when the drumtapped, or the word of command was given.They all seemed amazed; an hour passed by;material sufficient for a half-dozen Fourth of[83]July orations had been given. A veritable panoramaof those three great states, three of thegreatest in the Union, seemed to march beforethem in sections and decades.

The members of the faculty, who understoodvery well what it was to know and to talk,had some very complimentary things to say.He had won them all, so unobtrusive was he,and entirely at his ease, withal.

Monday morning, at nine o’clock, twenty-eightyoung men marched into the school-room andfaced him as their teacher, twelve of themolder than himself. They had taken his measurewhen on drill, and felt honored to call himteacher.

They were from the best families of thestate, were clad in bright uniforms, and saterect. Mathematics was the first recitation.He looked around almost instinctively for SolomonPhillips or Professor Murray, but they werenot there. He was on the platform, not in theseats. He must lead off. A list of names hadbeen furnished him. As he read them over,calling each name by itself, the scholar cameforward and received a hearty shake of thehand, and was photographed at once in themind of the teacher. This was the work of buta few minutes, yet it recognized each one ofthem, and made them feel acquainted. No other[84]teacher had done this, but it was somethingthey could tell of, write home about, and madethem say,—“He is a fine man; I like him.”

He then told them many things about mathematicsas a science, its power in intellectualdevelopment, and its great value in the practicalbusiness of life; its place in astronomy and engineering,in naval and military operations, andthe certainty with which it assures the mind.

It was a simple, quiet talk, illustrated invarious ways by references to the book and thesciences spoken of. He thus drew them nearerto himself, and removed the dread with which somany approach the vexed subject of mathematics.This class was in algebra, on at cube root,doing pretty solid work. The ground was familiarto him. Problem after problem had beenperformed; the whole class seemed roused to anew interest, and in stepped the Principal, butthe work went on. Every blackboard was inuse; it was a busy scene; there were no idlersthere.

“Never touch a problem hereafter,” he said,“unless you are certain you have the rule fixedin your minds. Do not forget this, and if youhave that clear, then ask yourself, in case ofdifficulty, ‘What axiom shall I use next?’ foryou must keep using them, as you do the lettersof the alphabet, over and over again.

[85]“One thing more: we are going to have hard,quick work done in this room, and be sure nowthat every one gets ready for it, and we willhave a splendid time.”

Mr. Blaine’s resources had never been drawnon before in any real, business-like way. Butit was an experience he was ready for, and heliked it. He next had a class in Latin, andthen in United States history. He could nothave been better suited in studies. They werejust the ones that delighted him. Christmasseemed to come that year on wings, and soonthe spring-time was on them, and the picnicseason.

He had shut himself up closely to his work.Visitors had abounded, but he accepted but fewof the invitations that were given. He did noteven accept any one of several invitations tospend the holidays with students at their homes.A short trip to Lexington and Frankfort satisfied,and he was back at work.

The literature of every subject connected withhis recitations must he read up carefully, andevery spare hour was devoted to these lines ofstudy.

But he did go to the annual picnic. Hewas part of the school, and he must go.Everybody went, seemingly. It was a sectionalaffair; other schools were there. He[86]met a familiar face: it was a lady’s; who couldit be?

She recognized him, and bowed. He returnedit. He awoke as from a revery, he had solived in his work; and being worried with thequestion, “Where have I seen that face,” tracedit at once to the stage-coach. They were introduced.

It was Miss Hattie Stanwood, of Augusta,Maine. She also was teaching school, not faraway. It was quite the thing in that day forwell-educated New England girls or young ladiesto go South and teach school.

They had remembered each other through thewinter, but neither knew the other’s name,address, or occupation. Now all was clear.Thoughts and dreams were actualized. It wasa marvel, almost a miracle, that they shouldmeet.

The picnic had no further charms for them.They quietly strolled away together over thehills after the lunch was served, and for threefull hours they lived in each other’s lives. Theyseemed strangely near to each other, and a peculiarpeaceful joy seemed living in their hearts.It had evidently come to stay. None otherever seemed to be so needful to life itself. Noformal words were spoken, only cards exchangedand carefully preserved. In two weeks her school[87]would close, and she would spend the summernorthward at her home, and he would take along trip southward through various states, andsee what could be seen as far down as NewOrleans. They spent two afternoons in eachother’s company before the time of departurecame; correspondence was agreed upon, and inthe autumn they would meet and renew acquaintancein the old posts of duty. Some slighttokens were exchanged, and as they must theynerved brave hearts for a long and perilousseparation.

When the time for their departure came theywere found seated side by side in the same oldcoach, for Louisville. The ride was much shorterand far more pleasant in that rich and beauteousspring-time than in the ripe and lusciousautumn before.

Politics was a barren subject now. Homeswere admired as they passed along; bits of sentimentindulged; snatches of song and lines ofpoetry; much sober, sensible talk filled in thehours which served as a needed respite tominds kept hard at thought throughout theyear.

The future loomed up, real and grand. Theirlives took on a glow of interest and earnestnessof hope they never had known. There seemedto be a reason in them now, before unseen.[88]They felt their worth and knew their joy, asit was never felt or known before.

Mr. Blaine took his southern trip, and madebusiness of it. He knew the history of all thatcountry, every state and town.

It had a vastly different look to him fromany region of the North which he had visited.Slavery was the hideous monstrosity of evil thatmet him everywhere. It was to him the greatcontradiction and condemnation of the South.

He had heard and heard, but determined tosee for himself, and see he did. There wasmuch that seemed pleasant in plantation-life,but when he went to the slave-pens and theslave-auctions, and saw families broken and soldasunder, and heard their cries, and saw theblows,—their only recognition,—his patriot-bloodboiled fiercely in his veins. It was enough. Hesought his old home, and spent a happy monthor more with its loved ones, those who rejoicedwith him greatly over the achievements of the year.

Miss Stanwood made her journey northwardamid all the loveliness of Nature, and arrivedhome far more the woman than when she left.Life was more real and earnest now, and filledwith larger hopes. She was charmed with theSouth, and had strange longings to return. Butletters are tell-tale things, for men, without anyspecial reason, will write a great, bold hand.

[89]James was able to lay two hundred dollars onthe table on his return, and entertained themby the hour with stories of the South. Hehad seen much gambling and drinking, manybowie knives and revolvers, and seen manysplendid specimens of men.

He was filled with its beauties and glories,and with its generous, kindly hospitalities. Itwas a region so historic, so immense in possibilities,so alive and magnificent with the oldante-bellum greatness, and splendor of cities andhomes; so many graduates from Yale and Harvard,which had been a dream of fame and greatnessever to him; so many men of leisure,and, withal, so much to see; so much of pleasing,thrilling interest; so much stir and life,that weeks passed by.

He spent parts of two winters in New Orleans.He was, in fact, a southern man for thetime. His business was in the South, and hisgreat social powers gave him friends and entranceeverywhere.

The kind letters of his fellow-teachers,—ColonelThorndike F. Johnson, the principal of theAcademy, and Colonel Bushrod Johnson, after ofthe Confederate army,—gave him many pleasingacquaintances. This was twelve or fourteen yearsbefore the war. The political business and educationalinterests of the country were a unit.[90]There was no talk of rebels or of treason. Theprominent men of the country, politically, werelargely from the South. The presidents hadbeen selected largely from that section, and thepolitical contests throughout were carried on byparties whose strongholds were North and South.Only the summer before, President Polk hadmade a tour through the Middle and Easternstates, going eastward as far as Portland, Maine,and was received with every demonstration ofrespect. Nathan Clifford, of Maine, was hisAttorney-general, and Mr. Bancroft, his Ministerto England.

Mr. Blaine’s father had moved to Washington,as he was prothonotary of the courts, during histerm at college, so that he had made his homewith them during some of these years, and theremainder of the time with a Mrs. Acheson.He had ample opportunity to renew acquaintancewith old friends; with Prof. Wm. P. Aldrich, whohad drilled him so faithfully in mathematics:with Prof. Richard Henry Lee, grandson ofRichard Henry Lee, of the Revolutionary war,who was his professor of rhetoric and belle-lettres;with his firm friend, Professor Murray,who so inspired him in the study of thelanguages, and gave Mr. Blaine a regular theologicaldrill in the study of Greek, that mostperfect receptacle of human thought, in all its[91]shades and vastness, even now,—a language whichtook up Christ, his kingdom, and his mission,thoughts and doctrines, and perpetuated themfor the world.

No drill is more highly intellectual, moreconducive of fine taste, good judgment, and accuracy,than the study of the Greek; and thishe had under the master-hand.

To Prof. Richard Henry Lee may be tracedthe training of power so brilliantly displayed inMr. Blaine’s forensic efforts and on the stump.

To renew acquaintance with these men, and amultitude of other friends, was a part of hisgreat pleasure. He was fresh and full as ever,taller by an inch, and larger every way. He nolonger seemed to them a boy, but had the airand manners of a man, and yet his laugh wasas merry and hearty, his shake of the hand asvigorous and friendly as ever.

The sunny South shone full upon them in thefresh report he brought. It was a goodly land,and he had made it a study, bringing to bearall his power of close observation.

He had taken his course at college principallyfor the sake of study, simply, and the knowledgehe gained; but the prominent thought inhis mind had been journalism. This had notbeen his purpose in education, but simply a chiefidea in his mind rather than a chosen aim in[92]life. So that with this thought within him, andthe habit of seeing everything on him, but littleescaped the wide range of his vision during hissouthern journeyings.

Of course when home he did not ignore theold college-library. It was a resort so greatlyloved, and almost sacred.

But when the hour struck he was eager tobe off for his post of duty,—Kentucky. Promptnessand despatch were ever elements of powerwith him. He reached Georgetown ahead of time,and was rested and in readiness when the newyear of work began, and it was a year of hard,steady, constant work with him. He not onlyhad now a reputation to sustain, but to begreatly advanced. That a man stops growingwhen he is satisfied, was a thing perfectly understoodby him. A man without ambition isdead while he lives, and the one content tolive with his head over his shoulder may aswell be turned into a pillar of salt. It is themen who look ahead, and who look up who havea future. A backward look is a downward look tothem.

Competition was strong at the academy. Enthusiasmwas great. Professor Blaine had donemuch to arouse it, but all unconsciously. Hehad held steadily to his fixed habits of study,preparing carefully for each recitation himself,[93]permitting no shams in his class-room. Themilitary discipline at the institution aided greatlyits matter of discipline. Life and energy wereeverywhere manifest.

And so the year passed with nothing specialworthy of note, except the amount of real workperformed, and the large measure of successachieved.

Acquaintance with his lady friend was earlyrenewed and pleasantly continued. It had muchto do with the inspiration of the present andin shaping his future. Of course it was kept aprofound secret, and no one in Kentucky permittedto know that they were aught to eachother except chance friends, and indeed in pointof formal fact they were not until near theclose of the year, when the crisis came; butthe young professor was a gallant knight, andhad occasion required might readily have performedsome thrilling act of knighthood thatwould have set the neighborhood agog, fornone can doubt he had it in him even then.Milder methods have ever been his rule, exceptemergency arise, and then he arises with it.

It is this ability of abilities, this almost perfectionof powers, that has made him equal toevery occasion, however dire or desperate oppositionmay have been; that has given him hisgreat prominence in journalism, in halls of legislature,[94]both of state and nation, and in the fieldof politics. But he has had this mountain-peakof power because beneath and back of it lay along mountain-range of endeavor, capacity, andgrowth.

The patient, hard, honest toil of years hasever and anon had its culmination in hours ofsplendid victory.

THE years at Georgetown reviewed andsolidified the work of his studentscholarly life thus far, beside carryinghim forward to new fields ofconquest. Courtship could not interfere withstudy and with work, and it did not.

This new relationship had changed somewhatthe plan of life. Other years could be but arepetition of the two now nearly passed, so thatwhile he was in the line of promotion and ina place to grow, it was not just the thing, sohe relinquished his professorship and went northward.

These years had been eventful in the historyof the country. The Mexican war had beenfought, and General Taylor, its hero, elected andinaugurated president. Both were triumphs ofthe Slave-Power.

President Polk had taken part in the ceremoniesattendant upon the inauguration of GeneralTaylor, and gone to his home in Tennessee[96]by way of Richmond, Charleston, and NewOrleans, only to die on the 15th of June, 1849,in the fifty-fourth year of his age.

The cholera was raging in the South “like adesolating blast. It swept over the valley ofthe Mississippi, carrying off thousands with thesuddenness of the plagues of the old world.”The South was surely no place for northernersat such a time.

The great gold-fever of California was on thecountry, and scores were hurrying to the Pacificcoast. But Mr. Blaine had no taste for adventure,—nothirst for gold. He was a man ofbooks and a man of affairs, profoundly interestedin all that pertained to the country, but tooyoung as yet either to hold office or vote.

He took his last winter’s journey to the South,and returned home to find his father near hisend, at the age of fifty-five years.

James was now twenty years old, and thepressure of new responsibilities was on him.His attention is turned to business matters, andhe displays the same capacity and aptitude whichin fuller power have characterized him.

He early became impressed with the extentand richness of the great coal-fields of Pennsylvania,and before he was thirty years of agemade those investments which have so enrichedhim in later years.

[97]It is the part of wisdom and sagacity in mento make the most of their first years, or thefirst half of life. This is an eminent feature inthe career of Mr. Blaine. There are no wastedyears in his life; no baneful habits to destroyhis energies or dry up the fountain of his joys.He is a clean, strong, vigorous man, and isable to celebrate the year of his majority witha more extensive preparation and experience asscholar, teacher, traveler, and man of business,and a brighter outlook for life, than falls to thelot of many young Americans.

In this year of 1851 transpired the eventmore propitious than any other. It was hismarriage, at Pittsburgh, to Miss Hattie Stanwood,the present Mrs. Blaine, a lady of fine cultureand rare good sense, who loves her homewith the devotion of a true wife and noblemother.

It would require the sagacity of a sage tohave predicted the future of Mr. Blaine, had itnot been his kindly fortune to have his lifecrowned with so much of goodness, wisdom, intelligence,and love, as is found in the companionof his honors and joys.

Six children, now living, have come in theseyears to honor their wedded life;—a goodlyfamily indeed.

It is perhaps not unworthy of remark that[98]during an entire century of the nation’s life, butone old bachelor was ever elected president, andhe the last resort of an expiring Democracy.

From 1852 to 1854 Mr. Blaine was principalteacher in the Institution for the Blind at Philadelphia,meanwhile reading law in the office ofTheodore Cuyler, who became a leading lawyerin that famed city, eminent for the greatness ofthe members of its bar.

These quiet years of reading and study andteaching in a great degree fitted Mr. Blaine forhis career as a statesman.

He fitted himself for admission to the bar,but never committed himself to the practice ofthe profession by assuming its functions. Thelove of journalism would not die. It was in hisheart. The time had come to give it light andopportunity. Often had the attractions of thePine Tree state been presented to him by Mrs.Blaine in all the glowing colors with whichyouth is accustomed to paint the scenes thatlie near its heart. No state had the charmsfor her possessed by the state of Maine. Hereshe was born, and here those dearest to herresided.

As yet they had not settled down for life.The time had come for their decision. Herpowers of argument, and its very eloquence oforatory, without aught of noise and gesture, but of[99]simple and quiet way, were brought into requisition,and it was decided not to go west andgrow up with the country, but go east andgrow where greatness has its models.

Maine has never wanted for great men; shehad them then, she has them to-day.

In 1854 Mr. Blaine removed with his familyto Augusta, the capital city of Maine, where hehas since resided.

He purchased, with Joseph Baker, the KennebecJournal, founded in 1823.

Now, the political field could be reviewed andstudied at will; the political arena was entered.The paper had been first started by a meetingof the principal citizens to found a Republicanpaper, and such it was in real earnest. Nolonger the secluded life of the student, or thequiet life of the teacher.

Embarking in journalism at such a time waslike embarking on the sea, where storms andcollisions abound; where icebergs show themselves,and rocks and reefs are found. Nocountry has more political storms and commotions,perhaps, than America. They are of allkinds and sizes, from city, town, county, up tostate and national storms, and blows, hurricanes,and tempests. In those times of the slaveoligarchy, they beat with a fury unknown to-day.Sometimes they were fierce in their[100]cruelty. It was a fight of great learning andprofound convictions on both sides, a fight ofdearest principle and of Christian faith.

President Taylor had died on the 9th of July,1850, and Millard Fillmore served out his termof office. March 4, 1853, Franklin Pierce, ofNew Hampshire, who, in 1846, had declined tobe Attorney-general in President Polk’s cabinet;also an appointment of United States Senatorby Governor Steele, and the Democratic nominationfor Governor, but had plunged into theMexican war and won his honors there, and whostood at the head of the New Hampshire bar,was inaugurated President, and ruled the nationwhen Mr. Blaine became an editor. He had apowerful cabinet, who, of course, were amongthe prominent public men of the time.

When Mr. Blaine entered political life, thoughnot of his ilk, there were William L. Marcy, ofNew York, Secretary of State; Robert M’Clelland,of Michigan, Secretary of the Interior;James Guthrie, of Kentucky, Secretary of theTreasury; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Secretaryof War; James Dobbins, of North Carolina,Secretary of the Navy; Caleb Cushing, ofMassachusetts, Attorney-general, and James Campbell,of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-general. Webster,Corwin, Stuart, Conrad, Graham, Crittenden,and Hall had been in Mr. Fillmore’s[101]cabinet. The time for Republican victory wasdrawing nigh, and the young editor was in positionto help bring it on.

It was the centennial of the city’s history.The celebration was very beautiful, an accountof which appeared in Mr. Blaine’s paper, theKennebec Journal, of July 6, 1854, and seemedauspicious of his arrival in the city, and theinauguration of his work.

Augusta is about midway between towns thatboast two of the leading institutions of learningin the state, Colby University at Waterville,and Bowdoin College at Brunswick, where Longfellowgraduated, and his class-mate, Hon. JamesW. Bradbury, who was, about this time, UnitedStates Senator from Maine, when the great menof the nation,—Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Douglas,Cass, and others,—were discussing in the senatethe constitutional and slavery questions involvedin the compromise measures.

It was a time and place where great historicinterests centered. It had been the scene ofgrave military operations, a fort and outposts onthe nation’s frontier, less than a hundred yearsbefore, had been conspicuous in the French andIndian wars.

The mind of Blaine was not long, with hispractical methods of historic research, in threadingout lines of history, entering the labyrinths of[102]knowledge of a mighty past, and a great andwondrous present, boxing the compass historically,as it were, until he knew the past and presentof his adopted state, and of New England, ashe had known his native state.

He came with no beat of drum and blare oftrumpet, but quietly, with no parade or display,and went to work with good grace and strongdetermination. He brought his capital with him.It had not been embezzled, nor squandered, norstolen. It was in a portable bank in which hehad been depositing his investments, or investinghis deposits, steadily for nearly twenty years.Already he had drawn compound interest, andyet, unlike air, water or money, the more hedrew, the more there was on deposit, brightand clear with the polish of the mint. He hadinvested in solid, reliable knowledge and education.He had taken stock in James G. Blaine,taught and trained him to think, to know, totalk, to write, and act. There is always a demandfor just such men. Communities wantthem, the state and nation wants them. Fromthe distant South, explored and carefully surveyedand estimated, he had come to the farthermostNorth and East, and here for life hishome is to be.

IT was not the policy of Mr. Blaine toundertake a work for which he wasnot specially fitted. General adaptationand preparation were not enough; hemust be master of the situation or not at all,so he did not sit down in the editorial chair atonce. He was among a new people. He mustknow them. His paper was published at thestate capital. He must know the state. Hemust know it politically, socially, morally, educationally,religiously. This required extensive travel.He must understand the demands of the people,their character and temperament.

The Kennebec Journal had not yet risen tothat standard of circulation and of excellence,its position warranted and required. In the wordsof one thoroughly conversant with its affairs,“The paper was badly run down.” It was theopposition paper, and had long been what, incommon parlance is known as “the under dog inthe fight.” There was the largest opportunity[104]for the display of the new editor’s push andtact in business matters. To these two things,therefore,—public acquaintance and businessaffairs,—he gave himself until November, 1854.

About this time a turn came in the politicaltide, and William Pitt Fessenden, “that goodWhig,” was elected to the United States senate,routing the Pillsbury Democracy. GovernorCrosby and his council were also Whigs.

Everything of a political character seemedhighly favorable for the best editorial work, justas after the war the highest statesmanship wasrequisite to garner and perpetuate its results,crystalize its victories, and thus secure theirglory untarnished.

So now conservatism, power, and radical might,—theone to hold, and the other to defend whathad been gained,—were needful. It did not takelong to catch the spirit of the hour. Mr. Blainehad been familiar with the fight from boyhood,and in the great campaign of General Harrisonhad seen, upon a grander scale, a similar victory.Now he was on the stage of action, in theresponsibilities of life.

He had really entered the state in one of thehappiest years, politically, of her history. It wasnot until several years later that the legislatureof his old state of Pennsylvania defeated theexpress wish of President Buchanan upon this[105]same issue, and sent Gen. Simon Cameron tothe senate in place of Mr. Buchanan’s selectedcandidate, John W. Forney. This, at the time,was said to be one of the most severe blowshis administration could receive.

In Maine it was the voice of the peopleagainst the nefarious attempt to fasten slaveryupon the territories, and against the repeal ofthe Missouri Compromise. Then the opponentsof slavery were not all abolitionists. They wererather restrictionists. In an address delivered byHenry Ward Beecher about this time, he makesthese two points,—

First.—“We must hedge in slavery as far aspossible.”

Second.—“Ameliorate the condition of theblacks to the extent of our ability.”

There were, indeed, abolitionists then, red hot,just as there are prohibitionists now, and asevents have proved, they were the vanguard ofVicksburg and Gettysburgh, where there were nocompromises of the Missouri, or any other kind,and no Mason and Dixon’s line, but lines ofbattle. And in the one case the words “surrenderof slaves,” written with bayonets dippedin blood, and in the other, resounding fromcannon and battle charge, the only alternative,“give in or go under.”

But the great political battles were being[106]fought now, not to kill men, but to save them,and to avert, if possible, the dread arbitramentof civil war with its consequences, more direthan pen could write or tongue could tell. Itwas a time for greatest wisdom and loftiestcourage.

Political life was the life of a soldier, andthe political field a field of battle, as the assaultupon Charles Sumner and Horace Greeley,at the nation’s capital testify.

No wonder the wise and prudent Pennsylvaniansurveyed the field with great deliberation,and gained the fullest possible knowledge of thesituation ere he balanced his spear for its firstlunge. It was but the putting on of his fullarmor ere the soldier enters the fray. It wasno business venture or financial investmentmerely, but rather the solemn dedication of himselfto the nation’s weal.

Then and there the public career begins thathas brought him to this hour. It is a careerof alternate wildest storm and serenest sunshine.There were at this time, practically, fourparties in Maine, and two great questions, bothof them moral in character, namely: Temperanceand Slavery. The Democratic party was splitinto two most radical sections, with slavery fortheir dividing line. Beside these were theWhigs and Liberalists.

[107]The birth-hour of the Republican party wasnear at hand. The elements were in existencedemanding organization. Already men in sympathywith each other upon the great questions ofthe day in the different parties and divisionshad acted together upon occasions of great politicalimportance, as in the election of Mr. Fessenden,an ardent Whig, to the senate. Anti-slaverymen, of the Democratic party, could anddid vote for him. The nation demanded theman, somewhat as to-day she demands anotherson of Maine. The New York Tribune, in anissue prior to his election, said,—“The nationwants him.” Not party names, but principles,ruled the hour.

Less than ninety days after Mr. Blaine, quillin hand, made his bow on the 10th of November,1854, to the people of Augusta and to thestate of Maine, the Republican party was inexistence, a full-fledged organization. Conventionshad met a little earlier in Wisconsin and inone of the counties of Maine for a similar purpose.Mr. Blaine was with the movement, heartand soul. He was present at its birth, and rejoicedin its existence. It had come into existencefull of life and power, as it had takennearly all the life and power out of the otherparties.

It had taken a minority of the Democrats, a[108]majority of the Whigs, and all of the Anti-slaveryor Liberty party. “Liberty national, Slaverysectional,” was upon its shield. No one, ofcourse, stopped to ask, in the rejoicing of thehour, how in the name of reason liberty couldbe national and slavery sectional. But theywere organized for victory, as right againstwrong. How auspicious and full of promise thatMr. Blaine should celebrate the twenty-fifth yearof his remarkable life by entrance with thisparty of progress and of power upon its marvelouscareer, himself an integral part of it, anda power within it.

About this time John L. Stevens, a man ofgreat good sense, takes Mr. Baker’s place, alarge law-practice demanding his attention, asco-editor of the Journal. But Mr. Stevens isso occupied with the details of party organization,that most of the editorial work at thistime falls to Mr. Blaine, and it shows greatvigor and ability.

One who was associated with him intimatelyat this time, in professional life, speaks of himas “a man of great natural and acquired ability,and of adaptation, familiar with all questions ofgovernment, with a remarkable facility for gettingat the core of a question, a man of genius andtalent to a striking degree”; and as we wentover year after year of editorials, some of them[109]very striking and forceful in their headings,about the time the young party of great menwas fairly on its feet, and had become the targetfor rifle shots from the enemy, the old manturned, and with that peculiar emphasis whichalways comes with conviction of the truth, said,“He always calculated to draw blood, if therewas a tender spot.”

He invariably struck to demolish when fightinghis great political battles. There was noplay about it, and none could doubt the moralearnestness of the man. It was a battle ofgreat moral ideas with him all the way through.

But his work was more largely literary inconducting the paper. It would be difficult tofind more solid or instructive reading in anypaper during those years. Mr. Blaine was himselfa great reader of the best journals and reviews,and with a high standard ever beforehim, not only in his own ideals, but also inthe great papers of the nation at his command,and having high aims and a mind whose richstores were constantly increased, and with allhis varied powers of expression, books were reviewed,the substance of lectures given, and thebest lecturers of the day entertained Augustaaudiences, and a multitude of articles uponvarious subjects abounded.

Within fifty days after he became editor, the[110]legislature met, and it devolved on him to gatherin the substance of their speeches and addresses,and record the principal part of their doings.This brought him into immediate and extensiveacquaintance with members of the senate, whosehall he chose to visit chiefly. They soon becameacquainted with him, and saw and felt hispower.

His life was stirring and active, and upon ascale quite in contrast with the life of a recluseteaching in the Blind Institute in Philadelphia,and quietly reading law only a year before.

Though a man of strong impulse at times,it is intelligent, purposeful, and under such controlthat upon such occasions he has won hishighest praise for brilliancy. He has made mistakesand blunders, and has had his share ofregrets and misgivings, giving ample proof thathe is a member of the human family.

Mr. Blaine’s old foreman, who was afterwardsproprietor of the paper, Howard Owen, says thathe wrote most of his editorials at home, andcame down to the office to see his numerousfriends, and that they would have great timespounding for “copy” while he was entertaininghosts of friends in the office below. One whoknows him well has written of him as a conversationalist.

Mr. Blame has few equals. He has a keen[111]appreciation of fun, and can tell a story with awonderful simplicity. There is no dragging prelude,no verbose details preceding a stupid finale;the story is presented always dramatically, andfired almost as from a gun, when the point isreached.

The dinner-table in the Blaine house is theplace where the gayest of good-natured pleasantryrules. From six to eight the dinner speeds undercover of running talk upon the incidents ofthe day.

Mr. Owen says that “when they came to ‘makingup the form’ Mr. Blaine would stand overhim and attend to every detail, decide the locationof every article, and give just that prominencethat would produce the best effect.” Itshowed the interest he took in the children ofhis own brain, and the great activity of theman.

His force of intellect, strength of constitution,and great endurance have been a marvel tomany.

He has lived his life on a rising tide, amidimmense prosperity, and the great cheerfulness oftemper thus produced has made life less a dragand more a joy to him.

He struck the current at the start, caught atit* flood that “tide in the affairs of men thatleads on to fortune.”

[112]He got into the national drift of the newparty and has kept it ever since. It was likea splendid ship, all staunch and strong, launchedat his hand; he sprang aboard, was soon at thehelm, and has steadily passed along the line ofhonorable promotion.

There have been storms whose fury hasbeen terrific; and there have been triumphswhose brightness has reflected the nation’sglory.

The paper improved in every way. They procuredthe state printing, and an increased circulation.

Mr. Blaine’s pleasant home on Green Street,where most of his children were born, was oneof comfort and happiness.

He soon became a favorite in Augusta, andamong the public men of the state. People loveto hear good things said well, and he neverfailed in this.

He soon appears on the Republican CentralCommittee. The party is victorious from thestart, and elects Anson P. Morrill Governor.Mr. Morrill is still living in Augusta, hale andhearty at eighty-one, a great reader, and soonafter his nomination called upon Mr. Blaine tocongratulate him. The name of J. G. Blaineappears as chairman of the Republican CentralCommittee soon after its organization, and thefollowing year he is presented as a candidatefor the legislature.

[113]He enters a city seventy-five years older thanhimself, rich with numbers of strong men, butis taken up and speedily honored with a placein the councils of the state.

It was an era of great and almost constantpolitical conventions. The remnants of the Whigparty and the Know-nothings kept up a strugglefor existence, but they were doomed, and failedto submit gracefully to the inevitable. Theymust be watched and won, if possible, to thenew party of the future, whose substantial, steadfastprinciples,—as expressed by Mr. Blaine andhis editorial colleague, Joseph Baker, in their inaugural,—werefreedom, temperance, river andharbor improvement within constitutional limits,homesteads for freemen, and a just administrationof the public lands of the state and nation;and the present testifies how well those principles,embracing all that were needful then in apolitical party, have been carried out.

The words “Liberty” and “Freedom,” in Mr.Blaine’s paper always began with capital letters.

The religious tone and character of the paperis worthy of note. It furnished a column of“Religious Intelligence” each week. Many ofits selected articles, notices of books, its correspondence,and even editorials, were deeply religious.[114]The work of that time was solemn, seriousbusiness. There was much of the Puritanand Pilgrim in the people then. There was areliance upon God, a demand for his wisdomexpressed in prayer and song and sermon, thattold that the importance and magnitude of thegreat principles at stake were fully appreciated.There had been so much failure in the past,so many parties had been organized and provedinadequate, and still the encroachments of slavery,the nation’s foe, continued with an audacityunparalleled. Already Kansas was concededto the slave-power; secession was already in theair. The great war was only seven years inthe future. A Charleston paper had stated theissue distinctly, “We must give up slavery orsecede,” as it viewed the first contests andsweeping victories of the new party. And Mr.Blaine, in a ringing editorial of caustic power,quoting the entire paragraph, said, “This is theexact issue, squarely stated.”

His life in Kentucky and extensive wintertrips through the South had been a revelationto him, and were now an inspiration. He knewwhat was in the South, and he knew what wasin the North, and he knew that they could notkeep house together for centuries, with slaves inthe country, without quarreling. And, moreover,he knew that the destinies of the country could[115]not be divided. She could not remain half slaveand half free. The South itself was not satisfiedwith this, as all their measures of legislation attheir various state capitals, and in Washingtonclearly indicated. Slavery must conquer or beconquered. Blaine saw it at that early day, asanyone may in the light of more recent events.

But this was not the position or demand ofthe Republican party then. Anti-slavery did notmean abolition. In 1855 the Free Democraticparty, as it was called, was achieving victoriesin the state of New York, and various phasesof the great question were championed in differentstates and sections, until the election of AbrahamLincoln in 1860. And it was not until about twoyears of the war were gone, and it was imperativelydemanded as a war-measure; not until ithad been held back for months by the sagaciousLincoln, after it was written, that the emancipationof the slave was proclaimed in statesthen in armed rebellion. But it was a factfated and decreed, signed, sealed, and deliveredin a higher than earthly tribunal, long yearsbefore.

There are always high-wrought souls, keenlyalive and sensitive to issues of the hour, whoseem ordained to catch the foreshadowing ofevents and report to others of duller and heaviermould. Mr. Blaine had projected himself upon[116]the future with the use of his princely personalpower, and with an eagle eye had readout the doom and destiny of that “peculiarinstitution” which violated the fundamental principleof the government, the great end for whichit was established,—a doom which nothing couldavert. God’s time for liberty had come, andchosen men far out upon the frontier of humanthought had watched its dawn and seen it mountthe heavens.

But first, the shining of this same sun mustproduce a similar harvest of ideas, where themists of a false and sophistical political philosophy,and the fogs of a wrong and vicious scienceof government, and an unnatural and cruel selfishnessand monopoly of liberty prevent thecleanest vision, the fullest knowledge, and themost righteous thought.

At this time Mr. Blaine was closely andsharply following the course of the Pro-slaveryparty. We give a single extract from his paperin 1855, as showing what facts the party hadto stir its thought and fire its heart,—factsthat read strangely in the light of to-day, andwhich had a strange, ominous look even then.

Some are ready now with their verdict ofprinciple, despite the mists and fogs and storms;yet not all. The party of Freedom organized incounties and states all over the country, mustbe brought together, unified and organized as agreat national party; a convention must be heldand all must be invited who can be induced toaffiliate. It is a preliminary meeting, as it precedesthe great organization. They want toget acquainted and see their strength. It is tobe a time of great argument and powerfulspeeches. Where so appropriate to hold it as inthe goodly city of Philadelphia? Whigs, Know-nothings,Free-soilers, are to be there; anti-slaveryDemocrats, and staunch Republicans.

Mr. Blaine was there. It continued for eightdays. Its value lay in the full and free discussion[118]of the absorbing questions of the day, bypeople widely separated and subjected to variedlocal influences. Men were influenced by mercantileand commercial, by social and domesticinterests; by educational and religious interests,and it is almost impossible for many minds ofmost excellent, though conservative quality, to riseabove fixed orders of things to the clear apprehensionand vigorous grasp of a great principle.

Early education or neglect, also, may havedwarfed or blunted perceptions and capabilities;but, however, they came largely to see, eye toeye, and great progress was made. There wasa lengthening of cords and strengthening ofstakes, and on the 22d of February, 1856, theRepublicans met in Pittsburgh and appointed itsnational committee, and arranged for its firstnominating convention. The aim of the party,according to Mr. Blaine’s voluminous report, hadbeen declared to be “the restoration of thegovernment to the policy of its founders; itsideal of patriotism, the character of Washington;its vital philosophy, that of Jefferson; its watchwords,American enterprise and industry, Slaverysectional, Freedom national.”

The delegates of twelve Northern states withdrewfrom the Philadelphia convention, and leftthe New York and Southern delegates to theirfate.

[119]Mr. Blaine’s work is principally at home, withinthe boundaries of his adopted state. But fiercerthan ever, the fires of the great conflict are raging.

Jefferson has remarked, that “in the unequalcontest between freedom and oppression, the Almightyhad no attribute that could take partwith the oppressor.” And yet the Democraticparty, in violation of its name and prestigecould invoke the shades of this great man;could continue its warfare upon the life of thenation, and its encroachments upon the constitution,and violation of a plighted faith whereverslavery made its frightful demands.

At the head of his editorial column, Mr.Blaine kept these words, printed in capitals,from the last great speech delivered by HenryClay in the United States senate, “I repeat it,sir, I never can and I never will, and noearthly power can make me vote, directly orindirectly, to spread slavery over territory whereit does not exist. Never, while reason holds itsseat in my brain; never, while my heart sendsits vital fluid through my veins, NEVER!”

Wm. H. Seward was battling against “the fallof constitutional liberty” in the senate. TheFugitive Slave Act had passed in 1850, and theMissouri Compromise abrogated in 1854, andnow an extreme measure is pending to protectUnited States officers in the arrest of fugitive[120]slaves. Mr. Blaine prints the great speech infull. It had the true Republican ring.

Mr. Blaine’s final editorial for 1855, prior tothe Republican convention, and first presidentialcampaign, is every way so fine a summary ofthe situation, and affords so clear a view of theman in all the moral earnestness of his powersand wide comprehension of the subject, that wegive two or three extracts from his editorial inthe Kennebec Journal of Dec. 28, 1855, on the“Condition of the Country”:—

THE great year of Republicanism dawns,in which its friends are to meet,and its foes are to feel its power.Men had been hearing the voiceof conscience on the moral questions of thenation. Money had stiffled it with some; forothers the climate and location were not propitious;blight and mildew had struck some,—darknessto them was light, black was white.Some, perchance, held the truth in unrighteousness;trimmers and time-servers abounded. Butthe press and the pulpit had been great educators.God was in the contest, and it was beginningto be apparent. There were light andglory all about the sky, but reformations thatreform, and revolutions that revolutionize havein them not only forceful, but voluntary powers.There are always those who will not be persuadedor won, on all grave questions. Theymust be passed by or overpowered.

To get men into position upon all questions[123]of the nation’s life and destiny, it is needful tofirst get the questions into position. Republicanshad undertaken a herculean task. It wasnot the emancipation of slaves, but of the nationitself. The thraldom of a mighty woe was onher.

Mr. Blaine entered the year with the samegreat purpose, and the same bold enunciation ofprinciples. He was a true knight. His pen wasmightier than the sword. It was never idle,never cold. From home to office, and office tosenate, and back to office and home he went,day by day, wherever truth and right could beserved.

Washington’s birthday came soon, and with itthe Republican gathering at Pittsburgh, and thenthe great convention that nominated Frémontand Dayton at Philadelphia, in the summer of1856;—Blaine was there; it was on his nativeheather. Never had men listened so intentlysince the farewell address of Washington; rarelyhad they thought, and felt, and resolved sodeeply. Conscience and will, intelligence andlove, were in all they thought, and said, anddid. They chose their men for standard-bearers,and fought out the hard, bitter fight. It was agood fight, and they kept the faith.

It was on his return from the convention inPhiladelphia that he was selected, of all who[124]went, to report to the citizens at home. It washis first oratorical effort in Augusta, if not hisfirst since leaving college. His pen had donethe work. There had been no demand for oratory.He surprised himself and astonished hishearers, and from that hour the door was openfor him to enter the state legislature.

An old friend and neighbor of Mr. Blaine has,since his nomination, given the following sketchof the speech:—

“This was his first public effort. He was thentwenty-six years of age. Although remarkablyready and easy of speech and holding a practicedand powerful pen, he had an almost unconquerablerepugnance to letting his voice beheard, except in familiar conversation, where hisbrilliant powers of statement and argument, hismarvelous memory of dates and events in politicalhistory, and his acquaintance with, and keenestimate of the public men and parties of theday, were the delight and wonder of all wholistened to him. The writer well recalls thetrepidation, at once painful and ludicrous, withwhich he rose to address the meeting. In confrontingthe sea of faces, almost every one ofwhich was known to him, he seemed to bestruggling to master the terror that possessedhim. He turned pale and red by turns, andalmost tottering to the front, he stood trembling[125]until the generous applause which welcomed himhad died away, when, by a supreme effort, hebroke the spell, at first by the utterance ofsome hesitating words of greeting and thanks,and then gathering confidence, he went on witha speech which stirred the audience as with thesound of a trumpet, and held all present inbreathless interest and attention to its close.From that moment Mr. Blaine took rank amongthe most effective popular speakers of the day;but it may be doubted if among the many maturerefforts of his genius and eloquence uponthe political platform or the legislative tribune,he has ever excited an audience to a more passionateenthusiasm, or left a profounder impressionupon the minds and hearts of his hearers.”

His editorials of this year would fill a largevolume, and all bold, trenchant, and uncompromisingin tone. His experience of the year beforehad just fitted him for this hard, strongwork. The temptation is exceedingly great tomake copious extracts, for it is our single effortto cause the man to appear in all the just andworthy splendor of his enduring manhood, andif a scar is found in all of wide research, nohand shall cover it.

Not alone the great cause, but the great menwho embodied it, were to him an inspiration.Next to books, men were his study. He studied[126]the nation in them, and all the questions theyincarnated. Henry Wilson was to him an inspiration.“All praise to the cold and lofty bearingof Henry Wilson at the Philadelphia convention,”he writes of him in his issue of June 22, 1854.And all the great, strong men of the partyloomed up before him at full stature, and had alarge place in his affections. They were theapostles of liberty to him.

The last year of Mr. Blaine’s journalistic careerin Augusta was tame compared with otheryears, and yet the paper continued a splendidspecimen of what the leading paper at the statecapital ought to be,—rich in every department,and justly noted for the courage and acumenof its editorial writings.

The great presidential campaign had resultedin the election of James Buchanan, to whomthe Richmond Enquirer immediately gave thisfriendly word of caution: “The president electwill commit a fatal folly if he thinks to organizehis administration upon any other principlethan that of an avowed and inflexible supportof the rights and institutions of the slave-holdingstates. He who is not with us is againstus, and the South cannot attach itself to anadministration which occupies a neutral ground,without descending from its own lofty and impregnableposition.”

[127]In announcing the cabinet of Mr. Buchananand the Dred Scott decision in the same issue,Mr. Blaine says,—“The conquest of slavery iscomplete. President, cabinet, congress, judiciary,treasury, army, navy, the common territory ofthe union are all in its hands to be directed asits whims shall direct.” The five great acts inthe drama of national shame and degradation hementions as, “the Fugitive Slave Act, repeal ofthe Missouri Compromise, the raid on Kansas,election of James Buchanan, and the supremecourt decision in the Dred Scott case.”

It was a great deal for the nation to endure,but it was the thing to arouse the nation tothe iniquity to be overthrown by the Republicanparty in the next election. Five of the ninejudges were from the South, and two of theothers, Nelson and Grier, were selected withspecial regard to their fidelity to the slave-holdinginterests of the South.

But there was some honor and joy in thefact that Hannibal Hamlin was Governor ofMaine, and United States senator elect. Hisinaugural address Mr. Blaine heads,—“A ParalyticStroke.”

It was, indeed, a time for great men to speakout, and this Mr. Hamlin did with power. Sogreatly had the Journal prospered under thefirm management of Stevens and Blaine, that they[128]removed from the office at the corner of Oakand Water Streets, which it had occupied fortwenty-four years, and at great expense, addednew and improved machinery. This had scarcelybeen done a month when Mr. Blaine’s namedisappears from its management. He had soldhis interest in the paper for “a good, handsomeprice,” and invested it all, beside money loanedfrom a brother-in-law, in coal lands in Pennsylvania.

He urged his partner, Mr. Stevens, tosell out his interest and do the same. Thisinvestment, says Mr. Stevens, was very fortunate,and has yielded him handsome returns.But Mr. Blaine was wanted on the PortlandDaily Advertiser. John M. Wood, a man ofwealth, owned it, and was looking around for anable editor. Mr. Blaine had acquired a reputationas editor, and was offered the position, whichhe accepted at three thousand dollars a yearsalary, but never removed to Portland.

This year of 1857 is remembered as the yearof the great financial crash. It was anythingbut a crash to Mr. Blaine. He had sold hispaper, which he had brought into a leading positionin state journalism, at a large advance,made a profitable investment of his funds, goneon a salary of the first-class, for the time, andalso been nominated and elected a member of[129]the state legislature, as one of the two representativesof the city of Augusta.

His popularity is seen in the fact that at thetime of this seeming break-up, when if he hadbeen a machine man with insatiable political aspirationshe would certainly have held on to hispaper, and parted with it at no price, he artlesslysells out and enters business about eightymiles from home. But the people wanted him.He would not leave their midst. He had servedthe cause of his espousal with ability and fidelityfor three years, and the time had come tohonor him.

It is not often that a man so young comesinto an old established state, and in a time sobrief makes for himself a name and a place solarge.

It is only needful to read over the files ofthat paper from the first hour his pen touchedit to see that he had made for himself a placeso large. He had put himself into its columns,and so into the life both of the state and thenation. He lived, and thought, and wroughtfor that paper. That was the instrument of hispower. The bold thunder of artillery is heardalong its columns; the charge of cavalry andthe sweep of infantry are seen and felt upon itspages. There is push, and dash, and rush, andswing, and hurrah along the whole battle-line[130]where he stood and fought through those years.It was a manly fight. He stood squarely to theline. It was all upon the broad scale of thenation’s existence and welfare. He spoke thetruth as such; he had no dreams to tell.

He took no vacation, but summer and winterwas at his post. In July and August there isno relaxation, but the same dash of breakers onthe shore. No wonder he was in demand elsewhere,and the fee was large. He was a businesssuccess, and had made a success of politicsthus far. The first Republicans of Mainehad gone into office mid the glow of hisgenius, and now his turn had come. It was aweekly before, but now it was a daily, and aseat in the legislature to fill beside. But hewas abreast of the times, a full man, a largeman, with immense capabilities of work, and astrong, tenacious memory, or he could neverhave done the work of two men steadily, andfour men much of the time, and a man destinedfor leadership. He took to Portland all hispowers, and soon was felt as fire is felt, or therising sun, for foes and friends learned speedilyof his presence. Every day was a field-day inpolitics then. It was a political revival all theyear round. No ponds or pools were visible.There were currents in every stream. Therewas a mighty flood to the tides. The states[131]were raising men and building characters. Theywere mining gold and minting it. Life thenwas a Bessemer steel-process; the heat was intense,and hydraulic pressure drove out all impurities.The great columbiads that did theexecution were cast before the war; they werelarge of calibre and deep of bore, and thoroughlyrifled, for it was the men who mannedthe guns in war times who made the guns manthe rebellion.

The clouds are drawing water and marshalingforces for the sweep of a mighty storm,—the stormof a righteous judgment, of a holy justice. It wasGod’s storm and must come. Already the lightningplayed furiously along the sky, and mutteringsof thunder could be distinctly heard. Theair grew thick, and heavy, and dark. All signswere ominous. From throne to cloud, and cloudto brain, and brain to pen, the electric currentflew. Men were thinking the thoughts of God.They were being filled with his vision and armedwith his purpose. No times were grander sincemen had pledged their lives, and fortunes, andsacred honor at the shrine of Liberty, for itsperpetuation; and now their sons from heights ofmanhood just as lofty, were breathing the samespirit and plighting the same faith. How menstretch upward to a kingly height when suchgrand occasions come, or wither and waste like[132]froth on the billows that charge along theshore!

It was promotion to rank of greater influencewhen Mr. Blaine took his sceptre of power inPortland. Six times a week instead of once, hewent out in teeming editorials to the people.Every department of the paper was enriched andfelt the thrill of his presence. He was a graduatein journalism now. Its ways were all familiar.His study of it and experience had broughthim the ability of hard, rapid work. It was thetestimony of his old associate at Augusta, thathe would go at once to the core of a subject,and get the wheat out of the chaff. The beginningand ending of an article, he said, wereits heavy parts, and Mr. Blaine knew just whereto look, whether in newspaper, review, or book.

He always found what he wanted, and so wasalways armed to the teeth with fact and incident,with argument and illustration. He hadthe eye and ear and pen of the true journalist.

Some men have a peculiar faculty for gettingat what is going on. They seem to know byinstinct. It is not always told them, but theyare good listeners, as all great men are. Theyare men of great industry; search and researchare ever the order with them.

Some men are sound asleep when the decisivehours of life are passing, others seem ever awake[133]It is this ability to see, and hear, and feel, tocatch and ever know, that has made Mr. Blainea living centre of the political intelligence of histime. As a student of history he had learnedthe ways of men and nations, the policies ofgovernments, and the methods of their execution,their meteorology, mineralogy, and ways of navigation,—fornations have all of these, politicalweather, materials of construction, together withtides and currents in their affairs, besides rocksand reefs and coasts of danger. The right waysare always the great ways, the light the bestways.

All the light of any subject comes from thetruth it holds within, and the man of masteryis the man of light and life and energy. It is unfilledcapacity that makes of so many the soundingbrass and tinkling cymbal. Unfed, untrained,and unworked minds have filled the world withwrecks.

Mr. Blaine is climbing the ladder now. Comingup out of the ranks, as some must come, withworth or worthlessness.

It was General Taylor’s great difficulty inMexico to bring on a battle. This at times requiresthe ablest generalship; but this he finallysucceeded in doing at Buena Vista, and so created[134]the occasion of his greatest victory. Thiswas a power in the tactics of Mr. Blaine. Hewas never afraid to attack, and never out of ammunition,however long the siege or strong thefoe.

Soon after he entered the legislature Mr.Blaine encountered Ephraim K. Smart, one of thegreatest men of his party, a man who had beenin congress, and afterward was twice their candidatefor governor. While in congress he hadopposed the extension of slavery in Kansas, andthe repeal of the Missouri Compromise whichlimited slavery to the Southern states; but now,during the Buchanan régime, when the partyseemed hopelessly sold to slavery, he went backon his record, swore by the party, and stood byits record, regardless of his own.

Mr. Blaine was thoroughly posted, and whenthe time came turned it against him in debate.It was a time of danger at the nation’s capital;assaults were frequent, thrilling scenes were enactedeverywhere. Each hour brought the countrynearer the verge of war. Our man was fearlessand he was strong,—strong in the right,strong in his knowledge of the situation, strongin the command of his powers; so with his everaggressive spirit of true progress, he hurled hislance. With a merciless skill he unfolded thehistory of the man, with all of its inconsistencies,[135]sophistry, and contradiction, and reachingthe climax he held it up to view, and advancingtowards him (his name was Ephraim), he said,with great dramatic power, “Ephraim is a cakeunturned, and we propose to turn him.”

Imagine if you can the bewildered consternationof the man! It was one of Mr. Blaine’sfirst triumphs in the house, and a stride towardthe speaker’s chair.

With this same spirit and power he did hiswork at Portland. His position afforded him thebest opportunity for news of every sort, and hislegislative work was largely in the line of hiseditorial, so that preparation for the one was fitnessfor the other. Yet life was full to thebrim. He was a man of immense vitality, andis to-day, as almost daily intercourse with himcan testify.

The first day of his duties in the legislaturehe is appointed chairman of a committee of fiveto inform the newly-elected governor, Lot M.Morrill, of his election. Thus he is recognizedand honored as the chief one, worthy to representthe body in the presence of the governor.

A few days after, he presented a long, well-wordedresolution that the house, in concurrencewith the senate, according to certain forms oflaw indicated, proceed, upon the following Tuesday,at twelve o’clock, to elect a United States senator[136]to succeed Hon. Wm. Pitt Fessenden, whoseterm expired on the fourth of March, of thatyear. Also an important resolution submittingan amendment of a legal character to their consideration,thus showing that his knowledge oflaw was utilized by him as a law-maker.

As one of the chairmen of the State Prisoncommittee of the house he delivers a longspeech upon the 17th and 18th of March in replyto one delivered by the same Hon. E. R.Smart, who had opposed resolutions presented byMr. Blaine’s committee upon improving the presentprison and building another.

Mr. Smart was evidently the aggressor, andvery much his senior in age, but Mr. Blainesharply tells him that large portions of hisspeech were irrelevant, having been delivered thenight before in a democratic meeting downtown;calls him the Earl of Warwick to theDemocratic Plantagenets; compares him, withgreat vigor, to a character in Gil Blas, who hadwritten a book in support of certain remediessure to cure, and which, though utterly futile,he argued with a friend he must continue topractice, because he had written the book, andso Mr. Smart must inflict his speech because hehad written it.

Blaine was well-armed; had a wide array ofstatistics; had, indeed, been over the ground[137]thoroughly the year before with the governor,and written it up for his paper, and showedhimself competent to take care of his committee.

A short time before this he had made ahandsome little speech in favor of a resolve introducedby this same leader of the Democracy,in which he desired a new county formed, andhis own town of Camden made the shire-town,and yet Mr. Blaine’s measure, a necessity, andfor the public good, is violently assailed.

A careful examination of the proceedings ofthe legislature prove this to be a fact, thatMr. Blaine was a devoted, constant, and faithfulmember; that about every motion he made wascarried; and that he ranked in ability as aspeaker, both in matter and method, with thebest of them. His three years’ work as aneditor had made him well acquainted with itsmembers, and thoroughly conversant with theways of the house, so that he was thoroughlyat home in their midst, with none of the nervousdiffidence which a new member from thecountry, however good and honest he might be,would be very likely to have. He spoke aboutas he wrote. He had written about five hundredgood, solid editorials in the previous years,as they issued a tri-weekly during the sessionof the legislature, and in reporting its doingshad caught the drift of its operations.

[138]Moreover, he had a good business preparationfor his work. He had been largely upon hisown resources for ten years, and in the businessmanagement of his paper, and in studying upthe business interests of the city and of thestate, he had acquired experience and knowledge.No one, it would seem, can read the record ofhis speeches, short and long, or the motions hemade, resolves he offered, without being impressedthat he had a clear, strong way oflooking at questions. He could tell the huskfrom the corn at a glance, and if he had anythingto do with a member’s speech would tearoff the husk without any ceremony and makequick search for the corn.

But the affairs of the country were in a badway as Mr. Blaine was daily recording them.There had been over nine thousand businessfailures in the country in 1857 and 1858; or, tobe exact, there were four thousand nine hundredand thirty-two in 1857, and four thousand twohundred and twenty-five in 1858, with a loss ofthree hundred and eighty-seven million four hundredand ninety-nine thousand six hundred andsixty-two dollars, a sum in those days of enormousproportion. Slave-holders, who had thepower then, were urging the purchase of Cuba,at a cost of two hundred million dollars, forthe purposes of slavery.

[139]The country seemed to be at a stand-still, orgoing backwards. The state of Vermont had increasedin population but one thousand six hundredand fifty-seven in ten years, from 1850 to1860.

Senators Crittenden, of Kentucky, and Seward,of New York, had a passage of words in thesenate, and apologized.

Fessenden had been re-elected to the UnitedStates Senate, and New Hampshire had goneRepublican.

But Stephen A. Douglas had beaten AbrahamLincoln for the senate from Illinois by a voteof fifty-eight to forty-four, and Seward had introducedhis famous bill for the repression ofthe slave trade, just to bring the Southern senatorsinto position on that subject, and this onlya year before Lincoln was nominated. It providedfor ten steamers, as a part of the navy,to cruise along the coast of Africa, as thepresident might direct.

About this time Oregon is admitted as thesecond state on the Pacific coast.

Mr. Blaine deals with all the questions of theday with skill and effectiveness. A municipalelection is going on in Portland, and Mr. Blainedoes his part by tongue and pen to aid inachieving a Republican victory, which is triumphantlyaccomplished just as the legislature is[140]closing. But Mr. Blaine has time to deliver hisbest speech of the session, on Friday beforefinal adjournment on Tuesday, April 5th, after asession of ninety days. Now he has nearly ninesolid months of straight editorial work. The onegreat object is ever prominent,—slavery mustgo, or it must be restricted and kept out ofthe territories. The country is in great commotion;state after state fights out its battles andwheels into line. In border states, especially,political revolutions are taking place. The gospelof Liberty is taking the place of the hardpolitical doctrines of pro-slavery Democracy. Mr.Blaine has to fire at long range, so efficientlyhas the work been done at home, but it ischeering to see the beacons lighted along thecoast of Maine, and to know that the bonfiresare lighted all over the state. Men have alreadybeen trained and gone forth to do yeoman servicein other states. The Washburns are inIllinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, while IsraelWashburn, Jr., has just been elected governorof the home state.

In 1860 Mr. Blaine is elected speaker of theHouse, although his colleague, William T. Johnson,of Augusta, was speaker the year before.The singular popularity of the man is thusdemonstrated, as he takes the chair, escorted toit by his defeated competitor; his words are[141]few but in the best of taste. Mr. Blainesaid,—

He is in a position of power and influencenow; he is in the third office of the state.His ability will be tested; great presence ofmind, quickness of decision, tact, and skill areneedful. But he is ready and at his ease. Hehas the knowledge requisite, and experienceseems born of the man. He fits wherever placed.He must know each member, and he knowsthem; he must be just, and fair, and honorable,and he is all of these by virtue of a broad,generous nature.

Mr. Blaine is speaker of the House of Representativesof the state of Maine, not becauseof any one good quality,—he is excelled in singlequalities by many another,—but because of a[142]large combination of good qualities, and these,cultivated to a high degree. This it is thatwins; many a face is beautiful in some one ormore of its features, but so distorted in othersthat the effect is bad, and beauty, which is theharmonious blending of many lines upon thecanvas or features on the face, is lost. Characteris the restoration of moral order in the individual;let this be broken by some defect,omission, or failure, some secret or overt act,and the harmony is lost, and a once fair characteris marred.

Thus it is not so much the symmetry as thelarge and splendid combination of talents andgenius which make him what he is. He simplydoes his best, and keeps himself at his best allthe time. He anticipates every occasion, andhas forces in reserve all the time, and they arebrought forward, if his tactics are not known, veryunexpectedly. The most telling points in all hisearlier speeches are not brought out at first,and when they do appear you wonder why he didnot produce them before, and this very wonderincreases its power on you. This is rather anecessity, it would seem, because there is pointand pith, and power all through.

A great year of destiny is before the nation;a mighty, conquering battle-year. Slavery refusesany concessions, and Liberty loves itself too well[143]to be compromised. The great convention ofRepublicans in the old wigwam in Chicago is anevent of so great importance that all minorevents dwindle before it. James G. Blaine isthere.

Excitement is at the highest pitch. The toneand temper of the North is felt and feared.The old Democratic party is shattered into fragments.It has several wings, but no body. TheUnion seems on the verge of dissolution. Butstrong men, tried and true, who cannot bebrow-beaten and crushed; men who have notbeen deceived or intimidated, or despoiled oftheir convictions since the Whig party sold outto Slavery in 1852; men who have waited eighteenlong, eventful years for the iron to gethot enough to strike, are there; there in theirpower; there, not to become demoralized, anddrop their guns and run, but to stand firm andstrong in a mighty phalanx, and do tremendousbattle for tremendous right against tremendouswrong.

William H. Seward is the choice of men, butAbraham Lincoln is the choice of God. He hasbeen fitting and training him for half a century,much as he trained Moses, the great leader andemancipator of his ancient people. They try invain to elect their man. The way is hedgedup; ballot after ballot is taken, but it cannot[144]be done. Finally, the moment comes, and “honestold Abe” is crowned by the hand of a remarkableProvidence, and God’s will is done.

Men shake their heads, but high yonder onhis throne the King does his thinking. All isclear to him. Well-nigh a century of prayeris to be answered.

Mr. Blaine’s description of the sessions andimpressions at Chicago, make the great, inspiringscenes live before the imagination, and show howhis broad, eager mind took it all in.

Ten of the Maine delegation were for Seward,and six for Lincoln. A meeting was called, andan effort made by the Seward men to win theLincoln delegates to their side. Wm. H. Evartswas then in his prime, and was called in to makethe speech. He spoke for forty-five minutes, andhis speech, it was said, was “a string of pearls.”Mr. Blaine stood just behind him, and thoughgreatly delighted with the beauty and brilliancyof the address, remained a firm Lincoln man tothe end.

He had no vote then, but he had a voice anda pen. From that time he was a great admirerand friend of Mr. Evarts. This convention greatlyenlarged Mr. Blaine’s knowledge of men and acquaintancewith them.

The party in the four years since Frémont andDayton had been nominated at Philadelphia, under[145]the goading provocations of Buchanan’s administration,the frequent exhibition of the hornsand hoofs of Slavery, and the unwearied agitationin congress, and in every state, county, and townof the North, the East, and the West, had madea sturdy, constant, determined growth, a developmentof back-bone, and a kindling of nerve thatimparted courage and sent joy to the heart.

It brought into the life of Mr. Blaine, morethan ever, the life and grandeur, the power andgreatness of the party to which he had weddedhis destiny, giving his hand and his heart. Hewas in complete sympathy with every principleand every measure. No man living more fully,and clearly, and strongly, represents the ideas andpurposes of the men then at the front,—the leadingmen to whom was entrusted the guidanceand responsibility, for he himself was then at thefront,—than does he.

He is, and has been, right through, the defenderand conservator of all that was dear, andprecious, and grand, then. Few men did more tohelp elect Mr. Lincoln, or to make his administrationa power in the North. He was under fireconstantly, but then he was firing constantly himself,and doing execution that told every hour forthe nation’s good.

The North was surely aroused as never before,on fire with a great and mighty excitement that[146]rolled in waves and billows from ocean to lake,and lake to gulf. There was no general on theside of Slavery that could command all the forces.It had come to be in fact a house divided againstit*elf. Their convention at Charleston was brokenup, and Mr. Douglas nominated at Baltimore, andtwo other candidates, Breckenridge and Bell, elsewhere.The serpent seemed stinging itself todeath. But in the great party of the Norththere is a solid front, no waver along the entireline. They simply fight their great political battleafter the true American style of the Fathers,in a most just and righteous manner, and for acause most just and righteous.

Mr. Blaine was on the stump, as he had beenthe year before, making speeches that the peopleloved to hear. The campaign usually closed inMaine in September, when the state officers wereelected, and as the convention in Chicago washeld in May, they had but three months to dothe work that other states did in five months.Owing to the illness of his old friend and businesspartner, he edited the Kennebec Journal forfive or six months during the summer and autumnof 1860, so that he was back upon his oldground during the great campaign, sitting at thesame desk.

The people loved him, and he loved them.“Send us Blaine,” would come from all over the[147]state. “We must have him, we will have him.”And he would go. It seemed as if he would gofarther, do more, and get back quicker than anyother man, and seemingly remember everybody.

Ex-Gov. Anson P. Morrill, his old politicalfriend and neighbor says, “I would go out andaddress perhaps an acre of people, and be introducedto a lot of them, and like enough, in sixmonths or a year, along would come a man andsay, ‘How are you? Don’t you know me?’ andI would say ‘No,’ and then the man would turnand go off; but Blaine would know him as soonas he saw him coming, and say, ‘Hello,’ and callhim by name right off.

“There,” he said, and he laid his gold-bowedspectacles on the table, and continued, “a littlebetter than a year ago he was in here, and wesat at this table, and the spectacles laid there,and he took them up and said, as he looked atthem closely, ‘If those are not the very samegold-bowed spectacles you bought in Philadelphiain 1856.’

“‘Why, how do you know?’ I asked in surprise.

“‘Why I was with you, and you bought themat such a place on such a street.’

“And that,” said the governor, “was twenty-sixyears before. Now did you ever hear of anythinglike that? I didn’t. Why, I’d even forgotten[148]that he was there. I tell you that beatme; and I asked him ‘what made you think ofit now?’

“‘O, I don’t know,’ said Mr. Blaine, ‘I justhappened to see them lying there, and thoughtof it.’

“Well, it must be a good thing for you to rememberthings that way.”

“And he simply replied, without any boasting,or in a way to make his honored friend feelthat he felt his superior faculty in the least,—

“‘O, yes, it is, at times.’”

Gov. A. P. Morrill is a fine sample of a realdown-east Yankee, of the old style; a man ofsterling worth and integrity, and of the hardestof common sense, and takes a special pride inMr. Blaine, as he was at one time of great assistanceto him in a political way.

“The first time I saw Blaine,” he said, “wasthe night before my inauguration; he called atmy hotel and wanted a copy of my address. Hewas simply a young man then, very pleasant inhis manner. But how he has grown. Yes, thatis the secret of it; he has been a growing manever since, and so he has come right up andgone right along.”

His own re-election to the legislature is a minormatter in the campaign of ’60, in comparisonwith the election of Mr. Lincoln president.[149]As this state votes earlier than many of theothers, the effort is to roll up a large majority,and have great gains, so as to carry moral powerwith it, and thus encourage other states who arestanding with them in the contest.

It is interesting to note the position of partiesor presidential candidates at this time. Mr. Lincolnwould prohibit by law the extension of slavery.This was exactly the position of the candidatewith him for vice-president, the Hon. HannibalHamlin, a strong friend of Mr. Blaine.

Mr. Hamlin had originally been a Democrat ofthe Andrew Jackson type, but when the MissouriCompromise, which prohibited the extensionof slavery, was repealed, he entered the Republicanparty at its formation, and as candidatefor governor in Maine in 1856, was a powerfulfactor in breaking down the Democratic party.

Mr. Breckenridge would extend slavery by law,and was of course the slave-holders candidate.Douglas, the candidate of the Northern Democrats,would not interfere; simply do nothing toprocure for slavery other portions of the fairdomain of Liberty to despoil. This, of coursemade him unpopular in the South, where thedemand was for more states to conquer for our“peculiar institution.” The cry of the DouglasDemocrats,—and they counted their wide-awakesby the thousand, who marched with torch and[150]drum,—“The Constitution as it is, and theUnion as it was.” The Bell and Everett factionwere simply for saving the Union without tellinghow.

What a field these four great armies, eachwith its chosen leader, occupied, and each conductinga hot, fierce campaign, determined towin, and determined to believe they would win.Slavery was the great disturbing element. Itwas all a question of how to deal with thismonster.

Mr. Lincoln was elected, and Blaine was againon the winning side.

But Mr. Blaine had another great interest inthe political campaign of this year. A Mr.Morse, of Bath, had been in congress fromanother part of the third Maine district, in whichAugusta is located, and it was thought time fora change, and Gov. A. P. Morrill wanted Blaineto run, but Morse was a strong man and Blainewas young, and a new man comparatively, andthough he was speaker of the House of Representatives,he thought it not prudent at thattime to subject himself to such a test. “Foolsrush in where Angels fear to tread.”

Mr. Blaine was in a good position, and growingrapidly, and so he urged the strong andsagacious governor to try it himself, and Blainewent into the campaign and helped achieve the[151]victory,—for victory it was by seven thousandmajority.

Mr. Blaine, it would seem, who possessed aninstinct for journalism so wonderful and fine,possessed one equally well-developed for politics.He well-knew that his rapid promotion wouldawaken jealousies, prejudice, and envy, and alsothat he needed and must have time to grow.There was one at least in the state legislaturewho had been in congress, and he did not wishto “advance backward,” as the colored servantof the rebel General Buckner called it.

Mr. Blaine is a man of caution and carefulness,because he is a man of great thoughtfulness anddeliberation. When he has thought a subjectthrough, and it is settled, and he feels just right,he is ready, and his courage rises, and so hemoves with great power and determination. Ifthe action seems rash to any, it is becausethey are not informed upon a subject upon whichhe is conversant.

Mr. Blaine had seen his man nominated atChicago, and triumphantly elected over a stupendous,well-organized, and desperate opposition. Hehimself is returned to the legislature. His friend,Ex-Gov. A. P. Morrill, is secured for congress, andIsrael Washburn, Jr., a grand Republican, electedgovernor over the man who felt and learned tofear the power of Mr. Blaine in the legislature[152]the year before, Ephraim K. Smart. But, notwithstandingall of these triumphs, and the prospectivecleansing and regeneration of the country,the present condition is most appalling.

Secession is the chief topic throughout theSouth, and in every debating society in everycollege, and in every lyceum in every town orcity, the question is being discussed with thegreatest warmth, “Can a Southern state secede?”or “Can the government coerce a state?” The olddoctrine of state rights and state sovereignty isthe form of the topic in other quarters.

With many the question was clear on the askingof it; with others the constitutional powersof self-preservation, of self-existence, and self-perpetuationhad to be presented with the argumentsand the acumen of a statesman. Perhaps Mr.Blaine, as an editor, never dealt with a questionin a more masterly way. It was the questionof the hour continually forcing itself upon attention.

It was the constant assertion of the Southernpress that they would. They believed all sortsof unkind things about the great and kindlyLincoln. The fact is, the South had never beforebeen defeated in a contest for the presidencywhen slavery was involved in the issue.This was their pet and idol. They would guardit at all hazards. Fanaticism they regarded as[153]the animus of the anti-slavery movement, andan abolitionist to them was a malefactor.

A grave responsibility now was on those who“broke down the adjustments of 1820, and of1850.” But the year was closing, and the glareof a contest more fierce than that through whichwe had passed, was on the nation. It seemedinevitable. They had grown so narrow, intolerant,and cruel, that the light of present politicaltruth did not penetrate them.

“Southern statesmen of the highest rank,” saidMr. Blaine, “looked upon British emancipation inthe West Indies as designedly hostile to theprosperity and safety of their own section, and asa plot for the ultimate destruction of the Republic.”They were suspicious, and filled withalarm; and it was needless, as the action ofMr. Lincoln in proclaiming emancipation wasonly when, in the second year of the war, itwas necessary.

The era of peace seems breaking with thehand of cruel war. It was night to them, but aglorious day to us.

We close this chapter with this fresh, newpoem of the time, by Whittier.

At a time when it was rumored that armedmen were drilling by the thousands in Virginiaand Maryland, for the invasion of Washingtonbefore February, so as to prevent the announcement[154]in congress of Lincoln’s election, in thesame issue of the Kennebec Journal, was a poemby John G. Whittier, closing with these lines:—

NO one read the signs of the times witha clearer understanding of their significance,all through the winter andspring of 1861, than the Speaker ofthe House of Representatives in the Legislatureof Maine. The great duties that devolved uponhim filled his mind with every important matter,but the overshadowing interests were all national,—thepresent and future of the country.They had become accustomed to threats andfears; this had grown to be the normal conditionof the public mind. But the short, sharpquestion “What is the latest from Charleston,Richmond” and other points of prominence andactivity in the South, showed how squarely upto the times people of the North were living;how loyal and zealous for the nation the masseswere.

It was a higher compliment, in times so greatin their demands for the profoundest deliberations[156]of the best minds, to be put at the head,as the leader in positions of greatest power inthe House.

Known and acknowledged worth could havebeen the only argument for an action so personalto the honor of the state and its powerin the Union, and helpfulness to the nation inan emergency imminent with danger.

This man of one and thirty is lifted over theheads of old and respected citizens of soundestintegrity. Is it an experiment, or do they knowtheir man? The state has called to the helm aman who has been ten years in the congress ofthe United States; a man of largest experienceand profoundest wisdom, nearly twice the ageof the young speaker. But no mistake is made.He read in his youth books that Governor Morrillis reading to-day at the age of eighty-one;he has been a college-graduate for nearly fourteenyears, and has won his present distinctionupon the floor of the house where he now presides.

His duties are manifold. He must presideover the deliberations of the House, be a goodparliamentarian, prompt and accurate in his decisions,as well as fair and impartial. He isdealing with freemen and citizens, and representativesof the people of the entire state. Hemust know every member, not by name, and[157]face, and location in the House, but in characteristicsand accomplishments, all the great interestsof the state, as a whole, of its differentsections, and in its Federal relations, so that hemay wisely appoint the twenty-one importantcommittees. He must know the business, education,experience, residence, and political principlesof every member, so that he may know justwho to appoint on banks and banking, on agriculture,military, pensions, manufactures, library,the judiciary, the militia, education, etc.

There are one hundred and forty-four members,twenty-three of whom are Democrats, and hemust use them all. He must select two chairmenfor each committee, and choose six or eightothers to act with them, putting some of themore valuable men on several committees,—allmust be treated with honor and fairness.

What did those one hundred and forty-fourmen see in James G. Blaine, away back in thestormy, perilous times of 1861, that led them toselect him for that high and honorable position?He had not been a citizen of Maine six years,and had been in political life, officially, onlytwo years. It was the man they saw, strong andsplendid, just the man for the hour. They felt,instinctively, they could trust him; they knewhim to be loyal and true, and capable, by thetestimony of all their senses. He was quick and[158]keen, and life itself in all of energy and endeavor;a born leader of men.

He had no wealthy and influential friend byhis side, no one to say I have known him fromchildhood, and can recommend him as worthyof all honor, and all praise. He brought withhim simply the name his mother gave him, withno prefix and no affix. He lived in no mansion,rode in no carriage, was attended by no courtiersin livery; he had no returns to make, nopromises to give. The whole of him sat beforethem,—a refined and courteous gentleman, anelegant gentleman.

They could not mistake the powerful combination.They saw and felt its worth, and so thegreat party which had just come into power inthe nation by electing its first president, honorsitself by honoring him.

His short-cut words of acceptance are uttered.The senate and the new governor, Israel Washburn,Jr., are informed that the House is organized,and they proceed to business with energyand despatch.

But the great war for the Union is coming.The peace convention called by Virginia amountsto nothing. Mr. Crittenden’s resolutions arefutile, though most conventions adopt them inPhiladelphia and elsewhere. Southern states areactually seceding.

[159]Mr. Lincoln is choosing and announcing hiscabinet, with Seward as his Premier, but treasonis rampant in the South, holding high carnivalin state capitals, and even in the halls of congress.Mr. Lincoln is on his way to Washington.He reaches Philadelphia on Feb. 22d, atseven o’clock; is escorted to Independence Hall,where Theodore Cuyler, in whose office Mr.Blaine read law, receives him with an addressof welcome, to which Mr. Lincoln replied, and“raised the national flag which had been adjustedin true man-of-war style, amid the cheersof a great multitude, and the cheers were repeateduntil men were hoarse.”

While these patriotic cheers were resoundingthrough the old halls of Independence, thetraitorous secretaries of the navy and of warwere sending vessels to southern ports and forts.Thirty-three officers, among whom was AlbertSidney Johnson, abandon their regiments of theregular army in Texas, and join the rebels. ButLincoln is inaugurated, and the most pacificmeasures employed, but all of no avail; determined,desperate men are ruling the destiny ofthe South.

The South was in no condition of want atthis time, but rather in a condition of prosperity,and its proud, haughty spirit seemedrather born of luxury and extravagance.

[160]Mr. Blaine has shown that she had increasedin ten years before the war three thousand millionsof dollars, and this not from over-valuationof slaves, but from cultivation of the land bynew and valuable appliances of agriculture. Onestate alone,—Georgia,—had increased in wealththree hundred millions of dollars. But SouthCarolina had commenced in October,—before Mr.Lincoln’s election even,—her correspondence uponthe subject of secession. No wonder she wasready in the April following to inaugurate thewar of the Rebellion.

Mr. Blaine’s life could not be put into thenation, nor the life of any strong, true man,at a time when it would be more valuable thannow. Men were men in earnest. They rose topar, and some, by a mathematical process whichredoubles energy and intensifies life, are cubedor squared or lifted to the hundredth power; apremium is on them; they are invaluable.

The governor issues his call for ten thousandmen from Maine. Will Mr. Blaine go? Mr.Garfield is in the state senate of Ohio, andpresident of a college, but he drops all at once,and is soon at the front with his regiment.His stay is short, however. Elected to congress,by advice of President Lincoln he lays asidethe dress of a major-general on Saturday toenter the national House of Representatives, a[161]congressman in citizen’s dress, the followingMonday.

What will Mr. Blaine do? He is speaker ofthe House, and that gives his name a power inthe state. He is wielding a powerful pen aseditor of the leading daily paper at Portland.Few men in the state have more influence;some must stay; the state must be aroused andelectrified; an immense work of organization isto be done. It is a less conspicuous, morequiet home-work, but it is of the utmost importance.

He stays, while many, like Garfield, goto return to do the statesman’s work and makeavailable the resources of the nation, andstrengthen the hands of the brave men at thefront.

This was a work of vast importance in theconduct of the war. It was power that was feltby both governor and president, by army andnavy. Mr. Blaine was on terms of intimacy withthe governor of his state,—a firm supporter ofa faithful man. Very soon he was instrumentalin raising two regiments, and rallied thousandsmore to the standard of the Union.

He became at this time chairman of the RepublicanState Central Committee, and continuedin this position for twenty years. He plannedevery campaign, selected the speakers, fixed[162]dates and places for them, and so arranged alldetails, that no man of his ever disappointed anaudience. He knows the time of departure andarrival of every train. He must do his part tosee that the legislature continues Republican,that the governor and his council are Republican,that congressmen and senators of theUnited States are Republican, and that the war-powerof the state is not broken.

The great question for him to aid largely insettling is the worth of the state of Maine tothe nation. She must have governors that arein full sympathy with the president; congressmenand senators that uphold his administration.

In North’s History of Augusta, a valuablework of nearly a thousand pages, it is recordedof Mr. Blaine that “probably no man in Maineexerted a more powerful influence on thepatriotic course pursued than he. Ever active,always watchful, never faltering, he inspired confidencein the cause of the Union in its darkestdays.”

At the close of the first session of the legislatureover which Mr. Blaine presided, the leadingDemocrat in the House, a Mr. Gould, fromThomaston, arose after remarks of great pathosand tenderness, and presented this resolution:—

“Resolved, That the thanks of this House are presentedto the Hon. James G. Blaine, for the marked[163]ability, the urbanity and impartiality with which hehas presided over its deliberations, and for the uniformamenity of his personal intercourse with itsmembers.”

He bore testimony to the “marvelous despatchwith which the formal parts of the businesshad been done, and so the session greatlyshortened.”

The resolution was adopted by a unanimousvote, and Mr. Blaine said,—

This was on the 18th of March, and on the22d of April, the war having broken out, theywere assembled again in extra session, Mr. Blainein the chair. In three days and a half provisionswere made for raising troops and money forthe war, and legislation pertaining to militia-laws[164]was enacted, etc. The wildest rumors filled theair. The country seemed transformed at once intoa turbulent sea, but men did not lose their reckoning.Latitude and longitude were things toodeeply fixed and broadly marked to be unseen orignored. The storm blew from a single quarter.Its long gathering had made it black and fierce.It struck the gallant ship of state. She was reelingwith the shock of war.

Never did the beauty and worth of federalstates appear to better advantage than when theimpoverished and plundered government called onthem for aid. It was the parent’s call upon herchildren for defence against their own misguidedsisters. Never was mechanism more finely adjusted,or power more equally balanced, than in theRepublic. Very distinct and separate are headand feet and hands, eyes and ears, yet nothingis more perfect in its unity.

It is much the same with the great union ofstates. They are separated far, and quite distinctin varied interests, but one in powerful unity.But the time had come to show the strength ofthat unity. All there was of the great mind andheart and life of Mr. Blaine was given to thenation in holiest exercise of all his powers.

While eighty thousand of the foe are opposingthirty-five thousand of our troops at ManassasJunction, and Colonel Ellsworth is losing his life[165]at Alexandria; while Stephen A. Douglas is deliveringin early June his last eloquent words,straight and heroic for the nation; while thebankers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphiaare casting one hundred and fifty millions of dollarsinto the national treasury at Washington,and the brave General Lyon with eight thousandmen is routing twenty-three thousand of the enemyin Missouri, at the cost of his life,—whileall the activities of that first summer of war aregoing on, Mr. Blaine is facing a political stormof great severity, as general-in-chief in the campaignthat places Israel Washburn, Jr., again inthe gubernatorial chair of the state, and keepsthe reins of government in Republican hands.

It has been a question often debated whetherthe nation is most indebted to her warriors orher statesmen. There can be no hesitation indeciding, where the mere question of life is considered,or the hardships of camp and march andfield are included in the account. And yet Lincoln,nor Garfield wore a uniform when the bulletstruck.

No one thinks their patriotism less intense, orthat of cabinet, or senators and members of thehouse, or governors and council, or members oflegislatures less ardent in their love of country,and zeal for the honor of her imperilled cause.At such times all true hearts are one, and the[166]blood that throbs in hands and heart and feetis all the same.

Mr. Blaine was re-elected to his accustomedplace in the legislature of the state. The terrificwar rages on. The demand for troops increases,—isindeed quadrupled,—and the statemust be brought up to her quota by methodsthe wisest and best. And again and again theclarion voice of the speaker of the House ringsover the state with no uncertain sound. Companiesand regiments are formed, and these mustbe filled. The fires burning so brightly, mustburn brighter. Intense love must be intensified.The news of terrible battles thrills over the statealmost daily. The romance of war is over. Itsgilt edge is gone. It is hard, desperate, bloodywork. Their sons and brothers and fathers arefalling by the score and hundred at the front.The bloody work has been done at Ball’s Bluffand Port Royal. Sons of Maine are in LibbyPrison and at Belle Isle.

The hard, serious question is discussed in everyhome. It fills the dreams of yeomanry,—“ShallI go?” “Can I go?” All that is sacredin business and religion in home and country isthe question. Men are lifted by appeals almostdivine in eloquence, above any petty consideration,to the grave question of the nation’s lifeand destiny. Their names go down by scores[167]and hundreds. Regiments and brigades seemborn in a day. They come from all ranks andconditions,—from pulpit and press, from farm andshop, from bank and office, and store and hallsof state,—and are transformed in an hour fromcitizens to soldiers, and march away to the front.Steamer and car swarm with them.

The music dies away down the river, and theyare gone,—gone perhaps forever. Good-byes arecherished in heart of hearts, and kisses frommother, father, lover, friend, are carried away likecameos of thought, the sacred things of memory.

In the autumn we find Mr. Blaine in Washington,probably for the first time, but not inofficial relations to the government. He musthave a nearer view of the great scenes beingenacted. He must know the men who are wieldingthe nation’s power, and put his finger on thepulse of war, and gather material for the moreintense activity his work at home assumes. Hemust see the great-hearted Lincoln, and shakehis hand, and give him cheer.

Fessenden, Hamlin, and Morrill are there, forcongress is in session in a city fortified, and itsstreets patrolled by soldiers. Andrew Johnson isthe only senator present from eleven secededstates. Breckenridge, mortified by the vote of hisstate, and the rebuke and the castigation thedead Douglas had given him in the early spring,[168]was present from Kentucky; and Lane and Pomeroywere in their seats from the new, freestate of Kansas, as her first senators. And thetwo Union senators were there,—Messrs. Willyand Carlisle,—from the western portion of secededVirginia. Only five free states had otherthan Republican senators. Bright, Breckenridge,and Polk were expelled.

Chase, and Cameron, and Seward had enteredthe cabinet, but an impressive array of talent remainedin the senate, to be studied by our risingyoung statesman to best advantage. CharlesSumner and Henry Wilson were there from Massachusetts;Zachariah Chandler, and Bingham, ofMichigan; Wilkinson of Minnesota; John P. Haleand Daniel Clark, of New Hampshire; BenjaminF. Wade and John Sherman, of Ohio; Wilmotand Cowan, of Pennsylvania; James R. Doolittleand Timothy O. Hone, of Wisconsin. Jacob Collamore,formerly in General Taylor’s cabinet, aripe, scholarly man, was a senator from Vermont,and Simmons and Anthony, from Rhode Island.

On his first visit to the National Capital, Mr.Blaine could not fail to visit the House wherehe himself was destined to have a career so famousand honorable alike to himself, his state,and the nation. There was his friend, Anson P.Morrill, who had desired him to take the nominationto congress the present session, rather than[169]himself, and Galusha A. Grow, from his nativestate, a member of the convention which has justnominated him for the presidency, and of thecommittee notifying of the same, was then in thechair to be reserved for him as speaker of thathouse. Thaddeus Stevens, fearless, able, of intrepidspirit and strong character, the best haterof slavery on the continent, hating even thosewho did not hate it, was the natural leader of theHouse, assuming his place by common consent.He attracted Mr. Blaine’s special attention.

John Hickman and Edward McPherson werewith him from Pennsylvania; and from New Yorkthere were Reuben E. Fenton, experienced andstrong in public affairs, Elbridge G. Spaulding,the financier, William A. Wheeler, since vice-president,secretary Seward’s friend and confidant,Theodore Pomeroy.

“The ablest and most brilliant man of the delegation,”says Mr. Blaine, “was Roscoe Conkling.He had been elected to the preceding congresswhen but twenty-nine years of age, and had exhibiteda readiness and elegance in debate thatplaced him at once in the front rank. His commandof language was remarkable. In affluentand exhuberant diction Mr. Conkling was neversurpassed in either branch of congress, unless,perhaps, by Rufus Choate.”

Massachusetts had a strong delegation, headed[170]by Henry L. Dawes, and with him were A. H.Rice, since governor of the state, Elliott, Alley,and William Appleton. Missouri sent Blair andRollins, from the battle-field. Crittenden, who hadbeen six times elected to the senate, in two cabinets,appointed to the supreme bench, was thenin the house, seeking with Charles A. Wickliffe,to save Kentucky to the Union, against the treasonableconspiracies of Breckenridge. With Crittendenand Wickliffe strong for the Union, wereRobert Mallory, James S. Jackson, and WilliamH. Wadsworth, keeping up the almost even balanceof power in their state. Gilman Marstonwas there from New Hampshire, soon to becomeconspicuous in the field. Justin S. Morrill fromVermont, Frederick A. Pike, and the brother ofsenator Fessenden from Maine, in company withEx-Gov. Anson P. Morrill. Illinois, Ohio, and Indianahad strong men there also, as did Iowaand Minnesota.

Elihu B. Washburn, Owen Lovejoy, William A.Richardson, and John A. Logan, represented thestate of Lincoln and Grant; Schuyler Colfax,George W. Julian, Albert G. Porter, Wm. McKeeDunn, and Daniel W. Voorhees, were there fromIndiana; and from the state of Garfield, Bingham,Shellabarger, Horton, and Ashley. Pendleton,Vallandigham, and S. S. Cox were on theDemocratic side.

[171]It must have been the dawn of an era of newinspirations and of fresh aspirations, to look inupon such a body of men, only a few of theleaders of whom we have mentioned.

Anson P. Morrill had written him, six monthsbefore he let anyone else into the secret, thathe should not run again for congress. His businessrequired his attention, having extensivewoolen mills some twelve miles from Augusta,and he did not enjoy life at Washington, andaway from home.

He desired Mr. Blaine, as he had before desired,to take his place, and hence gave him anote of warning, and special opportunity for preparation.This surely betokened Mr. Merrill’slarge confidence in Mr. Blaine, which is certainlyremarkable, when we remember that Mr. Blainewas twenty-seven years younger than Mr. Morrill,who was then in his prime, about sixty yearsof age; and yet he looks down upon a youngman of thirty-one, and asks him to come up andtake his place in the councils of the nation.Why this confidence, this unquestioned assuranceof power, this high compliment of age and experience,of wealth, and extraordinary businessability of the old governor of Maine to the youngand dauntless Speaker of the House at home?

First of all, because he had abundantly foundhim as speaker of the House winning golden[172]opinions from those over whose deliberations hehad presided.

Second, because he had just conducted, aschairman of the State Central Committee of theRepublican party, a campaign, re-electing GovernorWashburn, and himself to the legislature, andthus fighting unto victory the home-battle ofthe Union, meanwhile pushing hard and successfullythe editorial work of the Daily Advertiserat Portland.

But more than either of these events or considerations,the presidential campaign of 1860had endeared him to Mr. Morrill. Then he hadstumped the state with the Hon. Anson Burlingameof Massachusetts,—he discussing the stateissues while Mr. Burlingame discussed the nationalissues.

An old citizen high in state office to-day, whoheard him frequently, says “he won the peopleby the skill and comprehensiveness with whichhe analyzed and argued the great questions ofthe time.”

He also said “that his editorials in theJournal of that summer and autumn, when Mr.Stevens, his old partner, was sick, furnished allthe material for the campaign.” He gathered upand crowded in all there was.

It was that total exemption from indolence,his marked degree of energy, and priceless abilities,[173]that charmed the old governor and warmedhis great heart toward him. And then it wasupon that same tidal wave of influence, sweepingout from the depths of that fresh, younglife, that Mr. Morrill himself was swept into hisseat in congress.

The Democrats had up for governor theirstrong man that year, Ephraim K. Smart, whohad been several terms in congress, and madethe biggest possible fight that lay in their power,but all to no purpose. The speeches of Mr.Blaine fixed the attention of the state upon him,as coming from a man away beyond his years.He could, we are told, “marshal statistics withgreat facility”; facts, figures, faces, he knewthem all, and impressed the people, even theold campaigners, with a boundlessness of politicaland historical knowledge that is distinctly rememberedto this day.

They have gotten use to this sort of thingup in Maine, and talk like men who reachedtheir conclusions years ago. Their minds weremade up as to the man in Augusta, at leastover a quarter of a century ago, away back in1856, some of them when, fresh from the Philadelphiaconvention, he made his Frémont andDayton speech, twenty-eight years ago, and hehas simply been expanding, and enlarging, fillingup, and growing ever since. He has been watched[174]with eager pride and rejoiced in with the devotionof brothers and friends, as wave after waveof his majestic influence has dashed across theboundary lines of the state, and broken over thenation.

It would have been something unaccountableif every round of the ladder had not beentouched at last by him, and yet there is nofatality about it. He was no child of destiny,but of industry; no creature of chance, but ofchoice; not of luck, but of pluck; not of fortune,but of fortitude; not of circ*mstance, butof courage and consecrated energy.

He returned home from his first view ofWashington with larger views of the nation’sgreatness, and the fierceness of the conteststhat were testing her strength, and a holierambition to make every power tell for Liberty’svictory, and the nation’s emancipation fromwrong, and her projection upon a loftier careerof service among the nations of the earth.

The state could not hold him long after therevelation of these few brief days and weeks.But he could wait his time, meanwhile reorganizingall the forces at his command for victoryof a larger kind, and in a larger field than hadfallen to his lot. And why not? He was fastoutgrowing the places filled thus far, and otherswere opening to him without the asking.

[175]The plans for the new year are all laid beforethe old year dies. Then he shall standnearer the seat of war; then he shall studyquestions and characters, plans and persons, opinions,policies, and principles, all the great statesand machinery of government. His home shallbe in the great city and centre of the land,where authority, wisdom, and power reside, andwhere no excellence but is in demand, no great,shining quality but shall shine amid a thousandreflections, and name and place shall but increaseeach power to serve and save the nation’s life.

ON Jan. 1, 1862, Mr. Blaine was re-nominatedby acclamation, and re-elected byan almost unanimous vote, Speaker ofthe Maine House of Representatives.The war was enlarging the demand for legislation.All great national issues must be discussedby the state legislatures, and the demand fortheir adoption sprung from the people, a knowledgeof whose will could be best gained in thisway. Resolutions were discussed as regards confiscatingthe slaves, and arming them in the nation’sdefence, and so the representatives in congresswere instructed and encouraged, and theiractions brought up as legislative measures andendorsed.

Grave suspicions existed at this time in theminds of many in the state of Maine, in viewof the attitude of the British nation towards theUnited States, and the feeling of a portion ofthe British people, as developed by the Masonand Slidell affair, and the blockade-runners fitted[177]out in British ports. The exposed conditionof the coast and boundary line of Maine, hadcaused national alarm upon this subject to centerlargely in the state.

“For more than four hundred miles,” said thegovernor, Israel Washburn, Jr., in his inauguraladdress of January, 1862, “this state is separatedfrom the British Provinces of New Brunswickand Canada by a merely imaginary line.Of the deep and bitter hostility to this countryof large numbers of the people, we have now,unhappily,” he goes on to say, “the most indubitableproofs.

“Upon the coast of Maine there are moredeep, accessible harbors, capable of being enteredby the largest ships of war, than can be found onthe entire coast-line of the slave-holding states;and yet since she entered the federal Union in1820, less than half has been expended forher coast protection and improvement than wasexpended within ten years for the building ofa custom-house in the single city of Charleston.”

The old adage, “In time of peace prepare forwar,” had not been followed, and now commissionersare sent to Washington to present thefacts regarding Maine’s defenseless condition, andthe engineer department was directed, by orderof Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, to send a[178]competent officer to examine and report upon thesubject.

This is one of the topics filling the mind ofMaine statesmen of this time, and its importanceis so presented and impressed, that on Jan. 17,one hundred thousand dollars was appropriatedfor Fort Knox on the Penobscot River, Maine,one hundred thousand dollars for the fort on HogIsland, Portland Harbor, and fifty thousand dollarseach for these two forts the followingyear.

Seldom were there so many bills of great importanceto the state and nation before the legislature,as at this and subsequent sessions. Butmost of the time the speaker sat quietly in hischair, exercising the functions of his office. Menseemed to be growing into greatness at a singlesession; speeches of great effectiveness, and eloquentwith patriotic ardor, came to be a dailyoccurrence.

Union victories began to cheer the nation. GeneralThomas at Mill Springs, Ky., had fought andwon a glorious day. Forts Henry and Donelsonhad fallen, and hordes of rebels had surrendered.Nashville was occupied by Union troops, and AndrewJohnson was appointed governor of Tennessee.Indeed, he was descending the steps of theCapitol at Washington with a bevy of his friends,and just starting for the capital of Tennessee,[179]the very afternoon of March 7th, to which weare about to call special attention.

No scene more brilliant graces the early historyof Mr. Blaine, than his reply to Hon. A.P. Gould, a distinguished lawyer of Thomaston,and a member of the lower House, in vindicationof the war-power of congress. The heartysupport of every Northern state was a necessity.

The following resolutions were passed by theSenate of Maine, on the 7th of February, 1862,by yeas twenty-four, nays four:—

The resolutions were sent to the House forconcurrence, and were there referred to thecommittee of the whole. On the 6th and 7thof March, Mr. Gould, of Thomaston, made anelaborate argument against them. At the conclusionof his remarks he was replied to byMr. Blaine, Speaker of the House. The resolutionswere subsequently adopted by the Housein concurrence with the Senate, by yeas onehundred and four, nays twenty-six.

Mr. Gould had spoken for seven hours againstthe resolutions. The House had gone into committeeof the whole, with Mr. Frye, the presentUnited States senator, in the chair. The senatewas present in a body, on one side, thegovernor and his council on the other, and asmany as could enter, filled the galleries and[181]vacant spaces, when Mr. Blaine, then but thirty-twoyears of age, took up the gage of battle,and spoke for two hours, and so utterly demolishedthe premises and conclusions of hispowerful antagonist as to carry the resolutionthrough the House with but few dissentingvoices.

Mr. Blaine had been re-elected Speaker of theHouse by a vote of one hundred and thirty-fiveout of one hundred and forty, at the presentsession. All eyes were turned to him as theman for the occasion.

His old paper, the Kennebec Journal, withwhich he had had no official connection forthree years, says of the speech:—

“Never, in the legislative history of Maine,has there been such an opportunity for a forensiceffort as was presented in the House ofRepresentatives on Friday afternoon, at the closeof the seven hours’ speech of Hon. A. P. Gouldon the national resolutions. The expectation ofthe legislature was that Hon. James G. Blainewould speak in defense of the principles and themeasures by which the Federal government willbe able to crush the Rebellion and restore theRepublic to that true and certain basis on whichit was originally established. Mr. Blaine’s speechoccupied two hours, and was fully equal to theanticipations of the unconditional friends of the[182]government. From beginning to close it wascrowded with arguments and salient facts, interspersedwith due proportion of wit, satire, invectiveand telling hits against the doctrines andpositions of his opponent. It showed, with greatclearness and strength, that the power of confiscatingthe slaves of rebels belongs to congress,and to no other power. It adhered firmlyto the long-recognized principle that the safetyof the Republic is the supreme law, before whichevery pecuniary interest must give way, and advancingin this broad highway, so clearly definedby the highest authorities of international law,and so luminous with the best light of history,the speaker made a complete overthrow of thesophistry and disloyalty of those who plead thedefences of the constitution for the security oftraitors, as against the necessities of the Republic.The speech was brilliantly eloquent, conclusivein argument, and in all essential particularswas a success which cannot fail to add to thereputation of the author.”

We give some extracts from the speech ofMr. Blaine:—

The stormy and brilliant session was drawingto a close. The speaker had achieved the greattriumph of the winter. Others had made grandand effective speeches. It could scarcely be otherwise.Soldiers were encamped about the city;camp-fires were burning; martial music was fillingthe air; Colonel Nickerson had marched hisFourteenth Regiment of Maine Volunteers throughAugusta, and had come to a “parade rest” onWater Street; troops were coming and troops weregoing; the papers were filled with news fromevery quarter, containing even Jeff. Davis’ messageto the rebel congress. All was life andanimation. Events were hastening to the emancipation[188]of the slave. It was the demand of thehour. From soldier in the field, citizen in thehome and place of business, and from resolute,far-seeing statesmen in congressional halls, camethe imperative call to “free and arm the slaves!”

Will the negro fight? was a question gravelydiscussed over the North. Fred. Douglas, thecolored orator of that time, was asked it by thepresident of Rochester University, and the keen-eyedman replied,

“I am only half a negro, and I know I’dfight.”

“Well,” said the genial and scholarly president,Martin B. Anderson, with a merry twinklein his eye, “if half a negro would fight, Mr.Douglas, what would a whole one do?”

After a session of seventy-eight days, in which“the public business had been completed withall possible promptness,” the legislature adjourned.“During the past two years,” the record says,“with the same presiding officers in the senateand House,—Hon. John H. Goodenow, of Alfred,in the senate, and Hon. James G. Blaine, of Augusta,in the House,—there has not been a singleappeal from their decisions.”

It is also said that the high character of thelegislature of 1862 stands unrivalled in Maine, inmembers of legislative experience, men of practicalbusiness talent, men learned and ready in[189]debate, men wise in political action and patrioticin purpose. Surely it were an honor to standat the head of such a body of men.

Very soon the Third Congressional Conventionwould be held to nominate the successor to A.P. Morrill. The three counties embraced in thedistrict,—Kennebec, Somerset, and Lincoln,—sentto the legislature six senators and twenty-eightrepresentatives.

The district is an extensive one, embracingseventy-five towns, and extending from the Atlanticto the Canada line, inhabited by an intelligentand influential body of freemen, deeplyinterested in the welfare of the country, anddevoted to the principles and purposes of theadministration of Abraham Lincoln. The unqualifiedand emphatic declination of Mr. Morrill tobe a candidate for re-election, rendered it necessaryto take a new man for the position.

“The superior ability and high qualifications ofHon. James G. Blaine drew toward him the spontaneousand almost unanimous support of the friendsof the national administration in the district.”

At two o’clock on Friday afternoon of July 11,1862, the ballot was taken, and only one wasneeded. Whole number of votes, one hundredand eighty-one; Hon. James G. Blaine had onehundred and seventy-four; W. R. Flint, five; scattering,two.

[190]This is the simple record, and Mr. Blaine wasdeclared nominated, and “the result was madeunanimous with enthusiasm and mutual congratulations.”He was brought in, and with somethingof sober diction, evidently feeling the greatnessof the honor and the responsibility upon him,he only pledged his best intentions and mostearnest efforts to serve the constituency of thedistrict to the best of his ability, should he beelected.

“If so, I shall go with a determination tostand heartily and unreservedly by the administrationof Abraham Lincoln. In the success ofthat administration, in the good providence ofGod, rests, I solemnly believe, the fate of theUnion.

“Perish all things else,” he exclaims, “the nation’slife must be saved. If slavery or any otherinstitution stands in the way, it must be removed.I think the loyal masses are rapidly adoptingthe idea that to smite the rebellion, its malignantcause must be smitten. Perhaps we areslow in coming to it, and it may be even nowwe are receiving our severe chastisem*nt for notmore readily accepting the teachings of Providence.

“It was the tenth plague which softened theheart of Pharaoh and caused him to let the oppressedgo free. That plague was the sacrificing[191]of the first-born in every household, and withthe sanguinary battle-fields, whose records ofdeath we are just reading, I ask you in thelanguage of another, how far off are we fromthe day when our households will have paid thatpenalty to offended heaven?”

After his nomination Mr. Blaine went on ashort visit to his old home in Washington, Penn.His mother was still living; many friends andrelatives, beside business interests, demanding attention.He had been gone but eight years,and four of them he had spent in the legislature,and now was nominated for congress, witha certainty of election. He had come on a visitto the old scenes of childhood, and early manhood,and could present himself to them as hesoon did to the nation, covered with honor.

He returned just in time to attend a greatmass-meeting in Augusta. The two calls fortroops, each for three hundred thousand, wereout. Senator Lot M. Morrill, a brother of theex-governor, had just made a strong speech,saying “we have been playing at arms before,but now we are going to fight,” etc., and closed,when there were loud calls for Blaine, and heappeared, burning with enthusiasm, and kindledall hearts with his presence and patriotic appeals.

On Monday, Sept. 8, 1862, Mr. Blaine wasfirst elected to congress. Although it was a[192]state campaign in which he was elected, conductedby Mr. Blaine in person, aided by ablelieutenants and a governor,—five congressmenand a host of minor officials were to be elected,—thework was prosecuted with vigor.

A draft is threatened. Maine’s quota must befilled, and it was during this same month ofSeptember the Emancipation Proclamation appeared,and two months later General McClellanwas relieved, and General Burnside put in commandof the army of the Potomac.

The great events of national importance wouldof course over-shadow all state matters of minorimportance, comparatively, and to which thepublic mind was accustomed. Beside, the mindand heart of the new congressman were full ofthe nation’s interest. Women were going to thefront as nurses,—more than forty had gonefrom one town in Maine; the Mississippi wasopen now clear to the Gulf; General Butler wasin New Orleans. Volumes of history were madein a day, much of it unwritten history, tracedonly in saddened faces, swollen, tearful eyes, innights of watchings, in sobs and sighs, and longfarewells, in fields billowed with mounds, and inthe dark shadows that even now will not bechased away from many a heart, from manya hearth-stone. How little is ever heard orknown of the dark dreamings still of a multitude[193]all silent and alone, when night is onthe earth.

Mr. Blaine encountered one of the hard-headedmen, yet men of harder hearts, duringhis campaign up in Clinton township, a hard,Democratic hold. General Logan used to callthem copperheads down in southern Illinois duringthe war. They have mostly emigrated sincethen. At the close of the speech one of themarose up and said,—a fellow of grizzly beard,

“Well, young man, you’ve made a right smartspeech, but if it is a sin to hold slaves, howabout Gineral Washington?”

This was one of Mr. Blaine’s strong points, toanswer questions, and so keep up a running firethrough his speech. He has lately told us howhe enjoyed, not so much to turn the tables onthe questioner, as to get at the minds of thepeople, and then turn on the light just where itis needed. But to this brave fellow up in Clinton,he quietly replied,

“Yes, but General Washington manumitted hisslaves before he died.”

“Manu, what?”

“Manumitted them, set them free, gave themtheir liberty.”

“O yes,” and the man sat down.

In his stump speeches effectiveness is his chiefobject, and he strives with all the power in him[194]to conquer his foe, and is fully determined todo it. He ascertains his weak point, and assaultshim there. He does not apply his battering-ramall over the wall, but on that particular place ofweakness. He sees the strong points, and has beennoted for his ability to see almost at a glance,the strong and weak points of a bill. This hasserved him when canvassing for large majorities.He would study the enemy thoroughly, know himwithout mistake, beyond the possibility of ambushor surprise, and then enlist his own forces, andenough of them without fail for certain victory,organize them for something more than simplevictory, plan the battle, and then call no halt untilthe work was done. None can be more elegantor choice and beautiful in the use of languagewhen occasion requires, but in the canvas thegreat elements of style are plainness, great plainness,and force, tremendous force.

Mr. Blaine was a Republican before there wasa party, and has fought, and written, and argued,and plead for all the great interests its existencehas subserved, and of which it is the conservatorto-day. That eternal vigilance which is theprice of liberty, is not to be kept up on picketposts or parapets, but where laws are made andjudged and executed. He learned his tactics inthe war times, and up to the last experience inthe House, he fought those he felt were traitors[195]still and tried to crush him; and who shall notsay that in point and fact the South has ruledthe South the past fifteen years, as truly asthough they were a separate people,—solid, separate,and distinct.

When elected to congress a great work openedup before Mr. Blaine. It was the work of preparation.His old methods of thoroughness mustprevail; mastery must be his watchword still.Augusta was not Washington; Kennebec countywas not the District of Columbia; Maine wasnot the nation, nor the state legislature the congressof the nation. The resources that gavehim prominence and power in one sphere, wouldbe but a small fortune in the other. This historyof congress must be deeply studied, the historyof men and of measures. He must knowall. There may be dark spots on the sun, butmust be none in his mind. They may be necessarythere, but not here. The charge of ignorancemust not be his. The craving toknow devours all before it. Just over there inNew Hampshire is the warning of Franklin Pierce,great in his own state, but little out in the nation.This is before him; but this is not theincentive. It is rather the habit of his life totouch bottom, and sides, and top.

This was sacred honor to him, to carry intoa place or position to which he is called, what[196]will fill it, or not to enter. So now he givesthe winter largely to this work. It is sacredwork to him. Manliness demands it; self-respectmakes it imperative. But he loves it. It is opportunityto him. And surely with all his formeryears of conquest, no one ever came to suchtask with more of fitness for the task.

And yet, though flushed with victory from otherfields, the echo of the people’s cheers still ringingin his heart, and their laurels unfaded onhis brow, he feels, he knows there is a lack ofthat strength and fulness which have ever beento him the harbingers of victory.

How many have run through congress muchas they ran for congress, because they took itfor granted that preparation for a law office or astump speech was preparation for congress; justas many a deluded theorist has drifted from collegeout into life, dreaming that preparation fora senior examination was preparation for the competitionof life.

There was ever a charm to Mr. Blaine aboutthe study of character. Gov. Abner Coburn wasMr. Blaine’s ideal of a business man. He lovedanything large and grand in human nature, andanybody good and true, and Abner Coburn,—asa man of great ability, of great wealth andliberality, giving away fifty thousand dollarsat a time, and withal a noble Christian gentleman,—was[197]to him among the best andworthiest.

He loved characters if at all remarkable forhard common sense, and so he loved to meetand talk with one Miles Standish, from way upin Somerset county, at Flagstaff Plantation.Plantations abound in the state of Maine. Thereare twenty-five of them in Aroostook county,which is said to be as large as the state ofMassachusetts. These plantations are a mildform of government, rather below the usualtownship organization, and yet covering a townshipof land six miles square.

This Mr. Standish used frequently to come toAugusta, and it was a pleasant hour for Mr.Blaine to meet him. He was human nature incrude state, or in the original package. Unspoiledby art, or science, or philosophy, andyet full of quaint, original ideas, and quainterforms of expression. He was never in a hurrywhen he met him, and yet it was not for sportor fun at his expense, but for the boldness ofhis personality, and the rocky-like substance ofhis character.

This was a great part of his effort in life tounderstand men, to know them, and a highauthority has defined just this as common sense.To know a man, says the distinguished scholarreferred to, is knowledge, but to know men,[198]that is common sense. It lets one out ofa thousand blunders and into a thousand secrets;it gives one the science of character-building,as one may have the science ofarchitecture. It is a study of the higher sciences,such as moral and mental, in their originalsources.

Right here is the open letter of Mr. Blaine’scareer. First, he knows the strong points, andthen he knows the weak points, and he has hisman every time, for he certainly has a key thatwill unlock him, only let him know what oneto use. And it is not a matter of artful, politicchicanery, and legerdemain. He simply studiesthe individual, and then with ease of mannerand a wise, discriminating grace of diction, adaptsor adjusts himself to them. Thomas Carlylewould use a hurricane, it is said, to waft afeather; Mr. Blaine would never.

And again Carlyle employed the weight of hismighty genius to emphasize the sumless worthof a man, and yet he did not have commonsense sufficient to treat half who called uponhim with common civility. What avails thissolemn prating, impoverishing the lexicon andwearying genius to express a cynical, over-wroughtview of man in his high-born greatness, if, whenRalph Waldo Emerson crosses the Atlantic andcalls upon him with compliments of the highest[199]order, he receives only replies that sting, andburn, and rankle?

Exactly the reverse of Carlyle has been themethod of Mr. Blaine. Men have been hisglory, his study, and delight. This was his firstwork in Augusta, his first work in the statelegislature, his first work in congress. And nottheir names alone, but their political history,their pedigree,—all about them. They must allbe weighed and measured, sized and classified.And he must know himself as well, and howfar he can reach, and how firm he can grasp,and how much he can lift. He uses only thepowers of his personality, and these must allbe toned and tempered anew.

He has gone to congress to stay, and not toexperiment, but for the work of life. He carrieswith him just the power to get the powerwhich he shall need,—the seed-corn for thelarge, abundant harvest. But he must work andcultivate, and this he knows right well how todo, and so he does and will. It is his purpose,and that purpose is fixed.

Right well he knows that there is no powerthat causes growth like contact with strong, determinedpersonalities,—intelligent, conscientious,affectionate, purposeful. It is mind that makesmind grow, that plants the seeds and brings onthe harvest by the shining of its light; and so[200]heart by getting into heart, expands it andcauses growth, and conscience rouses conscience,and will awakens will, and all cause growth. Hehas not forgotten those lifts out of childhoodalmost into manhood, when the great faces ofJackson, Harrison, and Clay shone upon him,and now he is the friend and confident of thegreat Lincoln, and they are to be within anevening’s call, and the great men of the nationare there and will soon be etched, photographed,or painted, and hung up within the gallery ofhis large soul.

IT is said that life in Washington is aliberal education, social life in particular,but public life as well. The greatinterests of the nation center there,and all nations are represented there. Life isintense in all respects. Victors gather there fromall fields of contest. They are at their best,and have multitudes to cheer them on, or crythem down, if they fail or falter. The door ofprosperity to the country hinges there; defectivelegislation closes it, and mars the delicately balancedconfidence in the business world. It is the nation’shigher school of politics, or rather university,with all its great departments. Graduatesfrom all the state academies are there, taking observationsof the nation and the world, discussingall live questions, following out great lines ofthought, fixing policies, framing laws and enactingthem. The arts and sciences flourish there,scholars congregate from all parts of the land.To them it is a place of mighty interests; institutions[202]and libraries abound, history is manufacturedday by day. Strong men in pride andpower are in their glory there.

Society is like a myriad-sided palace, with manya gate of entrance and of exit, but all mostdeftly closed except to bearer of the keys,—apalace filled with light of knowledge, and resplendentwith beauty; the goal of every cliqueand clan the nation over, where all the aristocraciesof the Republic may glow and shine andshine and glow, and all the courtiers of all thenations mingle in magnificent and pompous array.Guards are at every door. Passports are in demand.

At twelve o’clock, the 7th of December, 1863,Mr. Blaine was in his seat. His heart beat high,his hopes were great. Earnest faces of determinedmen were all about him. The administrationhad a clear working majority, but therecould scarcely have been seventeen Democratsfrom New York to fourteen Union Republicans,had not one hundred and fifty thousand menbeen at the front from that state, and not permittedto vote until the presidential election.And so with Lincoln’s own state of Illinois,which just before the war gave him such a greatmajority, now sends nine Democrats to five UnionRepublicans to congress, and has over one hundredthousand men in the field.

[203]In the Pennsylvania delegation the result issimilar, though the administration is endorsed bysix thousand two hundred and thirty-one majority,—whichwould have been vastly increased if herone hundred thousand soldiers had been permittedto vote, as they were a year or two later.

Out of figures sent from the field then wereshown to be five thousand two hundred and sixty-sevenRepublican votes in a total ballot ofseven thousand one hundred and twenty-two, inover thirty organizations; but most of these werefrom Iowa, a state with such Republican majoritiesthat when Mr. Blaine was urged to speakthere during the campaign of 1876, replied,

“What is the use of burnishing gold?”

But there had been a vast amount of politicallight spread over that state during the years thatintervened from 1862 and ’63 to 1876.

Mr. Blaine had spent a year as a quiet observerand a deep and diligent student since hiselection in September, 1862.

No course could have been wiser than the oneadopted by Mr. Blaine. None from the statewas more popular, and so none had a heaviercorrespondence. It related to all departments ofthe government, and he must at once gain influencein all. And this he did, with the greatestcertainty of results. He was most obliging. Itwas soon found out, and all parties, without respect[204]to politics, wrote him for favors of variouscharacters, and they never appealed in vain.

A Democrat of the deepest dye, a malignantenemy of Mr. Blaine politically, had a son inthe army who had deserted, was tried by a court-martial,found guilty, and condemned to be shot,according to the army law in such cases. Thefather appealed to Mr. Blaine to use his goodoffices with the great-hearted president in behalfof his son’s release.

True to his instincts as a man, and his fidelityin all matters of public trust, utterly destituteof a prejudice, and without a particle of enmityto curdle the milk of human kindness by itslightning-stroke, to poison his motive or weakenhis purpose to truly represent the people, hewent at once to Mr. Lincoln, and so presentedthe facts, and plead for the life of the youngman, that the pardon was granted, and he wastransferred from the guard-house to his place inthe regiment at the front.

And it is a simple fact that a brother of thatsame young man hooted the nomination of Mr.Blaine recently upon the streets of Augusta. Solittle does gratitude hold sway in the breasts ofsome!

It is a singular coincidence that Mr. Blaineand Mr. Garfield had entered so nearly together,and both so nearly of an age; but they were[205]both great students, and ready for the servicerequired at their hands.

Some have said that Mr. Blaine spent his firstterm in congress in quiet observation, withoutbeing read, seen, or heard. This would not behis nature. He would not be there if he wasto be simply an onlooker. This he could be fromthe galleries. Such a course would be crucifixion,and an acknowledgment of inefficiency and incompetency.Within two weeks after entrance wefind him participating in debate.

The secretary of war had sent a note to theCommittee on Ways and Means, requesting animmediate appropriation of twenty million dollarsfor bounties, to encourage more rapid enlistment.The chairman had reported the item at once, andthere was no delay in calling it up, and in itsdiscussion he took part. His first resolution relatedto the prompt payment of prize-money tothe officers and seamen of the navy, and wasoffered Jan. 6, 1864.

Six days after he rose to oppose the views ofthe chairman of the Ways and Means Committeein appropriating seven hundred thousand dollarsto pay a Pennsylvania claim only six monthsold, when claims filed eighteen months beforeby the state of Maine were unpaid. It wasa claim for enlisting, arming, and organizingtroops to guard the navy-yard and coast at[206]Kittery and Portsmouth when cruisers endangeredthem.

On April 21st Mr. Blaine presented his firstbill, having reference to this same subject of war-claimsof the state against the nation, the subjecthaving remained in an unsettled condition.His bill is a model of excellence, providing for acommission of three, appointed by the president,to receive, examine, and endorse state claims, etc.,against the general government, and order thepayment of the same, after a specified time fixedin the future, so heavy were the drafts then uponthe national treasury. He supported the measurewith a speech of great breadth of view andcomprehensiveness of statement, occupying tencolumns of the Congressional Globe. Mr. Hamilton’srefunding measure, after the war of the Revolution,was used in argument, and also the adoptionof similar measures after the war with Englandin 1812 to ’15, and also the Mexican war.

He was replied to by Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts,and a general debate ensued. He hadnow fairly entered upon his congressional career,and seems to have come with a bound into aposition that numbered him at once with theleading members. He was easily at the head ofhis delegation; he commanded the attention ofthe House, which some members never do. Hewas recognized, assented to, opposed in person[207]and particulars, co-operated with, and in variousways was it manifest that he had gained in asession what never comes to many members.

We find his resolutions and amendments passing;his points of order sustained. He is referredto on over fifty pages of the CongressionalGlobe, in remarks, resolutions, amendments, bills,etc. He has something to say on all greatmeasures of importance that come before theHouse. He shows himself at home upon allthe questions receiving attention, and watchesthe drift of proceedings with close and carefuleye, and shows an abiding interest in all thatis going on. The matter in hand seems everto be just the matter in his mind. He is fromthe start a “working-member.” There are memberswho are not classed as working-members.They listen and look on; work does not agreewith them; they do not like it. They have anequal chance with all the others, but they areafraid to speak out; to take a position and defendit.

Intelligence is an important factor in such aman, and it is hardly wise or best for a man,although he is a member, to “speak out inmeeting” unless he surely has something to sayand knows how to say it, and can really get itoff, and to the point. Men may go into battleby regiments, brigades, corps, and divisions, and[208]no man flinch; but they do not act that wayon the floor of congress. It is worse than abattle-field in some respects; takes courage of adifferent type. They must go in alone, and fireaway, with several hundred keen eyes upon them.They will quale and tremble, falter and trip ina little sentence, and stand there, pale andblanched with fear, while the same one mightmount a horse and charge into hottest battle,midst fearful carnage, with the tinge of highestcourage mantling cheek and brow.

In his eloquent eulogy of Mr. Garfield, Mr.Blaine says: “There is no test of a man’s abilityin any department of public life more severethan service in the House of Representatives.There is no place where so little deference ispaid to reputation previously acquired, or toeminence won outside; no place where so littleconsideration is shown for the feelings or failuresof beginners. What a man gains in theHouse, he gains by sheer force of his owncharacter, and if he loses and falls back hemust expect no mercy, and will receive no sympathy.It is a field in which the survival ofthe strongest is the recognized rule, and whereno pretense can deceive, and no glamour canmislead. The real man is discovered, his worthis impartially weighed, and his rank is irreversiblydecreed.”

[209]A long and strong experience had convincedhim of the deep, historic truth of this utterance.The challenge seemed constantly to be,“What are you doing here?” The waves dashedhigh, and the undertow was dreadful. One caneasily read between the lines the battle Mr.Blaine had with himself at his first rising inthe House, which was simply to read in evidenceon the pending discussion a few sentencesfrom the report of the secretary of the treasury,he was met by a slight rebuff from old GeneralSchenk of Ohio, to the effect that the matterwas irrelevant.

He was not Mr. Speaker any more, and feltthe newness of his situation, but he belongedthere, and he proposed to whip and win, andso he sets himself to work to draft a bill, andworks, and watches his opportunity for fourmonths, and not until December 21st is lost inApril 21st does just his opportunity come; butwhen it came he showed by a speech of nearlytwo hours in length, full of hard, solid facts,arguments forged with something of the weightand power of thunderbolts, bristling with statistics,and fairly boiling with his richest and most fervideloquence, that he knew his rights, and knowing,dared maintain them. And it was in discussing thissame bill on which he and Schenk had spoken,and which had kept afloat, or anchored in the[210]House in various forms of bill, resolve, or amendment,that he won his spurs in this splendidspeech. He did not let it come to final passageuntil he had shown his power of relevancy, andconvinced the General from Ohio that men werenot elected speakers up in Maine until theycould fairly discriminate between tweedle de andtweedle dum.

Meantime, what he said of Garfield is true ofhim: “He stepped to the front with the confidenceof one who belonged there.”

Nineteen of those who sat with Mr. Blainewhen he first took his place in the House, havebeen chosen United States senators since then.Many served well as governors, and many inthe foreign service of their country. “But amongthem all, none grew more rapidly; none morefirmly,” are his words of that other one, but theyare just as true of himself. His early coursein congress was marked by great courage andpersistency.

Two others had failed to secure the adoptionof an amendment to the bill for the establishmentof national banks, to the effect that interestshould be uniform when not fixed by statelaw, and though it had been voted on and defeatedbefore; though its form had been changed,yet seeing the wisdom of it, and having thecourage of his conviction, he moved it again,[211]and made a short, ringing speech of not overfifteen minutes, and it was carried by a vote ofsixty-nine to thirty-one. Such power to controllegislation so soon after entering congress, clearlyreveals the influence already gained.

Shortly after this, when the committee on thepenitentiary in the District of Columbia reporteda bill appropriating two hundred and fifty thousanddollars for the purpose, he was ready tooppose. He had been one of the chairmen ofthe prison committee in the Maine legislature,had been on a committee or commission appointedby the governor to visit prisons elsewhereand gain full information concerning them,having, with his customary energy and thoroughness,visited seventeen, and found they werebeing run at great expense to the several states,and so he opposed the bill, as prisoners werebeing kept safely in prisons already established,and, as he said, the proposed amount wouldonly start the work and make many hundredthousands a necessity.

Whatever the question of national or stateimportance that came before the House, he hadmade himself familiar with it. And so we findhim speaking on the revenue, conscription, andcurrency bills; legislative appropriation and tariffbills; the Fugitive Slave Law and the civil appropriationbills, beside the bill relating to Pennsylvania[212]war-expenses. The terrible battle ofGettysburgh had been fought the summer before,and the state heavily involved, and the effortwas to have her re-imbursed.

Mr. Blaine was heartily on the side of theadministration and the war, supporting thevarious measures of prosecution and relief asagainst the opposition, with all the power in him.But it was not a blind support. It must bewise, intelligent, and discriminating, to put himin the fullest action, and bring on what mightso soon be termed accustomed triumph.

But there came a day on the twenty-first ofJune, and during the first session of his firstcongress,—the thirty-eighth,—that a bill cameinto the House embodying a report fromJames B. Fry provost-marshal general, endorseddefinitely by Edwin M. Stanton, secretary ofwar, and concurred in by Abraham Lincoln,proclaiming the conscription act a failure. Thebill had come from the committee on militaryaffairs, through their chairman. The exact pointin the bill that had proved objectionable, andwhich they desired expunged, was what is knownas the three hundred dollar clause, enabling anydrafted man by the payment of the above sumto procure a substitute, and so be relieved himself.This very feature of the bill Mr. Blainehad incorporated as his first amendment offered[213]in congress, and enforced by a vigorous speech,which carried it through, and now a repeal ofit would compel any business man in the country,if drafted, to go at once, provided only he wasfit for military service. This would take thebest physician, with the largest practice, in thegreatest city of the Union.

“Such a conscription,” said Mr. Blaine, “wasnever resorted to but once, even in the FrenchEmpire, under the absolutism of the First Napoleon;and for the congress of the United Statesto attempt its enforcement upon their constituentsis to ignore the best principles of republicanrepresentative government.”

Remarkable as it may seem, and specially soin view of the fact that he had but fifteenminutes granted him to speak, his motion prevailedby a vote of one hundred to fifty. Suchmen as Boutwell, Brooks, Dawes, McDowell,Edward H. Rollins, Schofield, Wadsworth, andWheeler, stood with him. Mr. Stanton’s ideawas that by forcing into the field a great armyof soldiers the war might be speedily terminated.But freemen cannot be dealt with as slaves.There is a vast difference between the purelymilitary and the truly civil view of a question.

A few days after the same bill was up again,for further repairs, when we get a fine view ofMr. Blaine. It was Saturday afternoon, June 25,[214]1864. Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky, was making along speech against the feature of the bill thatprovided for enlisting the negro, when he observedMr. Blaine watching him. He said,—

“My friend from Maine (Mr. Blaine), who seemsto be listening so attentively, lived in Kentuckyonce, and knows the negro and his attributes,and he knows, if he will tell you what heknows, that they won’t fight.”

Mr. Blaine: “From a residence of five yearsin Kentucky, I came to the conclusion fromwhat I saw of the negroes, that there was agood deal of fight in them.”

After a pleasant colloquy, he went on tostate that during the Crimean war Egypt furnishedTurkey fifteen regiments of negroes ofpure blood, unmixed from the foundation of theworld, and as good troops as ever marched uponEuropean soil. And so the debate went on.One thing seems quite evident: Mr. Blaine hadcome to feel perfectly at home on the floor ofthe House. His quiet ways and quick-witted replies;the conversational character of the proceedingsat times, in which he participates; hisfamiliarity with men and their almost constantrecognition of him; the fluent and undisturbedcharacter of his sentences; the general ease andpleasure of the man, and the home-like air thatseems constantly to surround him, show that he[215]is in his element. But he is always there, andvery attentive, keeping up with the great debatesas they are carried on day after day.Nothing seems to escape him, and every moveis a cautious one. Even then he must havebeen the pride of his state.

He had not listened so attentively to thespeech of the Kentuckian, Mr. Mallory, fornaught, in which it was asserted that Mr. Lincolnissued the Emancipation Proclamation inconsequence of pressure brought to bear uponhim by a meeting of governors of the loyalstates, at Altoona, Penn., the autumn of 1862.Having armed himself with documentary proof,so that he might be doubly sure, though hismemory told him he was right, he thus cornersthe gentleman in the neatest manner possible.

“I understood the gentleman (Mr. Mallory, ofKentucky) to assert,” said Mr. Blaine, “and toreiterate with great emphasis, that the EmancipationProclamation was issued in consequence ofthe pressure brought to bear upon the presidentby the meeting of the governors at Altoona, inthe autumn of 1862.”

Mr. Mallory. “I said it was issued in consequenceof the pressure brought to bear by thesegovernors.”

Mr. Blaine. “Will the gentleman state at[216]what date the president’s proclamation wasissued?”

Mr. Mallory. “On the 22d of September.”

Mr. Blaine. “Will the gentleman state furtherat what date the meeting of the governors tookplace at Altoona?”

Mr. Mallory. “Some days before.”

Mr. Blaine. “Not at all, sir. That meetingwas on the 24th of September, two days afterthe proclamation was issued.”

Mr. Mallory. “Oh, no.”

Mr. Blaine. “Yes, sir; I am correct. I hada personal recollection of the date, and I havefurther certified it by documentary evidence,which I sent for and now hold in my hand.”

Of course the man squirmed and tried to escape,but he was held by a firm hand to thegrave discrepancy of which he had been guilty,involving the governors of all the loyal statesin an instigation of which they were guiltlessas a body of men, in convention assembled.Then he tried to escape by asserting that thegovernors were on at Washington, laboring withthe president to secure the same end. But hewas assured most emphatically, that such wasnot the case, as they all were extremely busy,and no time for a week’s excursion to Washington.

Governor Washburn, of Maine, had invited[217]Mr. Blaine to accompany him to this meetingof the governors, but pressure of duties forbade.

Mr. Blaine closed the little contest for supremacy,with the Kentucky gentleman, with thissingle sentence: “The anachronism into whichmy friend has been led, and which I have thuspointed out, is quite as conclusive in the premisesas Mr. Weller hoped the alibi would provein the celebrated Pickwickian trial.”

A pleasant thing about the episode is thatMr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, afterwards PresidentGrant’s secretary of the treasury, yieldedhis own time upon the floor to Mr. Blaine, forthe friendly tilt in the interest of the Union,and the pending war-measure.

It proved conclusively that congress is noplace for a Fourth of July oration, but for clearheads, well-managed tongues, and brave hearts,such as Mr. Blaine seems never to be without.

A long session of congress was being heldon into the middle of summer, and many ofthe old laws relating to slavery were being abolished,among them one that related to thecoastwise slave trade, which was interlaced withthe coastwise trade of rightful commerce. Itcomprised thirty-two sections, so bound up togetheras to make a sort of a code on thesubject. It, of course, bore directly upon theshipping interests of Maine, and brought Mr.[218]Blaine to his feet more than once during thediscussion. The effort was made to revise themin the interest of New York city, and so discriminatesharply against New England ports.The condition of that city, at this time, wasvery bad politically. It was about the time ofthe draft-riots, when Tilden addressed the mob,calling the rioters “My friends.” Of course Mr.Blaine was thoroughly informed, and he made astrong point against the measure of the NewYork member, Mr. Brooks. “To-day,” he said,“in New York city, the sentiment is anti-American,and were it submitted to voters of thecity of New York now, whether they wouldhave Jeff Davis president, or a loyal RepublicanUnion man, North, Jeff Davis would have thirtythousand votes ahead,” and a voice said, “Whatof that?” And Mr. Brooks, the gentleman fromNew York, admitted that there were fifty thousandmajority now in New York city opposedto Abraham Lincoln.

This was six months and seven days after theProclamation of Emancipation, and showed that,though the great heart of that noble state beattrue, and, as was a fact, had sent about twohundred thousand troops to the war, yet themass in the city, left behind, were weakeninglargely the Union cause. It was a feature ofthe struggle with slavery continually felt, not[219]only in congress, but in the execution of lawsfor the strengthening of the cause.

In reply to “What of that?”—that is, whatof it if Jeff Davis could receive thirty thousandmajority in New York city—he said: “Just this:if gentlemen suppose that the whole countrywill contribute to the prosperity and growth ofthe city under such circ*mstances, they are undera perfect delusion,” and then he went forthe man who said “What of that?” in his ownprincely style.

He encounters first “Sunset” Cox, then ofOhio, now of New York, the wit of the House,and there is a perfect fusilade of questioningsand replies, sharp retorts and pertinent sallies,and though they are after him from all sides,Cox, Randall, Arnold, Brooks, yet he holds hisposition with a fearless hand, standing firm asan admiral on the deck of his flag-ship in thesquadron, amid the boom and smoke, the thunder,and flash, and roar of a naval engagement;just as intrepid, just as grand; no twitching ofnerve, or faltering of muscle; he is commanderof the situation, and never strikes his flag.

Nearly a month before the adjournment ofcongress the Union National Republican Conventionmet at Baltimore (June 7), to nominate apresident.

Mr. Lincoln had been regarded as too conservative[220]by the extreme radical wing of the party,notwithstanding the slaves were free, and armed,and organized by the thousands in defence ofthe Union; and Grant had been so successful inthe West, he had been brought East and madelieutenant-general, having fought his way fromFort Henry to Pittsburgh Landing, to Vicksburg,and to Chattanooga. But the war had been prolongedbeyond the expectation of the people.Rebels were still on the banks of the Rappahannockand the Tennessee. A few defeats, lossof men, great expenditures of money, and a ratherdormant campaign during the winter, had producedsome despondency and doubt.

Secretary Chase, with his powerful position inthe cabinet and at the head of the treasury, wasknown to be seeking the presidency, and so hebecame the centre around which clustered variouselements of discontent and opposition. He wasthe head, it is said, of the radical forces in thecabinet, as Mr. Seward was of the conservativeforces. But though a man of great prominence,and of great power, a man with a splendid recordas a political chief of the Free-soil partythat had battled slavery before the war, his legislatureof Ohio pronounced for Mr. Lincoln, andMr. Chase at once withdrew.

But everything was at fever-heat. The “radicalmen of the nation” were invited to meet at[221]Cleveland on the 31st of May, eight days beforethe Republican Convention met at Baltimore.“It was simply a mass convention of one hundredand fifty persons, claiming to come fromfifteen states.” General Frémont was put forwardas candidate for president, and Gen. John Cochrane,of New York, for vice-president, and all inviolent opposition to Mr. Lincoln, as the call indicated,and General Frémont’s letter of acceptanceconfirmed. If anybody else was nominated,he would not be a candidate.

This was the state of affairs when Mr. Blainewent with his delegation to Baltimore, whereUnion troops were first fired upon less than threeyears before.

It seems exceeding strange as we look backupon it now, that anyone could be found in allthe North, and especially among his party, menwho could oppose a man so great and worthy asAbraham Lincoln, and even attack the wisdom ofhis administration and the rectitude of his intentions,just as some were found to attack Washington,notwithstanding the magnitude of his service,the splendor of his life, and the magnificenceof his character.

Mr. Blaine was among the staunchest friends ofthe president, and cannot look, even from thisdistance of years, with any respect, upon the actionsof those who sought to undermine him.[222]He regarded it as unwise, cruel, and next to disloyalty.But it availed not,—he was too proudlyenthroned amid the affections of the people, sothat every effort of opposition but increased theirlove and zeal for him, and made his nomination,which came in due time, doubly sure.

This convention, in which Mr. Blaine bore sosignal a part, was full of interest, not only forthe sake of Mr. Lincoln, but also of Vice-presidentHannibal Hamlin, of his own state.

Many eminent men were included in its roll ofdelegates. Not less than five of the leading war-governorswere chosen to participate in its councils.Vermont sent Solomon Foote, who hadstood faithful in the senate during the strugglebefore the war. Massachusetts had commissionedher eloquent governor, John A. Andrew. HenryJ. Raymond, Daniel S. Dickinson, and LymanTremaine were there from New York. New Jerseyand Ohio each sent two ex-governors,—MarcusL. Ward and William A. Newell from theformer, and William Dennison and David Todfrom the latter. Simon Cameron, Thaddeus Stevens,and Ex-Speaker Grow, of Pennsylvania; GovernorBlair and Omer D. Conger, of Michigan;Angus Cameron, of Wisconsin, and George W.McCrary, of Iowa, were among the other delegates.

Governor Morgan, of New York, called the convention[223]to order, and Dr. Robert J. Breckenridgewas chosen temporary chairman, who, on takingthe chair, delivered the great speech of the convention,as Mr. Blaine thinks. It impressed himdeeply, and he refers to it with emotions of admirationto-day.

He was a tall, sturdy man, of Scotch extractionand advanced in years, which, with his history,inspired reverence. His speech was “sharp,sinewy, and defiant.” He had been reared amidstSlavery, but was for the Union. “The nationshall not be destroyed,” he said. “We shallchange the Constitution if it suits us to do so.The only enduring, the only imperishable cementof all free institutions, has been the blood oftraitors,” he said with thrilling effect; and addedregarding Slavery, “Use all power to exterminateand extinguish it.”

“Next to the official platform itself,” said Mr.Blaine, “the speech of Doctor Breckenridge wasthe most inspiring utterance of the convention.”Every vote in the convention was cast for Mr.Lincoln on the first ballot, except twenty-two fromMissouri, which, by instruction, were cast for GeneralGrant.

When congress adjourned, July 4th, the greatcampaign opened, and into it plunged Mr.Blaine with all the fiery ardor of which hisnature was competent, and patriotism prompted,[224]and his personal friendship for Mr. Lincolncould inspire.

Gen. George B. McClellan, who had been theidol of the army for two years and a half, wasnominated by the Democrats. Mr. Blaine denominatesit “a canvass of extraordinary interest andcritical importance.” And such indeed it was,coming as it did right in the midst of the greatwar, when over a million men were in arms onthe continent, and the great summer and fallcampaigns were to be fought. It was, indeed, acritical time for heated discussions, the grindingof opposition, the friction of parties, constant irritation,not only at home, throughout every city,village, and hamlet of the North, but throughoutthe army, in every camp and hospital, on themarch, at picket, post, and bivouac,—for the soldierswere to vote.

It was, indeed, a perilous time. No tonguecan tell, no mind can even dream, the resultsthat would have followed Mr. Lincoln’s defeat;what reversals of history; what undoing ofmighty deeds; what paralysis of moral power inthe nation; what defeat of principle; what compromisewith wrong; what stagnation, downfall,death. But it was not to be; it could not be.High heaven’s decree was otherwise. Incompetencewas not to be rewarded. The greatNorth, when it spoke out for all the world to[225]hear, had no premium to place upon supposeddisloyalty. The old ship of state was not tochange captains in mid-ocean; he who hadbrought her by island, and rock, and reef, throughstorm and tempest, through cyclone and hurricane,safely thus far, was no Jonah, to be castoverboard now. Few people in all the worldcan know more clearly, feel more deeply, andact more strongly when things thoroughly arouse,than the American people, and none have moreto rouse them at times. Indeed, we have thecream of all the nations, and so strike highabove the average. We heard of “thinking bayonets”back there, and fife, and drum, and hornthat spoke the thoughts and love of men. Thetriumph was complete.

There were but twenty-one votes in the electoralcollege, when autumn came, for McClellan,and two hundred and twelve for Mr. Lincoln.The decree of a holy Providence had been recordedwith an emphasis as unmistakable asdoubtless would have been the case had theGreat Emancipator of Israel been subjected toa test-vote in the wilderness.

It is probable that no period of the nation’shistory is so bright with victories, both civil andmilitary, as the sixty days succeeding the conventionat Chicago, Aug. 29, 1864, which nominatedGeneral McClellan for the presidency,—a[226]period in which the labors of Mr. Blaine were indefatigablefor the Union cause, and to which hereferred with the emphasis of a life-time interest.

The Democrats voted the war a failure, andthen placed its leading general up to withinless than a year before, upon their platform.And yet, while they were declaring the war afailure, the news came that Fort Morgan wascaptured, and Sherman took Atlanta the day afterthey adjourned, and speedily came the successesof Admiral Farragut in Mobile Bay.

A proclamation of thanksgiving was issued byPresident Lincoln for the great Union victorieswithin two days after they had proposed, practically,to surrender to traitors; and SecretarySeward said in a public speech, “Sherman andFarragut have knocked the planks out of theChicago platform.”

Meanwhile Grant held Lee in a vise at Petersburgh,and Sheridan, within three weeks ofSherman’s capture of Atlanta, had dashed downthe Shenandoah valley and won three brilliantvictories in the battles of Winchester, Fisher’sHill, and Cedar Creek.

The political effect of these victories was justwhat Mr. Lincoln had predicted. “With reversesin the field,” he said, “the case is doubtfulat the polls; but with victory in the field,the election will take care of itself.”

[227]And then came the civil victories,—Maineand Vermont in September (and Mr. Blaine wasstill chairman of the Republican State CentralCommittee in Maine, and had to plan the entirecampaign, secure speakers, etc., etc.); then inOctober, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, wheeledinto line, and “registered in advance the edictof the people in regard to the presidency.”

Mr. Blaine had usually to remain in his ownstate each summer after the adjournment ofcongress, until after the election, and they hadone each year, which occurred the second Mondayin September, and as this would come fromthe eighth to the twelfth of the month it gavehim from fifty to sixty days for campaign-workin other states, which, during presidential years,was fully and heartily improved. He was greatlysought for, and would draw immense audiences,and kindle an enthusiasm which would blaze andburn, and smoulder, and then blaze forth again.His offer of a thousand dollars a line for anythingthat he has written the past year, expressingin any way a desire for the nomination, isproof that his nomination is but the result ofthe old smouldering fires of almost boundlessand unquenchable enthusiasm blazing forth anew.These fires that are burning now have beenkindled for ten or twenty years, and they havebeen chiefly lighted during these fifty or sixty[228]days intervening between September elections inMaine and the October and November electionsin other states. While others might go to themountains or sea-shore to rest and rust, he wouldbreathe for two or three days, and respond tosome of the numerous calls for help where thebrunt of battle was heaviest, or the enemyseemed strong and desperate.

He was always a hard hitter, and never playedat politics. It was business with him, and war.He would wring the neck of a political heresywith all the gusto an old Scotch Covenanterwould experience in hounding to the death areligious heresy. There is such a thing as politicaltruth and political virtue to him. It is notfancy and foible, chimera and dream, phantasmand fable, but granite truth, and principle rock-likeand firm as adamant.

Something was fought for in the war, and thatsomething has been worth preserving, and isto-day.

It is Liberty in purest form and on grandestscale this world has ever known; the life of allprosperity, the very spirit of peace, the inspirationof all development, the law of all growth,and the harbinger of hope’s brightest anticipations.

And so Mr. Blaine has done his great, bestwork, not simply in the light of glowing idols,[229]but in the glow of great victories achieved, andthe substance of great realities enjoyed, in amental and moral realization; and a countrybroad, and grand, and free; its great cities,rivers, forests, lakes, its ocean, mountains, prairies,plains, and all its five and fifty million people,to him a joy.

He takes it in and calls it ours,—the fairinheritance of a people free,—for we inheritone another too, in all that constitutes society,community, city, and country.

We said he hit hard, struck out to win. It istrue. Each man before him must squirm orcheer. There were no lookers on; he had noidle issues, but live ones; personal, and thingsof destiny.

When in Ohio once with Congressman Bingham,—andhe did not go that far from homefor nothing,—he got up a little political hail-stormfor the special benefit of the Democratspresent. Such a storm is usually produced bytwo dark clouds coming together, heavily chargedwith the double extract of electricity and othersubstances. He brought one of those clouds withhim and manufactured the other one on thespot out of materials in the audience.

The result was a good many were hit, andhail hurts when it has a fair chance to strike,and as that was well aimed it struck square.[230]Among others, a man from the “old sod,”—anIrishman,—who had in him what is rare inMaine,—whiskey,—so after the speaking hemade for Mr. Blaine, determined to try hisshillalah upon the cranium of the honorable gentleman,but just as he came up, Bookwalter,who ran for governor, seized him, and gave himthe direction of the comet which did not knowhow it came there, or where it was going. Atall events, he did not get the whirl, and twist,and buzz out of him in time to find out wherehe was, or Mr. Blaine either, or to reform hispurpose and execute it.

It is said Henry Clay’s speeches had the mosteffect at the time they were delivered, and thatDaniel Webster’s speeches had more effect aweek afterwards, when people had had time tothink them over, than at the time they weredelivered.

You must combine these views to get at thetruth regarding Mr. Blaine’s speeches. They havetremendous effect when delivered, and great powerafterward. His illustrations, taken right out ofdaily life, would catch and hold the thought,and illuminate the mind, and make themselvesremembered. They would not let go; like someof the things that have clung to us throughlife, we don’t hold on to them, they hold onthemselves.

[231]A speech we heard from him years ago willnever leave us. It was on the currency question,which was discussed for years, and, likeBanco’s ghost, would not down.

His first sentence will never be forgotten. Itwas characteristic of the man, and expressed agreat principle of his political philosophy. Thiswas it: “A thing is never settled until it issettled right.”

How true that was of Slavery! how true ofthe currency question! how true of every greatquestion of moral or religious reform! Until itis settled right it is like a piece of glass inthe eye, you cannot get it into a comfortableposition; you move it and arrange and re-arrangeit, and think now that it is fixed for certain,and just as it ceases to vex you,—like thecrooked stick in the fable, so crooked it couldnot lie still,—it turns over.

In that same speech,—and it moved and swayedthousands then, and clings to them yet like aninfluence of magic power, moving and swayingthem still, in it was a little simple reference toexperience he had in California, and it was beforespecie payments had been resumed, but theywere on a gold basis out on the Pacific coast.He had gone into a bank to get a check ofthree hundred dollars cashed, and he said, “Giveme gold,” and they gave him gold, and he divided[232]it up and put it in all his pockets to balancethe load, and he went about the city callinghere and there, going up long stairways, and overgreat establishments, and all the while that goldwas getting heavier. He would change it aboutand carry some in his hand. It was such a luxuryto have gold and not pay any premium on it.But finally it was too much for him, and in a sortof desperation he went back to the bank, andasked them if they would not give him greenbacksfor that gold, and the man said “Yes,” andhe took the little roll of greenbacks and put itin his vest-pocket, and was not bothered anymore. He acted out the scene with dramaticeffect. The incident gave all a new love for thegreenback, and less thirst for gold.

It was his delight all through that speech toget questions from the audience, and so settletheir difficulties by giving them just the informationdesired.

His power with an audience lay largely in thismethod of questioning. He drew near to them,or rather drew them near to him, was helpfuland kindly; he would stop in his speech and talkwith anyone in the audience that had sensiblequestions to ask, and so was down to earth allthe time, and not up among the clouds “careeringon the gale.” And thus he really did something,really accomplished it, and so made progress.[233]He did not fly any eagle, he did not haveone along.

Some grocer or laboring man in the crowdasked a question about the revenue on sugar,which Mr. Blaine did not get at first, and anaristocrat on the platform said, “O, never mindhim, go on with your speech,” but he hadsaid “What,” and was eagerly listening to getthe man’s thought, and said quickly to thehonorable gentleman, “Keep still,” and waved hishand back at him to keep quiet, and he heardthe laboring man’s question fairly, and answeredit, too.

It made all respect him the more, and beside,that was his speech. It was his way of gettingerror out of the mind and truth in. It doesnot do much good to shoot off a quantity ofpowder out doors. It will make a big flash andsmoke and noise, but what of that; put it in acannon behind a ball and give it aim, and thentouch it off, and there will be execution.

Mr. Blaine’s method of getting the light intothe people was by getting the dark out; likethe Dutchman who put a window into his barnto let the dark out, but the same process thatlet the dark out, let the light in.

He had gotten this colloquial style, it may bein congress, or in Yankee land where they “raisequestions.” It is a part of a real live Yankee’s[234]life-work to ask questions. This is his birthright,an inheritance of the soil.

But the practice is very prevalent in congress,where there are a great many lawyers who areskilled in questioning witnesses, and it is a habitwith them, carried from their practice in thecourts to the halls of legislation; and it is avery convenient and serviceable habit, as the recordof proceedings clearly shows.

It may be recalled that the campaign of 1864was prosecuted so effectually that while McClellanreceived twenty-one electoral votes, only oneof the eighteen free states voting thus honoredhim, namely: New Jersey,—Kentucky and Delawarejoining with her.

The real triumph to Mr. Lincoln was in NewYork, and we close this chapter by giving itin Mr. Blaine’s own words, for it had attractedhis special attention. Horatio Seymour andReuben E. Fenton were respectively the Democraticand Republican candidates for Governorof New York:—

“Governor Seymour’s speech in the Democraticconvention at Chicago, Aug. 29, 1864, had beenan indictment of the most malignant type againstthe administration. The president felt that hewas himself wholly wrong, or Governor Seymourwas wholly wrong, and the people of New Yorkwere to decide which. They rendered their verdict[235]in the election of Reuben E. Fenton tothe governorship by a majority of thousandsover Mr. Seymour. Without that result Mr. Lincoln’striumph would have been incomplete.The victory in the nation,” he adds, “was themost complete ever achieved in an election thatwas seriously contested.”

MR. BLAINE reached home weary inbody, but fresh in spirit, from thegreat political war in Massachusetts,New York, and Pennsylvania, just intime to cast his ballot the last time for AbrahamLincoln. He had stumped his own statefrom “Kittery to Houlton,” which are the extremepoints in Maine, and had put in aboutfifty speeches in the other states,—between oneand two hundred in all. He had confidence inthe result, for he had been near the people andgot their temper and knew the purpose of theirsovereign will in the matter, and so it came,but with it the reflection that they were onlyabout five years off from the Dred Scott decision,and every free state but one voting solidin the electoral college for the great abolitionpresident, Abraham Lincoln.

How dark and infamous, and mysterious, too,looked the repeal of the Missouri Compromise;the war with Mexico; the Kansas and Nebraska[237]bill; the proposition to purchase Cuba for purposesof slavery, and all the political paltrooneryand truckling of honored public men, the trimmersand time-servers!

But what ruin strewed the pathway to suchtriumph! There was not a slave in all the landnow, according to the proclamation, emphaticallyendorsed, and the rebellion well-nigh crushed.The effort had been, it is thought, for the Southto hold out until after the presidential election,and hope for the defeat of Mr. Lincoln. Thewar was over six months after his re-election.

In less than a month after election day, Mr.Blaine was in his seat in congress (December5th), and there, also, with a knowledge of thefact that not only had Mr. Lincoln been re-electedpresident, but he himself, also, had beenre-elected to congress, for the election took placea year before each term expired. How could hebe otherwise than happy regarding the politicaloutlook of either himself or the nation. Heneed have little thought for himself; he hadsurely caught at the flood that tide which leadson to greatness. He was not a coming man,but one who had already come. His record ofthe former session had made him more widelyknown, and known in a larger sense. Indeed,he was every way a larger man; beloved athome, respected and admired abroad in other[238]states, and where his great life-work had soauspiciously begun—in congress.

The principle of evolution was at work uponhim in its only true sense, just as it operatesin tree and flower, where heaven and earth inall their vital forces are made tributary to Nature’slaws of unfolding in the deep processesof growth upward to perfection.

There had been a wondrous involution fromcenturies of great history, according to subtle,silent laws of hereditary inheritance, in veryblood and life, of tone, and quality, and temper,and now there is evolved, evoked, just that ofpower which tells of kinship with those whohave gone before.

It should not cause surprise that Nature keepsher treasures, or that the right, the good, thetrue, live to confront the wrong, the false, thebad, with just those elements of a nobler lifethat no power can resist.

The people everywhere were singing,—

“Our God is marching on.”

And so he was, in all of truth and rightmaintained, in all of good performed.

Never were the good and true remembered insuch hosts as when the nation struggled withher foes. What mighty ones stepped out of thechaos of a dismal past into splendid life with[239]her! Their name is legion; grand in everysphere of greatness, and great in every realmof grandeur. They thought out the nation first;fought out and forged it in battle-heat, andhurled it like a thing of life, upon its greatcareer. It never loses its power to go, to be,and conquer, bringing ever to the birth, andupward into strong, armed life those whose greatabilities are her own; her own for defense; herown for war, living in their lives, powerful intheir strong right arms,—one with them indestiny. Among that number now, though reckonedwith a multitude, was James G. Blaine.

He surveyed the field for but a single dayafter the second session of his first congressopened,—the thirty-eighth,—and then undid themischief of another. It was called the “Goldbill” in the House, and had simply been offeredand referred to the committee of Ways andMeans, by a Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania.

Its substance was, that a dollar note issuedby the Government, declared lawful money andlegal tender, is declared of equal value for allpurposes as gold and silver coin of like denominations.A contract made payable in coin maybe payable in legal tender, and anyone shouldbe imprisoned who received a greenback for lessthan gold coin was worth, and fined as well.

Gold went up in Wall Street within twenty-four[240]hours after the bill was presented, twelveper cent. Mr. Blaine saw it and moved a reconsiderationof it, sections two, three, five, and sixbeing the objectional features of the bill. Hisspeech in support of his motion did not occupyten minutes. The author of the bill, Mr. Stevens,said,—

“My friend from Maine (Mr. Blaine) has an intuitiveway of getting at a great national question,one that has exercised the thoughts of statesmenof several countries for many years.” Thisin opening; and in closing his speech, he said,—

“How the gentleman from Maine, by his intuitiveknowledge of these things comes to understandat once what the ablest statesmen ofEngland took months to mature, I cannot verywell understand. It is a happy inspiration.”

Had he a knowledge of his long years of study,that it was then twenty-five years since he finishedreciting Plutarch, and but little less thantwenty since his graduation, had he a knowledgeof the strong, determined spirit of mastery whichcharacterized him in all his work, could he haveread over at that moment the long list of volumesover which he had poured, had he knownthese things, he would not have felt that agenius of intuition who got at things by inspirationmerely, sat before him, but one with agenius for the hardest kind of a student’s work,[241]with intuitions born of high intelligence and inspirationthat comes from conscious strength. Nowonder he was an enigma, a man beyond hisyears and place, yet master of the situation.

Mr. Stevens’ motion to table the motion ofMr. Blaine, failed, fifty-one to sixty-eight, andthen the motion of Mr. Blaine regarding the billof Mr. Stevens, carried, seventy-three to fifty-two.It is interesting to notice, that though the gentlemandid not call up his bill for a solid month,—notuntil after the holidays,—and then came inwith an elaborate argument showing the financialcourse of England in her war with France in1793, and then in her war finally with the wholeof continental Europe, though he seemed to havemade a careful study of his subject, and ofEngland’s financial policy, he closed with thissentence:—

“I feel that England never had so absurd alaw as to pay one part of her war-debt in gold andanother part in Bank of England notes.” Hesaid “I feel,” he did not know. But Mr. Blaineknew, and so he asked him whether the bondsnegotiated by England upon the continent werenot payable in gold.

“I do not know,” was the answer.

Then Mr. Blaine stated, “Every one of themnegotiated upon the continent was payable ingold, both principal and interest. Every one negotiated[242]at the Hague, at Frankfort-on-the-Main,and elsewhere upon the continent, was negotiatedupon the gold basis exclusively.”

This was no contest to win, but simply tobring out financial intelligence in a semi-officialway, for the benefit of the country. It was amost sensitive subject. Gold was up to twohundred and fifty, that is, a hundred dollars ingold cost two hundred and fifty dollars in greenbacks,and Mr. Stevens had endeavored in awrong way, as Mr. Brooks showed, to correctgambling in gold, but Mr. Blaine could furnishhim with deficiencies of knowledge, and manifestthe acumen of a statesman upon a subject sogreat.

Mr. Blaine had his magnetic power then, andMr. Stevens refers to it, and his great powerover the House in securing so promptly thepassage of his motion. He said,

“The House, partaking of the magnetic mannerof my friend from Maine, became alarmed,and immediately laid the bill on the table.”

It was his power of quick, thrilling action; offeeling strongly, and making others feel as hedid; of casting upon them the glow of his ownbrilliancy; of charming them with the rhapsodyof his own genius; of piercing them with theenergy of his own thinking, and so shuttingthem up to his conclusions by the force of his[243]own arguments; it was thus by methods thefairest and most honorable to his abilities, thathe carried all before him. And one can but seein his repeated control of the House, the powerof his friendships.

Cox, Pendleton, Brooks, and others of the oppositionwould show him the greatest courtesiesin debate. Randall, even, in his first session,gave him time out of his own hour for an entirespeech, and Cox encouraged him in themidst of his Gold bill speech, by saying he waswith him on it.

When the Naval Academy bill was before theHouse, he moved to repeal a section relating tocadets “found deficient.” If they had a hundreddemerit marks in six months they would be expelled.Mr. Blaine had visited the academy in1861, as a member of the “Board of Visitors,”and while there a young man was dismissed, notfor any fault of scholarship, for he was amongthe brightest and best in his class.

Becoming deeply interested in the cause of theyoung man, he went to Washington and successfullyinterceded with the secretary of war, andhe was restored. He subsequently graduatedvery high in class-rank, and since his entranceupon active service has distinguished himself asan officer of great merit, serving with efficiencyand distinction as ordnance-officer on General[244]Sheridan’s staff in that splendid, victorious campaignin the valley of the Shenandoah.

The demerits were given for singularly smalloffences, as: “floor out of order near wash-stand,four demerits,” etc., etc.

Mr. Blaine insisted that to the secretary ofwar and the president be restored the powerthat was taken from them at the last session,—topardon any cadet discharged for any ofthese offences.

General Schenck joined him, and the amendmentwas adopted.

There is a little section of his speech on theMilitary Academy bill which shows his admirationfor the telling power of manhood, and hisutter scorn of sacrificing great ability, for whichthe nation was so loudly calling then, to little,simple things, good in themselves, but not offirst importance, that we cannot forbear to giveit. Here it is, verbatim, as he delivered it incongress:—

“Many of the cadets, sir, who have been veryprecise and decorous in their conduct in mattersof petty discipline at the academy, and manageto pass through smoothly, often graduating withhigh rank obtained by very strict attention to‘folding beds by 10 A. M.,’ and ‘drawing curtainsby at precisely 6.45 A. M.’ (academy rules), areunfortunately never heard from afterwards. Their[245]names do not always figure in the record of ourbloody battles, and they have achieved no distinctionin this war, with all its thousand opportunities,while on the other hand not a few ofthe graduates at the academy who at the Pointhad the ‘odor of tobacco in their rooms,’ andwhose ‘floors were out of order near the wash-stand,’have blazoned their names high on theroll of fame for conduct as gallant and skill asgreat as ever graced the battle-fields of any agecountry.”

Efficiency has ever been the test with him inhis own work, and this he applies to others;as one has said, “We measure others in ourown half-bushel; of course we do, we have noother.”

Early in the session he had a running debatewhich tried his metal, with Thayer, of Pennsylvania;Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont; James S.Wilson, of Iowa; General Schenck, of Ohio, andS. S. Cox, of Ohio yielding the floor for thepurpose.

It was not only a proof of his knowledge, butalso of his ability to use it on demand, and heshowed himself equal to the exigency, andshowed that he was generally found away onthe lead in his discussion of constitutionalmeasures and application of principles.

It is possible for a man to go over, in a[246]long-winded speech, a vast amount of ground,which has been tramped as bare as the camp-groundof a brigade of soldiers, by a multitudeof debaters; ground which has been surveyed,and staked out, and pre-empted, and owned fora century or more, and concerning which, asconcerning the constitution there is no question.Such speeches as these wearied the progressivespirit of advanced ones, and made them restlesswhen the fate of great interests hung on thedecision of a few hours’ discussion. No onewatched more closely the utterances of menupon the floor, or held them to a stricter account.

In presenting a minority report on amendmentof rules for the government of the House, Mr.Morrill had placed some undue restriction uponthe powers of congress, and courteously waitinguntil he had finished a long speech of ten oreleven columns, Mr. Blaine asked him whetherthe power of impeachment would not extend tocabinet officers, and so their attendance upon thesittings of the House be compelled, a point Mr.Morrill had denied.

There had been little demand for this powerslumbering in the constitution,—power which wasused upon a president shortly afterward,—butbrought prominently to the attention of theHouse, and much light thrown on it by the[247]answers tersely given to near a score of questions,members were pleased to ask Mr. Blaine,and while he was ready with abundant answers;clear and strong, and packed with knowledge ofthe highest legal type, he was ready as well ifthere was hint of an assailant in manner ortone, to thrust out a sharp, rising question whichwould almost take the breath of the man whomight be after him. When General Schenck askedhim if the secretary of war was a civil officer,his quick reply was, “I do not think that a‘civil’ question.” Neither was it, for as memberof the cabinet of course he was a civil officer,as much so as the president himself, whowas by virtue of his office “Commander-in-chiefof the armies of the Union.”

But Mr. Blaine had great respect for age andlearning, and allowed no opportunity to show itto pass by unimproved. His early intercoursewith his Grandfather Gillespie had developedlargely veneration both for gray hairs andscholarly attainments, a veneration which hadmatured by associations with his teachers andgreat men of the nation whom he had met inhis youthful days, and those whom he had sincecome to know and honor.

When Mr. Henry Winter Davis came on withhis great naval speech, Mr. Blaine heard himwith special pleasure, and had some very complimentary[248]things to say of “the caustic, scathing,truthful, and deserved criticism of the naval departmentin building,” as Mr. Blaine said,“twenty iron-clad vessels, at a cost of ten millionsof dollars, that will not stay on top ofwater.”

Mr. Pike had just taken him to task for thislast statement, when the “hammer fell,” and Mr.Davis, showing his appreciation of the courtesiesof Mr. Blaine, arose and said, “I ask unanimousconsent that the gentleman from Maine may bepermitted to proceed.” This was indeed a considerationwhich young members seldom receivedfrom the veterans of the House, and especiallyfrom one with a national reputation for scholarlyattainments. But as “the debate in Committeeof the Whole was closed by order of the House,”the Chair could not grant the request, and justhere Mr. Blaine’s shrewdness and intimate knowledgeof parliamentary rules showed itself. “Imove,” he said, “to amend the amendment, bystriking out the first line; that will entitle meto the floor for a few minutes longer.”

Then he went on to give an official fact, ashe called it, and he knew well the value of suchthings; there was nothing “fine-spun” aboutthem, but strong and stubborn, and full of powerto convince. “Out of ninety British steamers,”he said, “caught within a given period in attempting[249]to run the blockade, only twelve werecaught by vessels built by the present administrationof the navy department; while seventy-eightwere caught either by purchased vessels,or vessels inherited from the old navy. I submit,sir, that this fact bears with crushing forceon the practical question of the speed and efficiencyof vessels of the new navy.” It is badenough to swindle the government at any time,and in any thing, but in times of war to swindleher in the construction of iron-clad vesselsthat will not float, yet needed at once for activeservice, and produce twenty of them at half amillion dollars apiece, was enough to arouse theindignation not only of the older member, Mr.Davis, but also of the younger man, Mr. Blaine.

And this now gave him a new, fresh start,untrammeled by crutch or cane, casting him whollyupon his own resources, and placing him wherehe must put forth all the power in him, or utterlyfail.

“When the Jeannette went down, crushed andsunken by the ice,” writes Lieutenant Danenhouser,“we started with our boats southward,dragging them over the ice, broken and piled inevery conceivable shape. We accomplished sevenmiles the first week, only to find, by takingobservations, that the ice-floe had drifted usback to the northward twenty-seven miles, and[250]so placing us twenty miles to the rear of thespot where we had started, and our ship hadsunk.” They had intrepid spirits, but no firmground; he had both the intrepid spirit and thefirm ground on which to stand, and his victorywas swift and certain.

Mr. Blaine never lost an opportunity to do afavor, or make a friend. Doing duty was hisdelight; getting hold of strong, plain, practicalfacts, and presenting them in a way that showeda constant, abiding interest in his constituency, thathe was living and toiling for them, and hadtheir best interest, and those of the entire stateof Maine, and the whole country at heart.

Here is one of his plain, practical statements,showing his loyalty to home interests, as wellas the business interests of the country. A vesselfrom his district had been chartered to governmentto carry a cargo of four hundred and fiftytons of coal from Philadelphia to New Orleans,for six thousand dollars. Upon her return herdisbursem*nts had been six thousand, two hundredand thirty-eight dollars and five cents.She received six thousand dollars in certificatesof indebtedness from the government, then sellingthem at ninety-four, which made but fivethousand six hundred and forty dollars in cash,showing a net cash loss of five hundred andninety-eight dollars and five cents, besides the[251]interest on advance, about two hundred dollarsmore.

“And now, sir,” said Mr. Blaine, “after thismelancholy experience the tax-collector came forwardand demanded of the owner of the vessel,two and one-half per cent. on the six thousanddollars which the government paid, as above,and on top of all losses already incurred actuallycompelled him to pay one hundred and fiftydollars under that section of the internal-revenuelaw, which we are seeking to amend.

“A man’s profit in business,” he goes on tosay, “affords a fair basis of taxation, but it isa cruel mockery of one’s misfortune to assess atax upon losses.”

He further plead that “as commercial men ofthe country, who do so much to sustain ourfinances and our honor, they should be relievedfrom its oppressive exactions.”

There were no mists or fogs about him toconceal him or his methods, and what he saidstood out in the clear light of day. In thiscase he was able to catch up from memory, abetter argument for the repeal of the oppressivesection of the law than had come to the Housein a lengthy written memorial from a companydoing business on the Schuylkill Canal in Pennsylvania,and who could make sitings net themfour hundred and ten dollars, while in the case[252]cited by Mr. Blaine, one trip was made at aloss of nine hundred and forty-eight dollars andfive cents.

Seldom did he cite his own opinion. It wasthe bludgeon of hard, solid facts with which hedid his best execution. Others might theorize,and imagine, and conceive, and spin web afterweb of sophistry, like the spider, out of themselves,to be full as flimsy when the storm ofdebate beat upon it, but not he. He evidentlykept up a living acquaintance with those towhom he was responsible, and this, with anever vigilant correspondence, enabled him toknow, and not simply think and feel, but actuallyto know their adverse experiences wherethe operations of the machinery of governmentaffected them, and with reasonable and apparentfacts in hand he could easily procure the remedy.This lively interest, so practical and so potentas well, was with him a constant element ofpower.

He lost no opportunity to familiarize himselfwith business enterprises, great and small, andget the best authority on all questions of financeand trade, and as a result he could speak withpertinency, and from a mind prolific of the freshestdata on the practical questions as they wereconstantly coming before the House, and especiallyin the old war-days, when the vexed questions[253]of internal revenue, with all its myriaddetails regarding the nature and value of taxablearticles, were being adjusted.

At one time when he first entered congress,nearly every article that entered into the constructionof a ship was taxed, and then uponher tonnage, and then, beside, upon the grossreceipts for carrying the cargo. He saw to itat once that those matters were attended to.

But a fresh call was out for troops, and itwas a final call. They were getting ready forthe great opening of the spring campaign whichwas to speedily end in crushing the Rebellion,and annihilating the Confederacy. There was aflaw in the enrollment law passed the last session,which Mr. Blaine had discovered, andsought to remedy. It permitted recruiting inthe rebel states, and credits for previous navalenlistments. “From these two sources havearisen the gigantic and wide-spread evil of fillingquotas of towns without adding troops to thearmy.” He had offered an amendment which wasdesigned to bring back recruiting to “an honest,meritorious, and patriotic effort to fill theranks of our gallant army with men, and notwith shadowy fictions which pass under thename of ‘paper credits.’” The quotas of entirecities, districts, and possibly states, had beenthus filled “without adding a single man or musket[254]to the effective military force of the nation.There was fraud, and he would so change thelaw that it could not be perpetuated.”

There were substitute-brokers, who, in somemysterious way, would get hold of these “credits,”as they were called, and sell them, muchas torn scrip is sold.

“We can deal just by the government,” hesaid, “in its struggle for existence. It calls formen, and it is worse than madness to answerthis call with anything else than men.

“In conclusion,” and his words reveal a genuinepatriotism and zeal of affection for the soldier,“nothing so discourages the brave men atthe front as the belief that proper measures arenot adopted at home for re-enforcing and sustainingthem.

“After four years of such patriotic and heroiceffort for national unity as the world has neverwitnessed before, we cannot now afford to havethe great cause injured, or its fair fame darkenedby a single unworthy incident connectedwith it. The improper practices of individualscannot disgrace and degrade the nation, butafter these practices are brought to the attentionof congress, we shall assuredly be disgracedand degraded if we fail to apply the remedy.Let us, then, in this hour of the national need,do our duty here, our duty to the troops in the[255]field, our duty to our constituents at home, andour country; above all, to our country, whoseexistence has been in such peril in the past,but whose future of greatness and glory seemsnow so assured, and so radiant.”

Few utterances of those long, dark years,breathed a spirit of more devoted loyalty thanis found even in these few sentences, and theywere uttered when they would do the mostgood, and secure just those re-enforcements thatwould gladden the hearts of veterans, and hastenthe end of the struggle.

Mr. Blaine had a keen eye for fraud, andmade it his business to detect it; and he wasjust fearless enough to hold it up to the lightof day. Wherever he unearthed it he wouldpoint out the individual, and point his finger athim and say, with a boldness known only toinvective and scorn, “Thou art the man!”

He never seemed to take care of his popularity,but of his constituents and of his country.Enemies abounded, and evil, and wrong;and to these he paid effective attention, rightlyjudging that no course is safer, or accords withfuller satisfaction, than the right course. Withhim, character was the citadel of strength andinfluence; and so we find him knowing andtrusting himself, reaching for wrong in all ofits strongholds.

[256]And there was much to encourage nowSherman had reached the sea; Columbia, S. C.,was captured; Charleston was evacuated; theold flag was again flying over Fort Sumter,and Washington’s Birthday was to be celebrated,by order of the secretary of war, E. M.Stanton, by a “national salute at West Point,and at every fort, arsenal, and army head-quartersof the United States, in honor of theevent.” This twenty-second day of February wasa long, busy day in congress. It was a quarterpast five before the House adjourned. Mr.Blaine was in his seat all day long, votingsteadily for the right and against the wrong.The conquered states, cut off from the Rebellionand rescued to liberty and lawful authority, wereleft without government, and must be provided,as Tennessee had been in the person of AndrewJohnson, now vice-president, with provisionalgovernors. Much legislation was requisite. Everyman in congress who had ever had any pro-slaveryproclivities, was in his place contestingevery step of progress with men who had neverbreathed aught but the air of freedom andknown only loyal heart-beats.

One bill granted citizenship to all colored menwho had served in the army and navy.

Right royal work, this, for such a manto be doing on a day so sacred; helping[257]into citizenship the colored man, ever loyal,ever true.

This seemed to be the great feature of allthe great bills before the House that day. Itcame up in the bill to encourage enlistments,and the worth and dignity of being an Americancitizen was held up before the negro as aprize for him to win; as something in store forhim in the future; and so as giving to thecolored troops, and all who united with them,this personal interest in relation to the government.But it takes time to get such thoughtsadjusted to minds struggling with the fact ofEmancipation, and so little is done but give thebills a hearing and pass them to another reading.Coming events had cast their shadows beforethem. It was, however, but the shadow ofa passing cloud, and told of a great, bright sunshining in the heavens yonder, which would soondissipate all clouds and shadows, and the longnight of bondage ended, give a glorious day, inwhich the world might see in the poorest blackman of the South an American citizen, possessedof certain inalienable rights, among which arelife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

To the happy consummation of a task sogrand, whose inspiration comes from that freeand holy place where “all are one,” Mr. Blainehad set his hand, only to remove it when the[258]chaplet of America’s proudest, noblest glory wason the black man’s brow.

That life is most divine which is most inline with Providence, and has the most of upliftingpower in it, which stands the highest up,and can reach the farthest down, is many-handedin its helpfulness, and strong-handed aswell, to unshackle humanity in body, in soul, andin spirit, and tell the fallen or sunken ones howto get upward toward God and heaven.

Opening the gates of heaven means unlockingthe gates of earth, and to this latter task thestatesmen of the nation stood pledged fromthat day, since numbered among the nation’sholidays. A close student of Mr. Blaine’s congressionalcareer will be impressed with the factthat it seems planned and determined before-hand.There are no surprises in it. He seemsto have determined upon his course before enteringit, and gives his strength to certain measures,and does not fritter it away upon everyresolve, or amendment, or motion, that happensto be before the House, affecting some far awayinterest of a day-dreamer.

He recognizes the fact fully that he is one ofa great body of men, each one of whom ischarged with interests of an important characterto their state or district, and many heavilyweighted with special and peculiar measures of[259]national importance. These must all have theiropportunity. Less than ninety working-days usuallycomprise the session, and there are butfour of these in a congress,—from March to adjournment,and from December to March, andthen repeated, constitutes a congressional term,with eight of them in a presidential term, ortwo a year for the four years. Beside, it takesso long a time to get measures through congressthat the successful man finds it necessary to devotehimself with great carefulness to the fewmeasures of importance he would have adopted,and become law organic or otherwise.

Very soon after Mr. Blaine entered congresshe presented a resolution instructing the Committeeon Judiciary to inquire into the expediencyof amending the constitution so as to allowcongress to levy an export tax. But the sessionclosed, and it is not reported, and now his secondsession is closing, and still it is not forthcoming.Why not? He will know the reasonwhy! And so there comes a day near the session’sclose, only the day before Mr. Lincoln’ssecond inauguration, when he arises and states“a little grievance.” He states the resolution,its being offered at the last session, and nowagain at the present session. It had been to theWays and Means Committee, to which it hadbeen transferred. Evidently he had been ready[260]to grapple with the subject for some time, andproceeded to do so. It involved an amendmentto the constitution, and one “essential to thefinancial success of the government, and to theagricultural, commercial, and manufacturing prosperityof the country in all future time.”

It was stated that the measure would havebeen presented by the committee, if they hadsupposed time would have permitted of its consideration.It presented a subject that was discussedat length in the Convention of 1787.The “Madison Papers” give a synopsis of theconstitutional debates of that convention, andshow that many of the strongest men of thatbody, the really far-sighted ones, opposed theinsertion of the clause prohibiting a tax on exports.The vote was not a very decisive one,nor did its advocacy come from the Southernor “staple states,” and opposition from Northernstates.

He proceeds to deliver what is his greatspeech, if not the great speech of the session.It was probably not over an hour long, but hehad not proceeded far before it became apparentthat he had thoroughly studied the subject, andwas investing it with a new interest.

A great debt of more than two billion eighthundred million was on the nation. Mr. Blaine’samendment was looking towards its liquidation.[261]It was the wise, strong look far ahead. He sawin it several hundred millions of revenue in theexport of cotton, tobacco, and naval stores, withoutaffecting the demand for them, and also inpetroleum, and numberless articles, still more ofrevenue. France was taxing her wines and brandies,and countries having peculiar commoditiestaxed them.

Cotton which sold in Liverpool at eleven andthree-quarters pence per pound in December,1861, sold for twenty-four and one-half penceper pound in just one year from that date.The three million two hundred thousand balesof five hundred pounds each, this country hadexported, were missed there.

“Whoever as secretary of the treasury shallundertake and succeed in paying the debt,” heargues in closing, “must have open to him thethree great avenues of taxation, namely, thetariff, the excise system, and the duties on exports,and must be empowered to use each in itsappropriate place, by congressional legislation.”

And so he closed the first half of his secondcongressional year, with the same policy of questionswith which he began, aiming still at thoroughnessand mastery, still the guiding stars ofhis history, the moulding powers and the prominentfeatures of his great career.

IT is Inauguration Day in Washington.Not McClellan,—he is in Europe,—butLincoln is to be inaugurated. It is aday of wondrous glory to him, and tothe nation, but one so oppressed with the caresof state has but little joy in it. There is noretiring president to sign all the tardy bills ofan expiring congress. He must do it all, andthen go from the realizations of the past to theunknown of the new. There was no instant ofrest for him between laying off the armor andputting it on anew.

Of all the many thousand eyes that lookedon him that day, none were more brilliant withthe look of praise, none gleamed with a soul-lightmore fervent, none took in the scene withdeeper thoughts of the hour or the future, oppressivewith interest, than Mr. Blaine.

Little did he dream of twenty years to come.He had thought to scale the centuries as theystood like silent statues in the sombre, shadowy[263]past, and read out the hieroglyphics of theirhistory. But just as the rebellion was broken,shattered, staggering to its fall, and seemedcertain, and was scarce hung about with doubt,so now to faith the future is bright and clear,while hope is strong and almost gay with vividanticipations.

Mr. Blaine was profoundly impressed with thereligious character of Abraham Lincoln, as exemplifiedin the tone of his public documents.

He says: “Throughout the whole period of thewar he constantly directed the attention of thenation to dependence on God. It may indeedbe doubted whether he omitted this in a singlestate paper. In every message to congress, inevery proclamation to the people, he made itprominent. In July, 1863, after the battle ofGettysburgh, he called upon the people to givethanks because ‘it has pleased Almighty God tohearken to the supplications and prayers of anafflicted people, and to vouchsafe signal and effectivevictories to the army and navy of theUnited States,’ and he asked the people ‘to renderhomage to the Divine Majesty and to invokethe influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue theanger which has produced and so long sustaineda needless and cruel rebellion.’”

“On another occasion,” writes Mr. Blaine, “recountingthe blessings which had come to the[264]Union, he said: ‘No human counsel hath devised,nor hath any mortal hand worked out thesegreat things. They are the gracious gifts of theMost High God, who, while dealing with us inanger for our sins, hath nevertheless rememberedmercy.’ Throughout his entire official career, attendedat all times with exacting duty and painfulresponsibility, he never forgot his own dependenceunto the same authority, or the dependenceof the people upon a Higher Power.” Andthen he quotes those words of the great man,uttered reverently to the people assembled incrowds to congratulate him upon the return ofpeace: “In the midst of your joyous expressions,He from whom all blessings flow must first beremembered.”

His last inaugural, delivered but a little whilebefore this final utterance, was in keeping with it.It was a deeply religious document, referring tono political measure or material interest, and insix days after the people crowd about him, fullof joy at the close of the war, the bullet ofthe assassin is in his brain! What a weekwas that in which the war closed, and thegreat Lincoln was murdered! And what a summerwas that, when the broken armies camemarching home, halting in Washington for thegreat review!

But a campaign is on Mr. Blaine, and he hurries[265]home. For the third time Samuel Coney iselected governor, and Mr. Blaine has again donehis work well. Autumn passes, and he is in hisplace at the opening of the thirty-ninth congress.With his usual unforgetfulness, he resumesconnection with a bill presented by himin the early part of the previous congress, forreimbursing the loyal states for war-expensesin response to the president’s call for troops.His bill is very explicit, and shows that duringthe long delay he had perfected it in its details.No flaw is found in it, no amendment is madeto it, but it is at once referred, upon his motion,to a select committee of seven, and uponhis motion he demands the previous question, sothat the matter shall be attended to at once. Thebill was read a first and second time, and soreferred.

Mr. Blaine is of course upon the committee,and by his motion members are added to it,and they are empowered to hire a clerk. Whata work to examine and pass upon all the war-debtsof the loyal states! A grave questionsoon makes its appearance in congress. In undoingthe legislation of years, enacted in the interestsof slavery, they have come to the basisof representation. The slave is not yet a citizen,and if the basis is population and not suffrage,the South will have an immense advantage,—indeed[266]an advantage similar to that enjoyed beforethe war, when, though slaves were expresslyrecognized as chattels, and according to the DredScott decision, “a black man had no rights awhite man was bound to respect,” yet, accordingto slavery law five of them gave their masterthree extra votes.

But the ratio of voters to population variedfrom nineteen to fifty-eight per cent. in differentstates, as, for example, California had twohundred and seven thousand voters out of apopulation of three hundred and fifty-eight thousandone hundred and ten, while Vermont hadbut eighty-seven thousand voters out of a populationof three hundred and fourteen thousandthree hundred and sixty-nine, and each hadthree representatives in congress; that is, eighty-seventhousand voters in Vermont sent threecongressmen, while two hundred and seven thousandvoters in California sent but the samenumber.

There were more women and children in Vermont,two to one, than in California, and so inthe latter state there were more than twice asmany voters in the same population.

It was with such arguments as the above,—amathematical argument, without sophistry, andthat cannot be impeached,—that he opposed aconstitutional amendment making suffrage and[267]not population the basis of representation, andso reserving an argument to use in framing thecitizenship of the freemen.

Mr. Blaine has long been noted for the greatrapidity with which he works.

He very soon has an immense report fromhis committee of nine, to pay the loyal statestheir war-claims. In it twenty-six states, fiveterritories, and the District of Columbia havetheir war-claims adjusted, and they are to receiveall the way from nine thousand nine hundredand fifty-five dollars, as in the case of theterritory of Dakota for enlisting one hundredand eighty-one men, up to twenty million ninehundred and ninety-three thousand two hundredand eighty dollars, as in the case of New Yorkfor enlisting three hundred and eighty-one thousandsix hundred and ninety-six men; and it isa peculiarity with him to know for himself, bycareful computation, the exact truth of the statisticshe employs.

One day it so happened that he used thecalculations of a distinguished member who waschairman of a prominent committee,—that ofways and means,—and they were called inquestion; but soon after he was able to affirmpublicly that they were correct.

There was such a charm in being right andknowing it, despite all contradiction, that he[268]could not forego the pleasure, the very confidenceand self-respect, even at the expense ofperplexing effort. A point of order was raisedagainst him one day; his instant reply was,“That point was raised exactly ten years agoand overruled,” and the chair ruled in harmonywith his remembrance.

His great love for mathematics, and the positionhe was in requiring it, he was led tomake an extensive study of the history offinance, and in a speech of great length, bywhich he supported his report to pay the vastwar-claims of the loyal states, he clearly showsthe wide range of his acquaintance with thesubject. He shows great familiarity with thepolicy and utterances of Alexander Hamilton,his exceeding common-sense methods, which hequotes with so great aptness as to give themthe power of living arguments, as he offersthem in evidence of the wisdom of his ownviews and the tenable nature of the positionshe has taken.

It was proposed to bring all troops to athree years’ basis, and then refund at the rateof fifty-five dollars a man. Thus, Pennsylvania,with three hundred and sixty-six thousand threehundred and twenty-six men, which, reduced toa three years’ basis, gave two hundred and sixty-seventhousand five hundred and fifty-eight, which[269]at the rate proposed made the claim of thatstate fourteen million seven hundred and fifteenthousand six hundred and ninety dollars. TheGettysburgh battle alone had cost the stateseven hundred thousand dollars, and as for thatand other service she had furnished men for amuch shorter period than three years, the wholenumber of men were reduced nearly one hundredthousand to get them all on the threeyears’ basis.

No question commanded a more wide-spreador deeper attention for years subsequent to thewar than the question of money, and it behoovedany man with the aspirations of a statesman, tomake a long and thorough study of it.

“Reading,” it is said, “makes a full man,speaking a ready man.” He was both readerand speaker, and so proved the truth of themaxim, by being both a full and a ready man;and he never allowed himself to get empty.It was the knowledge of the day, most valuableto him, with which he was filled, as well asthat which came from historical research.

It was about this time that, as a member ofthe committee on military affairs, and while theconduct of the office of provost-marshal generalwas being investigated, that he had his livelytilt with Mr. Roscoe Conkling, and brought outall of his powers of wit and sarcasm, showing[270]him more than a match for the gentleman. Itwas undoubtedly the most brilliant intellectualcontest of the session. Ex-Governor Morrill says,“It was a pretty lively time, but they wereboys then, and probably are better friends to-day,though it is certainly evident they both didtheir best.”

Consistency in legislation seemed a law withMr. Blaine, so that the House should not befound contradicting itself on the military functionsof the president. Indeed the powers ofgovernment are so nicely balanced between theexecutive and the Senate and House, that greatwatchfulness is needed that there be no conflict;and new members,—and sometimes old members,—arefound transgressing legitimate bounds.For instance, there was a section to a bill that“until the fourth day of July, in the year 1870,all persons who voluntarily adhered to the lateinsurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excludedfrom the right to vote for representativesin congress, and for elections for president andvice-president of the United States.” He at onceraised the question of bad faith, because onJuly 17, 1862, they had authorized the presidentto grant pardon and amnesty to any person,state or part thereof, that was in rebellion.

And to this effect President Lincoln did issuea proclamation, and hundreds, and perhaps thousands[271]of pardons were granted. And in 1865President Johnson issued his celebrated amnestyproclamation, pardoning all below the militaryrank of colonel, who had participated in theRebellion, excepting certain classes.

One thing is clearly manifest in all of Mr.Blaine’s operations in congress,—he thoroughlyenjoys it all; he is at home, and feels so constantly.He can trust himself; there is no strivingfor effect. He never gets lost in depths,nor aground upon shallows. He can fish in deepwater, or seine near shore. It is quite noticeablehow he will go with the passage of amotion from some minor detail of internal revenueto the gravest questions of constitutionallaw. It was said once by a great preacher whowas pastor of a large church, editor of a largepaper, and engaged in writing a book, that hehad to live in those three great spheres, transportinghimself daily from one to another, as heworked in each. But here were not less than adozen great departments with which one mustbe as familiar as with the rooms of his dwelling,and have in possession, living, present, trenchantfacts; the latest phases of new, fresh life,and the old and musty as well. For it will notdo to blunder in congress; it is blundering beforethe nation, and before the world. Thefolks at home will find it out right off, and[272]worst of all you will find it out, and a manwill feel so terribly small, and ashamed, andmean, and it will be such desperate hard workto own up, and sit down with all-hands lookingstraight at you.

It is one of the first matters of congressionalcourtesy, to let anyone ask you a question.And this is all done so blandly, and in suchelegant diction, one is almost charmed by thetones so as scarcely to get hold of the questionitself; but that question is like the bee, sobright and beautiful, and musical withal, andyet it has a sting.

What is denominated “brass,” in modern parlance,will not serve one’s purpose. It is atonce detected by its sound, and then confusioncomes,—it will come, it must come, and brasscannot prevent it.

The present was a long, tedious term, andkept the members well into the summer. Theinternal-revenue laws must be properly adjusted;the army re-organized; settlers were pouring,by the thousand, and actually by the hundredthousand, into the great region between the Missouriand the Pacific,—so much so that thelieutenant-general urges congress to provide themeans requisite for their protection, as a greatbody of citizens who are filling up the country,rendering it productive, and erecting states; and[273]beside these, a multitude of other things aredemanding attention.

And then, after adjournment, comes the greatcampaign, in which the thirteenth amendment issubmitted to the suffrage of the people. Two-thirdsof the states must endorse it to make itorganic law, and this they do right heartily, andcongress resumes its session the first Mondayin December. It is the second session of thethirty-ninth congress, and the second of Mr.Blaine’s second term.

Mr. Blaine had a very eligible seat, at theleft of the speaker, and well in front; almostwithin reach of him sat Garfield.

The first day of the session Mr. Blaine madea move for the repeal of the three cents perpound tax on raw cotton, which was finally carried.This was a move which affected everyhome, and especially the laboring classes; forolder ones do not forget how enormously highcotton goods were in war times and subsequently,and so have little difficulty in understanding theimportance of such a move. It was contendedthat it was a wrong principle to tax the rawproduction of the soil, and in conflict with thelong-established policy of the nation.

Mr. Blaine’s resolves at this time came thickand fast, like resolutions at New Year’s, butwith more purpose in them. Indeed his purpose[274]is a noticeable feature of every move, and hecould state it in the plainest kind of English,and it was his practice, after a bill was read,or resolution presented, to state its meaning,tell just what he meant by it, as the legalforms do not always make it at once apparent.He gives his reasons for the measure. For instance,volunteer officers could not be brevetedin the regular army for meritorious service inthe volunteer service. This he saw was wrong,and drew up a bill in regular form to rightthe matter, and then states what he meansabout it, and the facts that have moved him,generally move the rest. Almost nine-tenths ofthe new regular army was to be made upof the old volunteers, and he would have theold regular army laws changed so as not to discriminateagainst them and in favor of WestPointers.

There was no red-tape about him. He didnot believe in it. It took too much time, andwas too unjust. He believed in solid worth,and in rewarding it. He is a straight and constantAmerican, and loves all who love America,and will not have them dealt unfairly with if itis in his power to prevent. Fair play is a termhe often used during his early terms in congress.It seemed to express his ideal of honor.An unfair man was not respectable in his eyes.[275]It was a right upon which he strenuously insistedfor himself. He evidently had seen theold definition of freeman, “Who knows his rightsand knowing dare maintain.”

And yet this genius of fair play which possessedhim, kept him from being a bigot. Hissense of justice would rebel against an outrageinflicted upon anyone. But it is getting to be ahot place in congress. Andrew Johnson has disappointedthe hopes of the nation. He is notfilling the place of the dead Lincoln, but ratherdishonoring it, and articles of impeachment areoriginating in the House, summoning him beforethe bar of the senate because of “the crimesand high misdemeanors of which he is manifestlyand notoriously guilty, and which render it unsafelonger to permit him to exercise the functionshe has unlawfully assumed.” The air wasfilled with this matter of impeachment during thesummer campaign, but on in the dead of winterthere is no disposition to rush madly or blindlyinto it. It is but one of many things demandingattention.

Mr. Blaine is as conservative as he is radical.He combines in a very strong and decided mannermany of the best characteristics of both. Hedoes not rush into everything that comes beforethe House, but calmly surveys and studies,and comes to know the question in its bearings,[276]and reaches conclusions, and with these trulygained and firmly held, he is ready for action.

The novelty of a thing makes him suspicious;he must know it through and through, for whenhe begins he will surely end. One comes to expectthat when he presses a measure it will pass,and however much there may be to retard itsprogress, he will never lose sight of it until itgoes through.

It seemed to be a time of political apostasyin the nation. Many are betraying their trusts,and a large number fall, politically, to rise nomore. Many of the old war Democrats, likeAndrew Johnson, were simply Democrats whenthe war was over. It seemed to be a sort ofpolitical reaction after the high pressure of thewar. They were not prepared to accept all theresults of the war. It was more than they hadanticipated, and the result was an unwillingness toproceed, and so many called a halt; but ThaddeusStevens in the House, and Charles Sumner in thesenate, kept the work planned and the forces inmotion. Mr. Stevens formed a strong friendshipfor Mr. Blaine, and as they were on the militarycommittee together, he learned to respecthis talents and prize his ability.

THE 4th of March comes, and withit the fortieth congress, with SchuylerColfax, of Indiana, still in thespeaker’s chair; Rutherford B. Hayes,James A. Garfield, and James G. Blaine are inthe House. They were on their way up to thenation’s honors, and had seats near each other.The House, rather than the senate, is the placeto look for presidents. There seems to be nospecial reason for it, unless it is that senatorialdignity and greatness are less approachable, notso easily grasped by the public mind, and fartheraway from the great masses of the people.

Mr. Blaine comes to the fortieth congresswith the same soldierly spirit of fearlessness, thesame scholarly spirit of intelligence, the samegenial spirit of friendship, that have borne himthrough two former terms in Washington. He isnow recognized as an adept in parliamentary law,and is put on with the speaker, Mr. Washburne,and others to revise the rules of the House,[278]and is found reporting rule after rule foradoption. He is fairly in training now for thespeakership, but before that can come he mustbe re-elected, and he has already been electedtwice by way of compliment, as it is termed inMaine. But he is no dreamer, and so devoteshimself to business, with enough to do, and noidle hours. He is quite methodical, and isheard frequently insisting upon the regular orderof business, and that business on the speaker’sstand be attended to, and also that membersattend the evening sessions for business. Itworries him to see business of importance drag,and bills accumulate, and so the House getbehind in its work. He uses every parliamentarymethod to prevent delays, and seldom ishis way hedged up effectually when he has determinedupon his course, and feels that fidelityto his trust requires expedition. He usuallygets through without much opposition, for goodnature in him begets it in others, and so whenall are thus made willing, as by an oppositedisposition they are made unwilling, it is aneasy matter. But when the measure is at allpolitical, as are some of the great measureswhich crystalize the war-victories into constitutionalenactments, he is put upon his resourcesfor ways and means, and is found usually to beas fertile as the occasion demands.

[279]He is down in the Record as an editor, andthis places him in relations of sympathy andfriendship with journalists at the capital. Heis known, and knows them, and shows bythe favor of various acts of kindness that hiseditorial heart is still beating warm for thedrivers of the quill. There are but threeother editors besides himself in the House,—JamesBrooks, of New York city; Lawrence J.Getz, of Reading; and Adam J. Glassbremer, ofYork, Penn.

Gen. John A. Logan sits near enough to Mr.Blaine for them to get well acquainted, and theyare soon found speaking upon the same questionof appropriating seventy-five thousand dollars topurchase seed-corn for the South.

It is certainly a matter of peculiar interest tolook in upon these men and see them at theirwork, all unconscious of the great future thatlies before them; some of the time doing whatseems like little things, as when Mr. Blainemoves “to exempt wrapping paper made fromwood from internal tax,” and Mr. Garfield risesand says, “I ask the gentleman from Maine toallow an amendment by inserting the word ‘corn-stalks,’which,” he added, “was a very importantmanufacture.” But all of these little thingswere part of the great internal-revenue tax bill,which was to bring millions into the treasury[280]of the nation, and so support the government,and pay the war-debt.

The impeachment resolutions were having ahistory in the House, and a reference to thembrings out one fact very conclusively,—that Mr.Blaine was not hot-headed in the sense of rashness.Many were at this time,—about a yearbefore the impeachment trial,—filled with alarm,excited, aroused, and bent upon the work atonce; but Mr. Blaine was cool, attentive, collected,and studious of the great subject, andhe saw that as yet the country did not demandit, and so he moved, the senate concurring,“That when the House adjourn, on Tuesdaynext, it be to meet on Monday, November 11,at twelve o’clock, M.” Some six months wouldintervene, and many objected. General Butlerwas there, and offered a vigorous protest. Hewas for war, vigorous, uncompromising, and merciless.But Mr. Blaine replied, “I would ask thegentleman from Massachusetts, through what conventionof the people, through what organism ofpublic opinion, through what channel of generalinformation anywhere throughout the length andbreadth of the land, this demand is made uponcongress? [It was then March 23, 1867.] Sir,I maintain that out of the seventeen or eighteenhundred newspapers that represent the loyalUnion party of this country,—and these are[281]the best indices of public opinion which aparty has,—the gentleman cannot find twenty-fivewhich regard the impeachment movementas one seriously to be undertaken on the partof congress at this time.”

It is exceedingly difficult for us now to goback to a year before the extraordinary spectacleof an impeachment trial of the President of theUnited States, and recall all the circ*mstancesand the state of the country at that particulartime. The best minds in the House seemed tobe with Mr. Blaine in his feeling, that there wasno immediate demand or warrant for the impeachmentof the president. His acts were public,and known to the people, and from themto their representatives in congress must comethe demand. Moreover, the resolutions of impeachmenthad been in the hands of a specialcommittee for some months, but they, agreeingwith Mr. Blaine, saw no cause for impetuousaction.

It was evidently designed to be a matter ofwholesome restraint, that this preliminary stephad been taken. A great many speeches weremade under the resolution to adjourn, upon theimpeachment question.

Mr. Garfield said, “The gentleman said Idesired congress to remain in session for tworeasons; first, to compel the appointment of certain[282]persons to office [there were several hundredpostmasters to be appointed and confirmed],and second, for the purpose of impeaching thepresident. I call his attention to the fact, thatI made no allusion whatever to the question ofimpeachment; I have nothing to say in thatdirection until I hear from the committee. Iexpressed it as my opinion merely that thePresident of the United States would be veryglad to have the fortieth congress adjourn, andthis I understood from the friends of the president.”

Mr. Boutwell, taking part, said, “The greatand substantial reason is that whether thisHouse shall proceed to impeach the president ornot, the majority of the people of this country,South and North, black and white, loyal and rebel,have pretty generally lost confidence in him.”

“That is true,” said Mr. Blaine.

“Whether this loss of confidence be basedupon facts of his character, or measures of hispublic policy, or upon suspicion or prejudicemerely, I do not propose now to inquire. Thegreat fact is, the people of the country everywherehave lost confidence in the wisdom, ifnot in the honesty, of his administration.”

Mr. Blaine. “The gentleman will allow me toinquire whether he thinks that our staying herewill restore confidence in the president.”

[283]“No, Sir.”

Mr. Blaine held the floor under a certain ruleof congress, and gave his time to others as theydesired to discuss the question, but at the endwas firm as a rock. His mind was unchanged,and from this and other instances the truth appears,that as he used only facts, figures, testimony,experience, written or related evidence ofa personal character, and that he could not begainsaid, and was never metaphysical, a priori,or theorizing in his discussions, so nothing butfacts or figures, something tangible and real, influencedhim. The sailing of an eagle might bevery beautiful, and elicit feelings of admirationand sublimity, but it did not influence his judgment.

Only the kind of arguments he used to influenceother minds would influence his,—andwhen his mind was made up, it was from justthese sources of evidence that are so convincing,so incontrovertible, giving strength to the mind,and putting granite under the feet of the man.

As one has said, “I believed, therefore haveI spoken”; so with him, he believed, and thereforespoke. No surface-current, only the deepunder-current, moved him.

Mr. Blaine has great accuracy in the use oflanguage, and although off-hand and often underpeculiarly distracting circ*mstances, one who followed[284]him quite closely through his various utterances,did not discover a grammatical mistakeuntil near the end of the fortieth congress, andthat was possibly a mistake of the printer, andvery slight in itself, using “to” for “at” in thephrase “strike at the senate committee clerksmore than it does to ours.”

Congress adjourned on the 30th of March untilthe 21st of November, unless a quorum waspresent the 3d of July, and if so a sessionwould be held. A brief session of two weekswas held, but Mr. Blaine was not there. Heand Elihu B. Washburne and another congressmanwere in Europe. It was Mr. Blaine’s firsttrip. Liverpool was visited, and commercial interestswere studied. Imagination seldom furnishesright impressions. No one about whomwe have heard ever looks as we expected he wasgoing to. It always gets great men too largeon the outside, and enormous cities either toolarge or too small, as the case may be. Liverpoolwas immense; it has to be so. Almost limitlessis England’s foreign trade. What men theymust have been to make their island so importantas to compel the commerce of the worldto visit them! It was wonderful; the ships andcargoes for all of India, for Egypt, for all ofEurope, for Australia, for America, and the Indies,for Mexico, China and Japan.

[285]It was indeed a study for him whose mindmust find the merits of every subject. It wasnot simply a matter of landing safely and boardinga train for London. The war was but twoyears over. The Alabama was not forgotten, norall of England’s mischief. Ships and shipping inall their construction and competition had beenthe study of years to him, and to take in thosebusy scenes upon the Mersey and the Clyde,was but the reading of a new book to one familiarwith the language.

They reach the great metropolis. Parliamentis their objective point. Few will have morebrains than they bring with them, or knowmore about their affairs of state; but the studyis to be long and careful, and they are to knowmore fully the inner life and character of thosewho have made laws for half the world. Dayafter day, week after week, the great Head Centrein all its ramifications is studied at shortestpossible range.

But Scotland and Ireland must be visited, forthey are the home of his ancestors. He breathesthe air, he sees the sky, he presses the sod, hetouches the heather. He is really, truly there.The dream of boyhood days, when he stood bygrandfather’s knee, and heard of the old clans,the blowing of the horn, and the echoes downthe valleys, of the cows and sheep, and the tinkling[286]of the bells, the clash of arms and the battleswon; and now he is there, thrilled with thememories and the ancient scenes. The old castles,quaint, and moss-covered, and grand, and thepeople with their fresh look and fiery eye, vigilantever to the end of time. What valleys andmountains and peoples are there; what rivers andlakes and loud-sounding sea! Surely nothing shortof an affair of the Stuarts would compel themto quit their strongholds and their homes, theirnative heather, and flee to other lands, so far,so very far away as it was then, back in thatolden time.

What events have transpired since that 1720,nearly one hundred and fifty years before. Whatevents in Europe, England and America. Whatin India and the Orient; and yet the man ofeighty had sat, a boy of five, upon his grandsire’sknee who had rounded out his four-scoreyears, and a boy of ten had walked with himupon the highlands, and so could bring the messagesof that far-off time to present generations.

As Mr. Garfield had “during his only visit toEngland busied himself in searching out everytrace of his forefathers in parish-registries andancient army-rolls,” so his inheritor of the nation’shonors traced back the stock from whichhe sprang to mountain, glen, and castle, whichhad rung with the name he bore. He too might[287]say, sitting with a friend in the gallery of theHouse of Commons, “that when patriots of Englishblood had struck sturdy blows for constitutionalgovernment and human liberty, his familyhad been represented.”

But they continue their journey, and cross theEnglish channel from Dover to Calais, and soonare in the capital of the French Empire. NapoleonIII is there in his glory. Two yearslater his traveling companion, Hon. E. B. Washburne,is to be United States minister at hiscourt, and not long after a prisoner in Parisduring its siege in the Franco-Prussian war.

Mr. Blaine’s knowledge of French serves him,and enables him to secure all the general informationhe desired. He was not among free institutionsnow, and felt the keen chill in thevery atmosphere. But in visiting the FrenchAssembly there was a show of liberty, like aneagle in a cage. It was a noisy, tumultuousscene, with a jargon indescribable and largelyunintelligible. Few things are wilder, except theocean in a storm, than the deliberative assemblyof the French nation when measures of specialimportance are pending. But the great city, withits multitudes of people, is full of attractions.

The Tuilleries is visited, and the ChampsElysées, the great armies so soon to reel in theshock of war, and learn a lesson of sobriety[288]and contented home-life that shall give to theFrench of the future a greatness that has in itmore of the element of stability and permanency,and so tone down their mercurial and volatilenature. The Rhine is visited, and Florence.

Relaxation and rest are great objects of thevisit. The malaria of the Potomac at Washington,which gets into the bones of congressmen,and senators, and presidents, must be gotten outof him, and he made ready for greater serviceand larger conquests.

History is all about him; the nations of Europeare within his reach; their capitals arevisited, and they are studied from life. Impressionsdeep, and strong, and lasting are made.Plutarch’s old method of comparisons and contrastsstill serves him, and he gets his knowledgein classified, compact forms. The peopleand their condition, their rulers and the laws,interest him as much as the great, queer buildings,the splendid palaces, the magnificent cathedrals,the varied works of art, and the giantmountains, the beautiful villages, valleys, andlakes, and all that is picturesque in nature.Switzerland is a charm; Italy a delight, and thewhole journey a joy. He returns a broader,deeper, wiser man, to live a stronger, richer lifein a larger world.

He was in his seat at the beginning of congress[289]in November. Eight men are there fromTennessee, whose right to seats is challenged.The impeachment question has gained prominence,and he joins in the search for evidence.He does not want hearsay, but official documents,and so he introduces a resolution, callingupon the general commanding the armies tocommunicate to the House any and all correspondenceaddressed by him to the presidentupon the removal of Secretary Stanton andGeneral Sheridan, and General Sickles as well;and also with reference to the proposed missionof the general of the army to Mexico in 1866.

But his great friend, Senator Fessenden, isnow secretary of the treasury, and this givesthe financial question a new interest, and hecomes to the front in a most vigorous manneras vindicator and defender of the secretary’sfinancial policy, in one of his great speeches onthe currency.

It is quite early in the session, only fivedays after congress convened. His friend, Mr.Washburne, had taken the initiatory step bymoving they go into committee of the whole onthe state of the Union.

Mr. Dawes was in the chair, and the questionrelated to the reduction of the currency. Erroneousand mischievous views had been put forward,regarding the nature of the public obligation[290]imposed by the debt of the United States.Various forms of repudiation had been suggested.Mr. Pendleton, the recent Democratic candidatefor vice-president, and General Butler, of Massachusetts,had assumed the position that “theprincipal and the interest of United States bonds,known as the five-twenties, may be fairly andlegally paid in paper currency by the government,after the expiration of five years from thedate of the issue.”

And just here we get a view of Mr. Blaine’spower of analysis; the ability of his mind tograsp a subject in its great features and fundamentalprinciples; to bring to the surface itsunderlying points or elements of strength andweakness, so classified and arranged as to statethem in logical and convincing propositions, andall of them most practical in their character.

1. “The position contravenes the honor andgood faith of the national government.” Andthis was the final view adhered to by the beststatesmen of the Republican party.

2. “It is hostile to the spirit and letter ofthe law.

3. “It contemptuously ignores the commonunderstanding between borrower and lender atthe time the loan was negotiated (which was byJay Cooke & Co. in 1863, to the extent of fivehundred million dollars), a large proportion of[291]which was purchased by foreign capitalists, andwas very successful. Nothing was said aboutpayment in gold, but payment in gold, both ofprincipal and interest, had been the invariablerule from the foundation of the government.”

“Our government,” said Nathaniel Mason, “isa hard-money government, founded by hard-moneymen, and its debts are hard-money debts.”

Nothing was intimated to the contrary whenthe bill was passed and the bonds issued, andthe duties on imports pledged to their payment,were to be paid in coin. The final point in hisargument was:—

4. “It would prove disastrous to the financialinterests of the government, and the generalprosperity of the country,” by, of course,reducing the par value of the bonds and blockadingtheir sale as they floated through themarkets of the world.

It should be with some pride and glory now,after the honorable history of the national debtthus far, and which has given to the nation thecredit of the world, that Mr. Blaine remembersthat so early in the discussion, when the ideasof the many were crude, and only those of thefew were clear, that he closed his speech withthese splendid words,—words which embody thesteady policy of the government from that timeto the present:—

[292]“I am sure,” said Mr. Blaine, “that in thepeace which our arms have conquered, we shallnot dishonor ourselves by withholding from anypublic creditor a dollar that we promised to payhim; nor seek by cunning construction andclever afterthought to evade or escape the fullresponsibility of our national indebtedness. Itwill doubtless cost us a vast sum to pay thatindebtedness, but it will cost us incalculablymore not to pay it.”

It took Gen. Benj. F. Butler two days to replyto this speech of Mr. Blaine’s, in which hebloomed forth as a greenbacker of fullest flowerand strongest fragrance. This led Mr. Blaine tosay:—

“We have a loan distinctly defined, well knownto the people, that has a specific rate of interest,a certain time to run, and express conditionon which it is to be paid; but the gentlemanfrom Massachusetts is for brushing this all asideand placing before the country a species oflegal-tender notes which have no fixed time torun, bear no interest, have no standard of value,and which the government is under no obligationto pay at any particular time, and whichmay indeed never be called in for redemption.”

And all of this reminded Mr. Blaine of astory:—

“I think the gentleman must have borrowed[293]his notions of finance from a man who failed afew years since in one of the eastern cities ofMaine, and who wrote over his store-door, ‘Paymentsuspended for thirty days.’ A neighborpassing by said to him, ‘You have neglected todate your notice.’ ‘Why, no,’ said he, ‘I did notintend to date it; it would run out if I did.’And so the gentleman was to issue a governmentlegal tender that never runs out.”

The sitting of congress during the winter of1867 and 1868, was long and tedious, extendingfrom November on into July. Mr. Blaine wason the committee on appropriations, and hadcharge of the army-appropriation bill on its passagethrough the House. The army had beenreduced to sixty regiments, and thirty-two milliondollars asked to pay them, while before thewar twenty-five million dollars for the army, consistingof only nineteen, or as Mr. Blaine putit, “a regiment under the Democratic administrationpreceding the war cost more than doublein gold what it costs now under General Grantin paper, or in other words, that it cost on anaverage over a million of dollars in gold to aregiment then, and when General Grant was incharge, about half a million to a regiment.”

It required great patience, courage, and intelligenceto stand by such a bill for two or threedays, answer all questions, meet all objections[294]and opposition, and keep sweet all through; forit was made a political question, as nearly everymeasure was, and so the opposition party wouldsit there and resist and vote in a bunch, butusually to no purpose. The great impeachmenttrial had come on, and was being conducted bythe senate in the presence of members of theHouse.

This caused their adjournment after the morninghour until three o’clock, daily. The managersof the trial, chosen by the House, wereJohn A. Bingham, George S. Boutwell, James F.Wilson, Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Williams,John A. Logan, and Thaddeus Stevens.

Having faithfully performed all his work uponthe great committee, and seen to it that everytrust confided to him in congress was sacredlydischarged, he procured an indefinite leave of absence,after being there day and night for someeight months, and not being one of the managersof the impeachment trial, and having no activepart to take in its proceedings, and so he wenthome to conduct the summer campaign, givinghimself, however, but two months for this purpose.He had been absent in Europe, the summerbefore, and now he had been re-nominatedto congress for the fourth time, something unusualin the district, as he had been electedthree times already.

[295]It would not do to fail, having been thus honoredby his party. So notwithstanding his long,hard siege in congress, and which had brought himmore than ever into official communication withheads of departments and the general of thearmy, he devotes July and August to hard campaign-work,discussing before the people the greatquestions of the currency, and the war-debt,etc., that had filled his mind in congress. Hisexperience there had been just the needed preparationfor this field-work, which was little morethan justifying their congressional actions andexplaining them.

The great question of the campaign was, “hardor soft money,” as it was called. The seeds ofthe greenback heresy, it will be recalled, hadbeen sown broadcast in Mr. Garfield’s WesternReserve district in Ohio, and the convention metto renominate him had declared for soft money,when he was called in for a speech. He was ahard-money man, and nothing else, and could notstultify himself. He was begged by friends notto antagonize the convention, but his firm replywas, “I shall not violate my conscience and myprinciples in this matter,” and so he made itknown to the convention without any compromise.It was such an exhibition of courage, integrity,and of all manly power, that they nominated himat once by acclamation.

[296]Mr. Blaine encountered the same heresy, andwrung its neck most vigorously. He was up inthe art, as he had just had extensive experiencein congress. But 1868 was a presidential year.U. S. Grant and Horatio Seymour were the candidates.

One president was being impeached, and anotherbeing elected. Mr. Blaine had done what wasnecessary for him in the case of one, and now wasdoing what he could for the other. He had nottaken the most advanced grounds regarding theimpeachment. He was quite inclined to be conservative;and while he did not oppose, neitherdid he vehemently demand it at all hazards. Itwas serious business, and he viewed it with thebroad, comprehensive mind of a statesman.

It was like “tearing up the foundation ofthings,” as he said. He had a deep and delicatesense of honor about it. The president was thechief man of the nation, there by the suffragesof a great people. Results seem to show thatall were finally brought to Mr. Blaine’s conclusions,if not to his temper of mind upon thesubject. He simply did not make any violentspeeches in its favor, as so many did, but actedeffectively with his party for the right. Hisstrength was used in the campaign. He wanteda new president of the right stamp, and knewthat if faithful work was done, they would have[297]one in less than a year. So to this task headdressed himself with his accustomed energies,and not without success, which had come to bealmost a matter of course, though hard, hotfights were made against him.

General Grant received two hundred and fourteenvotes in the electoral college, to eighty-fourfor Mr. Seymour, and again the Republican skywas ablaze with great and wide-spread victory.

THE future had no clouds for Mr. Blaineas he returned for the fourth time toWashington as a member-elect to congress.He was in manhood’s prime,backed by a splendid record of triumph on thefield of political contest, and of achievement inthe arena of debate. He was thoroughly conversantwith the affairs of the House in everydetail of rule or measure, and was widely knownand recognized as among the most popular andefficient members. His knowledge, gathered fromwide fields of travel, experience, and observation,was vast; his powers thoroughly disciplined andunder the finest control; his acquaintance extensive,and his rank high in personal and politicalfriendships.

Schuyler Colfax, the former speaker, was vice-presidentnow; standing next to General Grant,the new president. Who should take his place?[299]This was the question that filled Mr. Blainewith high anticipations.

Granting his fitness and ability, which, perhaps,no one who knows him at all wouldquestion, the still greater question is how to winthe prize, how to secure the position. It ispurely a question of votes, and the one thingthat secures them is personal influence. Itmay come of the individual’s own exertions,his power to command, the charm of his name,the fascination of his character, the magnetismof his person. But it is a matter of stupendousstrength and of transcendent abilitiesfor one to lift himself so far above his fellowsas to win their suffrages in such aplace as that, by his own unaided personal attractions.

Here was the great argument, but not theactive agent. There must be some one to statethe case, to manage it, to make the appeal,some one strong friend or more, who has gritand gumption to put it through, and see it done,—thatman is Thaddeus Stevens, of his nativestate of Pennsylvania. He is the one of all othersto do this thing.

Of few men’s power Mr. Blaine had a loftieridea than of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. There wasindeed a trio who attracted and held the admirationof Mr. Blaine, and he has sketched their[300]characters most vividly. Will you hear him ashe says:—

“The three most distinguished parliamentaryleaders hitherto developed in this country, areMr. Clay, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens.They were all men of consummate ability,of great earnestness, of intense personality, differingwidely each from the others, and yet witha single trait in common,—the power to command.In the give and take of daily discussion,in the art of controlling and consolidating reluctantand refractory followers, in the skill toovercome all forms of opposition, and to meetwith competency and courage the varying phasesof unlooked-for assault, or unsuspected defection,it would be difficult to rank with these a fourthname in all our congressional history.

“But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. Itwould, perhaps, be impossible to find in parliamentaryannals, greater power than when, in1841, at sixty-four years of age, he took the controlof the Whig party from the president whohad received their suffrages, against the power ofWebster in the cabinet, against the eloquence ofChoate in the senate, against the herculean effortsof Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise inthe House. In unshared leadership, in the prideand plenitude of power, he hurled against JohnTyler, with deepest scorn, the mass of that conquering[301]column which had swept over the landin 1840, and drove his administration to shelterbehind the lines of his political foes.

“Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely lesswonderful, when, in 1854, against the secret desiresof a strong administration, against the wisecounsel of the older chiefs, against the conservativeinstincts and even the moral sense of thecountry, he forced a reluctant congress into arepeal of the Missouri Compromise.

“And now we come to Mr. Thaddeus Stevens,who, in his contests from 1865 to 1868, actuallyadvanced his parliamentary leadership until congresstied the hands of the president, and governedthe country by its own will, leaving onlyperfunctionary duties to be discharged by the executive.With two hundred millions of patronagein his hands at the opening of the contest,aided by the active force of Seward in the cabinet,and the moral power of Chase on the bench,Andrew Johnson could not command the supportof one-third in either House against the parliamentaryuprising of which Thaddeus Stevens wasthe animating spirit and the unquestioned leader.”

And this was the man who stood at Mr.Blaine’s right hand in this matter of the speakership.

Mr. Blaine was on the committee of militaryaffairs with Mr. Stevens. He became known to[302]him thoroughly as a man with talent for indefatigabletoil, and a genius for doing hard anddifficult things with great certainty and despatch.He was just the man to attract the attention,and be admired, respected, and loved by a manof Mr. Stevens’ consummate ability, and to beselected by him for promotion and honor. Andthe hour had come for just that honor, the highestin the gift of the House.

It was the third office in the nation, with asalary three thousand dollars greater than thatof United States senator, and equal to the salaryof vice-president or secretary of state. And soby virtue of his recognized fitness, and the powerof this great friend, the office comes to him, andhe comes to it.

Some think, and perhaps rightly, that his tiltwith Mr. Conkling popularized him greatly withthe members of the House, who thoroughly enjoyedit, and so prepared the way to the honorwhich in point of fact was his by right of nature.But six years was a long time to wait,yet he waited, and was rewarded. And still itwas not waiting, but working, with him, occupyingthe stronghold he had made for himself inthe manifold business of the House.

But now he is taken from this, and out ofthe arena of debate, and yet lifted into greaterprominence and power; appointing all the great[303]committees of the House, a task requiring thehighest order of ability in the knowledge of men;deciding all questions, and exercising a controllinginfluence over legislation.

There is little power men employ in all thegreat work of life, but he needs it in its rarestform. He must be a broad, a wide, a universalman; in sympathy with all, so far as right andjustice are concerned. There are the choice, thecrowned ones from every congressional districtin all the states and territories, and he is thechoice, the crowned one among them,—theirchosen chief.

Tennyson’s words press for utterance righthere, as we see him step from the floor to thespeaker’s chair:—

[304]It was only by the proof of character, themost solid and reliable, he could possibly havesecured the friendship of Mr. Stevens. And nothis alone, but the friendship of Hon. Elihu B.Washburne, of Illinois, who nominated Mr. Blaineas candidate for speaker, and who, as seniormember, swore him in.

It was a proud day for Mr. Washburne, thestaunch friend of General Grant, to witness hisinaugural, and then, as the true friend of Mr.Blaine, aid so largely in putting him into thespeaker’s chair the same day.

Mr. Stevens was not there to enjoy the triumphof his friend, but his endorsem*nt wasgood as a letter of credit.

When the ballot was concluded it read:—Wholenumber of votes cast, one hundred andninety-two; necessary for a choice, ninety-seven;Mr. Blaine received one hundred and thirty-five;Mr. Kerr received fifty-seven.

Mr. Dawes and Mr. Kerr conducted him tothe chair, when he addressed the House as follows:—

It is a curious coincidence that GeneralSchenck, of Ohio, who startled Mr. Blaine withthe charge of irrelevancy at his first utteranceon the floor, but was so utterly discomfitedafterwards, is now the first one to address himas “Mr. Speaker,” and Mr. Kerr, his competitor,soon follows.

It was at this session that new members fromreconstructed states appeared, and many werethe objections made to this new memberand that, because of disloyalty. It was to presenta charge of this kind that Mr. Schenckarose.

The noticeable feature of Mr. Blaine’s speakershipis the expeditious manner in which businessis conducted, and the consequent brevityof sessions.

It may be observed right here that Mr.Blaine’s friend, E. B. Washburne, chose ratherto go as minister to Paris, and Hamilton Fishbecame secretary of state.

For two successive congresses Mr. Blaine wasre-elected speaker by the large Republican majoritiesserving through the reconstruction periodof the rebel states, and through most of GeneralGrant’s two terms of the presidency. It[307]was during this period his reputation becametruly national.

He might have occupied the chair all thetime, and taken things easy; but this was nothis nature. It was his privilege to go upon thefloor, and take up the gauntlet of debate. Itwas expected that things would become livelyat once when he did so. There was a resolutionone day for a committee to investigate theoutrages in the South. Mr. Blaine had writtenthe resolution, which was presented by his colleague,and asked for its passage; and, lest theclaquers should say he put only “weak-kneedRepublicans” on the committee, he made Benj.F. Butler chairman, which in some almost unaccountableway greatly enraged Mr. Butler, whomight have then contemplated accompanying Gen.John M. Palmer and others into the Democraticparty, and so he telegraphed to newspapers andissued a circular which appeared on the desksof members, denouncing what he was pleased tocall a trick, and used other vigorous languageon the floor of the House. Of course thespeaker could not sit quietly in the chair andbe thus tempestuously assailed, so calling afuture vice-president to the chair (Wheeler), hesaid, “I wish to ask the gentleman from Massachusettswhether he denies me the right tohave drawn that resolution” (it was presented[308]in the caucus first which had just re-nominatedMr. Blaine for speaker).

Mr. Butler replied, “I have made no assertionon that subject, one way or other.”

Mr. Blaine: “Did not the gentleman knowdistinctly that I drew it?”

“No, sir!” was the reply.

“Did I not take it to the gentleman andread it to him?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Butler.

“Did I not show him the manuscript?”

“Yes, sir,” was the reply.

“And at his suggestion,” continued Mr. Blaine,“I added these words, ‘and the expenses ofsaid committee shall be paid from the contingentfund of the House of Representatives’ (applause),and the fact that ways and means were wantedto pay the expenses was the only objection hemade to it.”

It appears that the resolution was consideredas a test of the Republicanism of members.General Butler had been asked to take thechairmanship, but refused, and said he wouldhave nothing to do with the resolution; but Mr.Blaine put him on the committee, and whenasked why, replied, “Because I knew very wellthat if I omitted the appointment of thegentleman it would be heralded throughout thelength and breadth of the country by the[309]claquers, who have so industriously distributedthis letter this morning, that the speaker hadpacked the committee, as the gentleman said hewould, with ‘weak-kneed Republicans,’ whowould not go into an investigation vigorously,as he would. That was the reason (applause),so that the chair laid the responsibility uponthe gentleman of declining the appointment, andnow the gentleman from Massachusetts is on hisresponsibility before the country,” and there weleave him.

It can but be with peculiar interest that weread the strong words of the oath taken sorepeatedly by Mr. Blaine, and administered thesecond time by Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts,after he had received one hundred and twenty-sixvotes, to ninety-two for Gen. George W. Morgan,of Ohio.

It kept a large committee busy to pass uponthe character of members-elect and the legalityof their election. Such was the broken conditionof state governments in the South, so batteredby war, and distracted by schism and contendingfactions. All of these perplexities adhered toapplicants for membership in congress, presentingcredentials of membership various in value asgreenbacks and gold, and these same perplexitiesaffected the staple of congressional measures.

Congress was increasing rapidly in the number[310]of its members, so that while one hundred andninety-two votes were cast at Mr. Blaine’s firstelection to the speakership in 1869, there weretwo hundred and sixty-nine votes cast at hiselection to the same office in 1873, of whichnumber he received one hundred and eighty-nine,and Mr. Ferdinand Wood received seventy-six.

Mr. Blaine refers to it in his address to the“Gentlemen of the House of Representatives,”the last time he was elected speaker. “To bechosen,” he says, “speaker of the House ofRepresentatives is always an honorable distinction;to be chosen a third time enhances the honormore than three fold; to be chosen by thelargest body that ever assembled in the Capitolimposes a burden of responsibility which onlyyour indulgent kindness could embolden me toassume. The first occupant of this chair presidedover a House of sixty-five members, representinga population far below the present aggregate ofthe state of New York. At that time therewere not, in the whole United States, fiftythousand civilized inhabitants to be found onehundred miles distant from the flow of the Atlantictide. To-day, gentlemen, a large majorityof you come from beyond that limit, and representdistricts peopled then only by the Indianand the adventurous frontiersman.

“The national government is not yet as old[311]as many of its citizens, but in this brief spanof time,—less than one lengthened life,—it has,under God’s good providence, extended its poweruntil a continent is the field of its empire, andattests the majesty of its law.

“With the growth of new states and theresulting changes in the centres of population,new interests are developed, rival to the old, butby no means hostile; diverse, but not antagonistic.Nay, rather are all these interests in harmony,and the true science of just government isto give to each its full and fair play, oppressingnone by undue exaction, favoring none by undueprivilege.

“It is this great lesson which our daily experienceis teaching, binding us together moreclosely, making our mutual dependence moremanifest, and causing us to feel that, whetherwe live in the North or in the South, inthe East or in the West, we have indeed but‘one country, one constitution, one destiny.’”

Few addresses so brief breathe a spirit ofbroader statesmanship, or loftier ideal of civilgovernment. Two years before this, in 1871, hehad been charged by General Butler with havingpresidential aspirations, and surely he wasable to manifest the true conception of a justand righteous government, “oppressing none byundue exaction, favoring none by undue privilege,”[312]which is apparently the exact outcome—asort of paraphrase of Lincoln’s words, “Withmalice toward none, with charity toward all.”

Many who had participated in the Rebellion,having had their political disabilities removedby the vote of two-thirds of each House of congress,came forward and took the special oathprovided for them by act of July 11, 1868.

Mr. Blaine seldom, if ever, leaves the chairto participate in debate when questions of apolitical nature are pending, so that he mayhold himself aloof for fair ruling in all of hisdecisions.

The position of speaker is, in many respects,a thankless one. When party spirit runs high,as it does at times, like the tide of battle, inthe great debates, men are swept on by theirsympathies, as barks are tossed in ocean-storms,and under the influence of their most powerfulprejudices they are driven to rash and unwarrantableconclusions regarding the justice of anyruling, to conjectures the most unfair and wantonregarding motive, and as in the case ofMr. Blaine, to the most stupendous efforts atpolitical assassination.

But it was not until the days of his speakershipwere over, and the people at home hadexpressed their confidence in him and their loveand admiration for him, by electing him to congress[313]for the seventh time consecutively, thatthe storm struck him. It had been gatheringlong. Its animus was enmity, its bulk was hate,its dark, frowning exterior was streaked with thelurid lightnings of a baleful jealousy; mutteringthunders like the deep growlings of exasperationwere heard oft, but feared not.

The solid South had marched its rebel brigadiersby the score into the arena of nationalquestioning and discussion, where for twelveyears he had stood intrepid as the founders ofthe Republic. No man was more at home uponthat field than he,—none more familiar withthe men, the methods, and the measures thathad triumphed there,—and few have been morevictorious in the great ends for which he strove,few readier to challenge the coming of anyman, to know his rights, his mission, and hisweight. He was, of all men, the most unconquerableby those who plead for measures subversiveof any great or minor end for which the warwas fought.

He had gained the credit of the fourteenthamendment, and had been identified with all.He was simply bent upon resistance, the mostpowerful he could command, against all encroachmentsof the bad and false, and to show no favortoward any feature for which rebellion fought.Fair, honorable, just,—none could be more so.

[314]When speaker of the House, he was informedone day that a prominent correspondent of aleading paper, who had maligned and vilifiedhim shockingly, was on the floor, and at oncehe said, “Invite him up here,” and he gavehim a seat by his side, within the speaker’sdesk, and placed at the disposal of the man theinformation of public importance at his command.The fellow was amazed, and went away andwrote how kindly he had been treated by thegreat-hearted man of noble impulses, after hehad so roundly abused him.

There is nothing vindictive about him, nothingdespicable. He is severe, herculean, desperatefor the right, and will win in every battlethat commands the forces of his being, if victorybe achievable. But he honors strong, squaremen, who have convictions and dare proclaimthem; but petty, mean, ignoble souls are firstdespised, then pitied.

But the day of his betrayal came, the day ofrebel wrath; and he met the stroke before thenation’s gaze, and was vindicated before theworld.

A business correspondence, it had been said hehad burned. He said, “No, there it is, and Iwill read it to the House,” and he read it.What business firm, it has been asked, wouldlike to have their correspondence regarding any[315]great business interest, read to those who arefilled with all manner of suspicions, and so haveit misjudged, misinterpreted, and misapplied?And then, to show the temper of those withwhom he dealt, a cablegram from Europe vindicatinghim, was for two days suppressed by thechairman of the congressional committee, beforewhom he stood, and who failed to convict himby any document at their command. The sceneat that time, and their discomfiture, is thus describedby an eye-witness:—

“His management of his own case when theMulligan letters came out was worthy of anygeneral who ever set a squadron in the field.For nearly fifteen years I have looked downfrom the galleries of the House and Senate, andI never saw, and never expect to see, andnever have read of such a scene, where thegrandeur of human effort was better illustrated,than when this great orator rushed down theaisle, and, in the very face of Proctor Knott,charged him with suppressing a telegram favorableto Blaine. The whole floor and all thegalleries were wild with excitement. Men yelledand cheered, women waved their handkerchiefsand went off into hysterics, and the floor waslittle less than a mob.”

About this time, Hon. Lot M. Morrill, of hisstate, was transferred from the senate to the[316]cabinet of President Grant, and as a partialjustification, General Connor, the governor ofMaine at this time, appointed him to representMaine in the United States senate in place ofMr. Morrill. The official note was as follows:—

When the legislature of his state met, he camebefore them and placed himself under a thoroughinvestigation at their hands. And as Ex-Gov. A.P. Morrill says, “They made thorough work ofit.” A man to come forth from such an ordealunscathed, and without the smell of fire on hisgarments, must be right and not wrong,—or elsehe is the veriest scoundrel, guilty, deeply so, andcompetent for bribes, and they, the legislature ofMaine, who virtually tried him, hopelessly corrupt.But, no! this cannot be; and so he was vindicated,and triumphantly elected by them to thehighest trust within their gift, to wear the honorsof a Morrill and a Fessenden.

[317]

And yet again do they elect him for a fullterm of years. And then the royal Garfield, thenation’s loved and honored president, knowingall, and knowing him most intimately for seventeenyears or more, takes him into his cabinet,trustingly, and for the nation’s good.

Can victory be grander, or triumph more complete,endorsem*nt more honorable, or vindicationmore just, or a verdict be more patient, thorough,or exhaustive of evidence! What man inall the land, traduced and vilified just as Washington,Lincoln, and Garfield were, wears prouderbadges of endorsem*nt from congress, governor,legislature, senate, and conventions by the score!What man that bears credentials of his characteras trophies of higher worth, from judges ofsounder mind, and lives more unimpeachable?Answer, ye who can!

IT was generally understood in Mainethat the Hon. Lot M. Morrill wasserving his last term in the UnitedStates senate, and that Mr. Blainewas to be his successor; so that when Mr. Morrillwas advanced to the secretaryship of thetreasury in General Grant’s cabinet, it occasionedno surprise that Governor Connor appointed Mr.Blaine to the senate in his stead. He wasjust recovering from the partial sunstroke whichfelled him to the pavement while on his wayto church, on a Sabbath morning, with MissAbigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), just prior to theCincinnati Convention, and soon after his victoryover Proctor Knott, during his persecution inthe House. Next to the nomination at Cincinnati,nothing of a political nature could havebeen more grateful to him than this high honorfrom the governor of his state, in accordance,as the governor himself says, with the expectationof the people. Coming, as it did, at an ill[319]and weary time, it must have greatly refreshedand revived his spirits, to have new and largerevidence of the esteem and endorsem*nt of thoseto whose interests his life was devoted.

On July 12, 1876, he took his seat as thecolleague of Hannibal Hamlin in the senate. Heis placed at once as chairman on the committeeon rules, and on the committee on appropriations,and on naval affairs, besides on a selectcommittee “on the levees on the MississippiRiver.” This, for a senatorial start, was quitehonorable to his judgment and ability.

There are many old traditions and customs,which amount to laws, so far as assigning positionsof responsibility to new members is concerned,but there is no law which prevents anew member from taking the most advancedposition possible by virtue of his wisdom andknowledge, and his ability in debate.

He could not well become entangled in themeshes of an intricate network of rules andregulations, which Butler, in acknowledging Mr.Blaine’s superior knowledge of in the House,had said he knew nothing about,—Blaine knewit all. His position made it necessary that heshould, and now he was made chief in this departmentin the new branch of legislation towhich he had succeeded. So he could not beheld or hampered by any difficulty of this kind.[320]Moreover, his acquaintance was well-nigh universalamong the members, and some of themknew him a little better than they could havewished. He was also familiar with the methodsand measures of the senate, having frequentlybeen on joint committees with them during hisearly terms of service in the lower House, andthen the general subjects of appropriations, naval,military, judiciary, manufactures, commerce,foreign affairs, finance, pension affairs, etc., thesewere the subjects with which he was accustomedto deal during all of his years in congress.

He was at home, and coming into the senateon the wave of popular excitement, which wasof the same broad and sweeping character thatsurrounded Henry Clay, and which came sonear giving him the nomination for the presidencythen, he was not only at home in allhis feelings of political association and publicduty, but exceedingly prominent as well,—theone man of worth above all others, though thelast to enter there.

He had no need to take front rank; he wasthere already, and gave himself to his work,not as a defeated man,—they had played butone inning then,—but as a victor, enjoying hispromotion well, from the lower to the upperhouse of congress. He was nearing the goal,taking the honors by the way, just as Garfield[321]did, but unlike him, tarrying in the senate toenjoy them. It was a good place to be; grandenough to command the lives, in all their richnessand maturity, of Sumner, Webster, Choate,of Hamlin, Fessenden, and Clay, of Wilson,Edmunds, Dawes, and galaxies by the score,representing every state in the Union. Greatlights from every department of life shone there:scholars, teachers, authors, successful generals;culture, refinement, and every excellence.

Mr. Blaine brought with him from the House,his old spirit of freeness, and general adaptabilityand service. He had not come in to rest, beshelved, or fossilized. His old habit of thoroughnesswas on him still; he was not the manto change at six and forty years of age. Hemust still touch top, bottom, and sides of everyquestion with which he dealt, and so he did.

He loved the truths of history, and tookthem whole, entire, lacking nothing, and not in agarbled form. This of course caused facts andfigures to strike with telling power upon manya man’s coat of mail, or cause the shield totremble with the power of his stroke. But hewas there without apology, to do the strong,decisive work which marked the history of hislife. He loved the state of his adoption, andthe time had come when the pride of her gloryshould appear.

[322]The old House of Representatives had beendevoted, as a gallery of art, to portraits andstatues of the great men of the nation. Twowere to be selected by each state from therecord of their leading men.

The statue of William King, the first governorof Maine, in 1820 and 1821, was presented withspeeches in the senate by both Mr. Hamlin andMr. Blaine. In reciting briefly the history ofMr. King, Mr. Blaine relied wholly upon Massachusettsauthority, and he added, “To have givenanything like a sketch of Governor King’s lifewithout giving his conflict with Massachusetts,touching the separation of Maine and her erectioninto an independent state, would have beenlike writing the life of Abraham Lincoln withoutmentioning the great Rebellion, which, aspresident of the United States, he was so largelyinstrumental in suppressing.”

These words he uttered in vindication of himselffrom certain restrictions placed upon him,and he closed by saying “that he notified thesenators from Massachusetts that he should feelcompelled to narrate those portions of Mr.King’s history that brought him in conflict withthe parent state.”

In less than a month after the statue ofGovernor King was placed in the national gallery,by a unanimous vote of the senate, Mr.[323]Blaine was before that body with a speech ofhis usual force and energy, upon the absorbingquestion of hard money. The subject had beendiscussed in the House, and their action sentto the senate, and Mr. Blaine had offered asubstitute for their bill, which contained threevery simple provisions, as he said, viz.:—

1. “That the dollar shall contain four hundredand twenty-five grains of standard silver,shall have unlimited coinage, and be an unlimitedlegal tender.

2. “That all the profits of coinage shall goto the government, and not to the operator insilver bullion.

3. “That silver dollars or silver bullion,assayed and mint-stamped, may be depositedwith the assistant treasurer at New York, forwhich coin-certificates may be issued, the samein denomination as United States notes, notbelow ten dollars, and that these shall be redeemableon demand in coin or bullion, thusfurnishing a paper-circulation based on an actualdeposit of precious metal, giving us notes asvaluable as those of the Bank of England anddoing away at once with the dreaded inconvenienceof silver on account of bulk and weight.”

He cites an exclusively gold nation like England,which, while it may have some massivefortunes, shows also the most hopeless and[324]helpless poverty in the humblest walks of life.But France, a gold-and-silver nation, while it canexhibit no such fortunes as England boasts,presents “a people who, with silver savings, canpay a war indemnity that would have beggaredthe gold-bankers of London, and to which thepeasantry of England could not have contributeda pound sterling in gold, nor a single shillingin silver.”

Mr. Blaine’s sense of justice, and nationalhonor, and national pride were injured by makinga dollar which, in effect, was not a dollar,—wasnot worth a hundred cents.

“Consider, further,” he says, “what injusticewould be done to every holder of a legal-tenderor national-bank note. That vast volume of paper-money—overseven hundred millions of dollars—isnow worth between ninety-eight andninety-nine cents on the dollar in gold coin.The holders of it, who are indeed our entirepopulation, from the poorest to the wealthiest,have been promised, from the hour of its issue,that the paper-money would one day be asgood as gold. To pay silver for the greenbackis a full compliance with this promise and thisobligation, provided the silver is made as italways has been hitherto, as good as gold. Tomake our silver coin even three per cent. lessvaluable than gold, inflicts at once a loss of[325]more than twenty millions of dollars on theholders of our paper-money. To make a silverdollar worth but ninety-two cents, precipitateson the same class a loss of well-nigh sixty millionsof dollars. For whatever the value of thesilver dollar is, the whole paper issue of thecountry will sink to its standard when its coinageis authorized and its circulation becomesgeneral in the channels of trade.

“Some one in conversation with CommodoreVanderbilt during one of the many freight competitionsof the trunk lines, said, ‘Why, theCanadian road has not sufficient carrying capacityto compete with your great line!’

“‘That is true,’ replied the Commodore, ‘butthey can fix a rate and force us down to it.’

“Were congress to pass a law to-day, declaringthat every legal-tender note and every national-banknote shall hereafter pass for onlyninety-six or ninety-seven cents on the dollar,there is not a constituency in the United Statesthat would re-elect a man that should supportit, and in many districts the representativewould be lucky if he escaped with merely aminority vote.”

Mr. Blaine’s sympathies in this discussion werewith the people, and although he had passedout of that popular branch of congress, as it iscalled, most nearly connected with them, he[326]could not in any sense be divorced from them,and so, although before men of great wealth,his plea was for the laboring class,—for thosewho made the country strong and rich,—and soin continuing his speech he pleaded for them; andit will bring them nearer to him to-day torecall his strong and earnest words, which, evenin the staid and formal senate, with its infinitecourtesies and conservative venerations, has aheart to smile, and good cheer sufficient toapplaud, as they did this close of his hard-moneyspeech. These were his final utterances:—

“The effect of paying the labor of this countryin silver coin of full value, as comparedwith irredeemable paper,—or as compared, even,with silver of inferior value,—will make itselffelt in a single generation to the extent of tensof millions—perhaps hundreds of millions—inthe aggregate savings which represent consolidatedcapital. It is the instinct of man fromthe savage to the scholar—developed in childhood,and remaining with age—to value themetals which in all tongues are called precious.

“Excessive paper-money leads to extravagance,to waste, and to want, as we painfully witnesson all sides to-day. And in the midst of theproof of its demoralizing and destructive effect,we hear it proclaimed in the halls of congress,that ‘the people demand cheap money.’ I deny[327]it. I declare such a phrase to be a total misapprehension—atotal misinterpretation of thepopular wish. The people do not demand cheapmoney. They demand an abundance of goodmoney, which is an entirely different thing.They do not want a single gold standard thatwill exclude silver, and benefit those alreadyrich. They do not want an inferior silver standardthat will drive out gold, and not help thosealready poor. They want both metals, in fullvalue, in equal honor, in whatever abundancethe bountiful earth will yield them to thesearching eye of science, and to the hard handof labor.

“The two metals have existed side by sidein harmonious, honorable companionship, as money,ever since intelligent trade was known amongmen. It is well-nigh forty centuries since ‘Abrahamweighed to Ephron the silver which hehad named in the audience of the sons of Heth—fourhundred shekels of silver—current moneywith the merchant.’ Since that time nationshave risen and fallen, races have disappeared,dialects and languages have been forgotten, artshave been lost, treasures have perished, continentshave been discovered, islands have beensunk in the sea, and through all these ages,and through all these changes, silver and goldhave reigned supreme as the representatives of[328]value—as the media of exchange. The dethronementof each has been attempted in turn, andsometimes the dethronement of both; but alwaysin vain! And we are here to-day, deliberatinganew over the problem which comes down tous from Abraham’s time—the weight of the silverthat shall be ‘current money with the merchant.’”

As Mr. Blaine resumed his seat, it is said,in brackets, there was protracted applause; andso much was there that the vice-president, WilliamA. Wheeler, of New York, felt compelledto say, “Order! The chair assuming that thegalleries are ignorant of the laws of the senate,gives notice that if applause is repeated theywill be promptly cleared.”

This cannot fail to suggest the fact beyond adoubt, that he had lost none of his old-timefervor, and that he proposed to allow no rightof the people to slip from them, so long ashe held place and power in their interest, andhad a voice to lift in their defence.

The great business of congress is done bycommittees, as is well known, and their reportsare discussed, amended, and acted upon, endorsedor rejected.

Mr. Blaine’s committee on appropriations wasone of the most difficult. Demands are almostinnumerable, and to act intelligently requires a[329]large knowledge of every department of thegovernment; of the military, the great postallines and offices, and the new ones being built,custom-houses, forts, arsenals, navy-yards, etc.;and this work must be done by the committees,working not early, but late.

He was specially fitted for the committee onnaval affairs, as he had gone over the wholequestion of ship-building and shipping while inthe House.

We find him actuated by the same feelingsof humanity and carefulness, as actuated himyears before, but now more conspicuously, becausein a larger, loftier sphere.

He presents bills for the relief of the familiesof those who perished on the United Statesdredge-boat “McAlister”; to enlarge the powerand duties of the board of health in the Districtof Columbia; to amend the Pacific Railroadact by creating a sinking-fund. He movedto investigate charges against Senator M. C.Butler, of South Carolina.

We find Mr. Blaine showing an appreciationfor that old soldier of the Republic, in theMexican war and the war of the Rebellion,Hon. James Shields, of Missouri, by presentinga bill to make him a major-general. GeneralShields had a bullet through his body in Mexico,at Buena Vista, and a silk handkerchief drawn[330]through his body in the track of the wound,and now he is honored as an old man; but hedoes not live long to enjoy it. He was a hardy,heroic, faithful man and soldier, and worthyof the repeated honors conferred upon him byhis state and by the nation. It was a generousimpulse of a kindly heart that prompted thishonor in the senate for the aged soldier.

The bureau of engraving and printing wasremembered by him in a bill to provide thatdepartment with a fire-proof building.

When the bill was before the senate to pensionthe soldiers of the Mexican war, Mr. Hoaroffered a resolution by way of amendment:“Provided, further, that no pension shall everbe paid under this act to Jefferson Davis, thelate president of the so-called Confederacy.”Twenty-two were found to vote against it. Thediscussion grew now almost intolerable. Nearlyevery rebel sympathizer from the South spokeagainst it; among them were Garland, Bailey,Maxey, Thurman, Gordon, Lamar, Morgan, co*ke.Strong hearts were stirred against their utterances,and strong words uttered for the Unioncause.

“There is no parallel to the magnanimity ofour government,” said Mr. Blaine, in reply toLamar’s charge of intolerance. “Not one singleexecution, not one single confiscation; at the[331]outside only fourteen thousand out of millionsput under disfranchisem*nt, and all of them released,and all of them invited to come to thecommon board, fraternally and patriotically, withthe rest of us, and share a common destinyfor weal or for woe in the future. I tell thehonorable gentleman it does not become him,or any Southern man, to speak of intoleranceon the part of the national government; rather,if he speak of it at all, he should allude to itsmagnanimity and its grandeur.”

The great boldness with which Mr. Blainestood up against the usurpations of the solidSouth is a lasting honor to him. He desiredto place on record, in a definite and authenticform, the frauds and outrages by which somerecent elections were carried by the Democraticparty in the Southern states, and to find ifthere be any method to prevent a repetition ofthose crimes against a free ballot. One hundredand six representatives had been electedrecently in the South, and only four or five ofthem Republicans, and thirty-five of the wholenumber had been assigned to the South, hesaid, “by reason of the colored people.” InSouth Carolina, he speaks of “a series of skirmishesover the state, in which the pollingplaces were regarded as forts, to be capturedby one party and held against the other, so[332]that there was no election in any proper sense.”The information came from a non-partisan press,and without contradiction so far as he hadseen.

This was his resolution in the senate:—

[333]The negro had become practically disfranchised;the true end of the war in his rightful libertyas a freeman, in the full sense of the term,was concerned; and the acts of government inmaking him a citizen, and his representation incongress according to the new allotment ofthirty-five representatives for the colored population;—allthese ends had been subverted, theserights abrogated, and the constitution, in itsmost sacred and dearly-bought amendments, violentlyignored, and men were there with perjuryon their lips and treason in their hearts, whohad countenanced and upheld all of this.

“Let me illustrate,” Mr. Blaine says, “by comparinggroups of states of the same representativestrength North and South. Take the states ofSouth Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Theysend seventeen representatives to congress. Theiraggregate population is composed of ten hundredand thirty-five thousand whites and twelve hundredand twenty-four thousand colored; the coloredbeing nearly two hundred thousand inexcess of the whites. Of the seventeen representatives,then, it is evident that nine wereapportioned to these states by reason of theircolored population, and only eight by reason oftheir white population; and yet in the choice ofthe entire seventeen representatives, the coloredvoters had no more voice or power than their[334]remote kindred on the shores of Senegambia oron the Gold Coast. The ten hundred and thirty-fivethousand white people had the sole and absolutechoice of the entire seventeen representatives.

“In contrast, take two states in the North,Iowa and Wisconsin, with seventeen representatives.They have a white population of twomillion two hundred and forty-seven thousand,—considerablymore than double the entire whitepopulation of the three Southern states I havenamed. In Iowa and Wisconsin, therefore, ittakes one hundred and thirty-two thousand whitepopulation to send a representative to congress,but in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisianaevery sixty thousand white people send a representative.In other words, sixty thousand whitepeople in those Southern states have preciselythe same political power in the government ofthe country that one hundred and thirty-twothousand white people have in Iowa and Wisconsin.”

And it is because this state of things continuesand has threatened every presidential electionsince then, that the brave deed of standingin the presence of the perpetrators of thewrong, and unmasking its hideous mien, is stillall the more worthy of notice, and demands anincreased interest; and so we venture to give[335]another sample of his old Plutarch method ofcontrast and comparison; the last few sentencesof the speech, constituting as they did his peroration,and being so pointed, personal, and triumphantin tone and manner, revealing the manso clearly and forcibly, that we close our referenceto the speech with them, and giving asummary of argument and powerful, homewardputting of truth, worthy of the honor of thegreat cause he pleaded, worthy of the dignity ofthe high place in which he spoke, and worthy ofhimself:—

“Within that entire great organization thereis not one man, whose opinion is entitled to bequoted, that does not desire peace and harmonyand friendship, and a patriotic and fraternal union,between the North and the South. This wishis spontaneous, instinctive, universal throughoutthe Northern states; and yet, among men ofcharacter and sense, there is surely no need ofattempting to deceive ourselves as to the precisetruth. First pure, then peaceable. Gushwill not remove a grievance, and no disguise ofstate rights will close the eyes of our peopleto the necessity of correcting a great nationalwrong. Nor should the South make the fatalmistake of concluding that injustice to thenegro is not also injustice to the whiteman; nor should it ever be forgotten, that[336]for the wrongs of both a remedy will assuredlybe found.

“The war, with all its costly sacrifices, wasfought in vain unless equal rights for all classesbe established in all the states of the Union;and now, in words which are those of friendship,however differently they may be accepted,I tell the men of the South here on this floorand beyond this chamber, that even if theycould strip the negro of his constitutional rights,they can never permanently maintain the inequalityof white men in this nation; they cannever make a white man’s vote in the Southdoubly as powerful in the administration of thegovernment as a white man’s vote in the North.”

THESE names will be forever linked togetherin American history. Not asthe names of Lincoln and Seward.They had little in common except massivepowers and a common work, without anyspecial affinities or friendships other than of apublic and political nature. They were, indeed,friends in a large sense, and each worthy of theother, constituting largely the nation’s head, whenthe greatness of statesmanship is head, and theloyalty of statesmanship is heart, was the demandof the hour. It was the cause and circ*mstancethat brought their great lives in unison. Andyet we are not told that in any sense theywere like David and Jonathan,—one at heart ina personal love, as they were one in mind, devotedto the great concern of the nation’s perpetuity.

But Mr. Garfield and Mr. Blaine, when youngmen far from their prime, entered together thethirty-eighth congress in 1863. Those were dark[338]days, and side by side they fought out in congresshalls the great battle for Liberty and Rightagainst Slavery and Wrong. No contest commandedtalent of a higher order. No men supremerin those great qualities which give togreatness the sovereign right to dictate the destinyof mighty interests, and crown, as personalachievements, those interests with a glory imperishable,—nonebetter, braver, truer, armed to thepoint of triumph, ever stood up against incarnatewrong, to wage the sharp, decisive engagement tofinal conquest, than did these men and their noblecompeers. They entered the lists when thebreath of battle blew hottest, when the landwas darkest with shadows of the war-cloud, whenthe nation was saddest from loss of noble sonsby land and sea, when desperation was stampedin the face of the foe and rankled in his heart.Like Spartans, there they stood, pouring theirvital energies into the current of the nation’slife, until the end of war, and all its fruitswere gathered in and secured in safety withinthe iron chest of the constitution’s sure protection.

It was not for four years, but for thirteen,that they thus held each other company intheir high service of the nation and the world.Such fellowship as this, rich with every elementof honor, could but weld their hearts in unity.[339]As they grew up into those expansive lives, rareand fragrant with the choicest gifts of nature,and rich with deeds worthy of the noblest powers,so that the highest honors of the nationseemed theirs, they grew not apart, but together.Thinking and speaking, writing and contending,for the same great measures, their lives ran inthe same great channels.

The friendship of soldiers who have toiled andendured together, is felt by thousands in ourRepublic to-day, and the feeling grows deeperand stronger as the years go by. This is general,and is common to all, but it is enduringand sincere. Yet there were special, particularfriendships, more personal in their nature, thatsprang up like beautiful plants, upon this largerfield. These are not forgotten or destroyed.The strength of life is in them, and the growthof years is on them. The immortality of timeis theirs. So in the narrower field, when thelife-giving service of years, wrought into thestructure of a nation redeemed, these men addedto the charm and glory of the broader and moregeneral interest, the grace of a special personalfriendliness.

They were just dissimilar enough for this.They were both large, strong men in physique,and yet not large and portly in the sense oflarge and needless bulk of flesh; but fine and[340]strong frames, with massive heads set squarelyupon broad shoulders; arms that swung withpower; bodies filled with health,—not shrunken,dwarfed, or withered,—and good, stout limbs, thatheld them well in air, and moved with speedof the same strong will that commanded andcontrolled their utterance. There were ease andgrace in every motion. They stood erect andbore themselves with the dignity of kings, andyet the merest child was beloved by them. Ifthe one was deeper and more metaphysical thanthe other, that other was broader, richer ingeneralization,—marshalling his well-armed troopsof knowledge from every field where Right hadconquered Wrong, and moving his battalions withthe speed of a swifter march. They were neverleft to be bitter contestants at any point; neitherhad ever plunged the iron into the soul of theother, or done aught to hinder the cause ofthe other’s promotion.

Early in their congressional career they wereboth stamped as future candidates for the presidency.They were so thought of and talkedabout. But Mr. Blaine’s prominence as a speakerof the House of Representatives had given himearliest the greater prominence in this direction,and from various quarters it was being thrustupon him. But they were friends, and had nobickerings and jealousies on this account. Garfield[341]could wait, and would. He did not puthimself forward, nor seek it at the hands offriends. He would rather bide his time, andhelp another. But that other was not Mr. Blaine,though they were friends. It was a matter ofhonor, of state-pride, and of duty, that he gavehis suffrage and his power to John Sherman, ofhis own state of Ohio, who had done suchmagnificent service in the treasury in payingthe national debt and resuming specie payment.And his great, honest speech was so brilliantand earnest for his friend at home, that it turnedthe mind of the convention toward him.

When the crisis came they crowned him, andon the instant the news was flashed into thepresence of Mr. Blaine, while still the cheerswent up in that great assembly in Chicago; hesent his congratulations to his friend, and said,“Command my services for the great campaign.”They were friends and brothers still, eachworthy of the other’s highest honor, truest devotion,and fullest praise. Political lying couldnot befoul the heart of either with any memberof that brood of vipers which inhabit this spherein other breasts. They knew too well thenature and the tactics of the foe. I haveseen a soldier dead upon the field, so blackenedwith blood and powder from the fray,that three stood by and claimed him for[342]their different companies, and none perchancewere right.

But no blackening powder of the enemy, nomud of march, no dust of camp, or any othercreature, could so bespatter or besmear thesem*n so they should fail to know and love eachother. The battle had been long and hard, anddesperate to them. Neither could be pierced orfall without the other’s notice, and full wellthey knew that such hard pressure of theenemy would bring them to desperate straits.But this did not cause them to fear or falter,but to rush on, through blinding and begrimingpowder-smoke, to victory. They could but smileat the enemies’ reports of battle, and of theskill and bearing of both general and troops,just as when a paper crossed the lines in Rebelliontimes the truth came not always withit. Some one must bear the wrath of thosewhose flag was ever in the dust, and whosebroken ranks were reeling in defeat. Hardnames and lies were but the sparks,—the flintflash from the clash of arms,—they but consumethemselves, then die away. No man, sinceall the hate of treason had blackened Lincolnand our leading men with crimes imaginary,had had his name politically tarnished withdarker words of calumny than the wise, thegood, the sainted Garfield; and yet Mr. Blaine[343]lived so close to him, so well knew the healthand the beauty of his inward life, the strengthand soundness of his character, the boldness ofhis purpose, purity of his motive, and the cleannessof his record,—as history shall record it,—thathis voice resounded as it never haddone, from city to city, from state to state, insupport of the man and in vindication of hiscause; and the wreath was on his brow, andmultitudes stood, with uncovered heads, to dohim honor. His old, tried friends, who hadwatched, and studied, and known him for twentyyears had sent him back to congress for theninth time. The legislature of Ohio had givenhim their suffrage and elevated him spontaneously,without his presence or his asking, tothe senatorship. The convention had nominated,and the people elected him to the presidency,and all despite the flinging of mud and thebreath of slander. “He was met,” says Mr.Blaine, “with a storm of detraction at the veryhour of his nomination, and it continued withincreasing volume until the close of his victoriouscampaign:—

“Under it all,” he says, “he was calm, and[344]strong, and confident; never lost his self-possession,did no unwise act, spoke no hasty or ill-consideredword. Indeed, nothing in his wholelife is more remarkable than his bearing throughthose five full months of vituperation. The greatmass of these unjust imputations passed unnoticed,and with the general débris of the campaignfell into oblivion.”

The friendship of Mr. Blaine never waned.He was true as steel. And when the honorsof the nation, who had honored him, were inGarfield’s hands, the chiefest and the best werefor his first best friend, whom he called to thehighest place in his cabinet,—the premier of thenation. This was no mere compliment. It wasan official act. The success of his administration,which was his greatest care, dependedlargely upon his secretary of state. He must beclean as well as competent,—a king in skill andscholarship, as well as brother, friend. It mustthen have been an act of his best judgment, aswell as an expression of regard. And yet itwas as well respect for the millions, representedby the large and strong delegations who votedfor him with such strength of purpose for five-and-thirtytimes.

Four months, less two days, he sat at hisright hand in the highest counsels of the country,a wise, and honored, and trusted man. He could[345]not have been there had not Garfield knownhim,—but he did know him through and through,and because he knew him so thoroughly andwell, he placed the keeping of the nation’s wisdom,integrity, and honor before the world, andin the great world abroad, into his hands.

“The heart is wiser than the head,” andknows more deeply into life and character, thansimple, abstract thought can penetrate. It receivesand knows the whole man as a whole,knows him as a person in his every element ofpersonality in reason, conscience, affections, will;knows him by the touch of moral reason, forpure intellect may act alone comparatively in abstractquestions, of metaphysical thought, but theheart never. The true enlightenment is here.It is the abode of motive, purpose, plan,—outof it are the issues of life itself.

We are ignorant of those we hate, as theSouth was of the North before the war, andhence her braggart boasts. But those whom weknow deeply, fully, truly, we love deeply, fully,truly. Love lights the path of reason, when itcarries the whole reason with it, and furnishesby reciprocal acts of confidence data for itsguidance. And thus we love our way into eachother’s lives, while reason thus enlightened, helpsus on.

It was thus with these great men of the nation’s[346]hope, her honor, and her trust. They sat,they stood, they walked, they talked together,their great hearts open as the day, shining fullupon each other. And as they shone thus oneach other’s life, there was a blending, and soa mutual life, an interlacing, twining, locking, andso a unity.

Every walk in life furnishes its friendships;and the greater the walk may be, the greaterare the friendships; for the greater the affinities,the broader the sympathies, the purer,sweeter, more supreme the life; for the truelife is never isolated, but unstarved in everypart. The king has his queen, the Czar hisCzarina. Only the small-souled men are shrunkenhearted, while large, capacious spirits take inworlds.

Perhaps the country never possessed two menat the same time who had more friends of thesolid and reliable sort than these men, who admiredand loved to honor, and honored becausethey loved, and this because they lived outtheir splendid natures before their countrymen,hating every mean thing, loving and praisingthe good. They were not dark, unfathomablemysteries, enigmas, puzzles, problems, staring atyou, unsolved, and daring you to the thanklesstask, and promising but the gloom of deepershadows; you felt you knew them. They did[347]not stand aloof, daring you mount up to them,but coming down, they sat beside you, and madeyou feel akin, and not blush out your feelingsof a doomed inferiority; and this great-heartedness,beating responsive to the strong, warmtouch of nature, made them friends.

Garfield did not live to draw the picture ofhis Blaine, but Blaine has lived to draw thepicture of his Garfield.

“It is not easy,” he says, “to find his counterpartanywhere in the record of Americanpublic life. He, perhaps, more nearly resemblesMr. Seward in his supreme faith in the all-conqueringpower of a principle. He had the loveof learning, and patient industry of investigationto which John Quincy Adams owes his prominence,and his presidency. He had some ofthose ponderous elements of mind which distinguishedMr. Webster, and which, indeed, in allour public life, have left the great Massachusettssenator without an intellectual peer.

“Some of his methods recall the best featuresin the strong, independent course of Sir RobertPeel, to whom he had striking resemblance inthe type of his mind and the habit of hisspeech. He had all of Burke’s love for thesublime and the beautiful, with, possibly, somethingof his superabundance. In his faith andhis magnanimity; in his power of statement and[348]subtle analysis; in his faultless logic, and hislove of literature; in his wealth and mode ofillustration, one is reminded of that great Englishstatesman of to-day,—Gladstone.”

But the nation seems to commemorate mostfittingly the friendship of those two men, whenin the person of its representatives and senatorsit selects to deliver the eulogy of the deadpresident. Not any of his colleagues in theHouse from his native state, however long orwell they may have known him; nor his colleaguein the senate; no governor of his honoredstate; his loved and cultured pastor, norany other man than Blaine,—his chosen counsellorin the great affairs of state; he who waswith him when, on that quiet, happy morningin July, they rode slowly to the depot, and“his fate was on him in an instant. Onemoment he stood erect, strong, confident in theyears stretching out peacefully before him;—thenext he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomedto weary weeks of torture, to silence, and thegrave.”

And now, as the hand of Mr. Blaine drawsaside the curtain, let us look in upon the finalscene in the life and death of his great friend,and see, as he saw, the man so deeply, trulyloved by the great nation he had just begun torule so well.

[349]“Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death.For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness andwickedness, by the red hand of murder, he wasthrust from the full tide of this world’s interest;from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into thevisible presence of death, and he did not quail.Not alone for the one short moment in which,stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardlyaware of its relinquishment; but through days ofdeadly languor; through weeks of agony, that wasnot less agony because silently borne; with clearsight and calm courage he looked into his opengrave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes,whose lips may tell? What brilliant, broken plans;what baffled high ambitions; what sundering of strong,warm manhood’s friendships; what bitter rending ofsweet household ties! Behind him a proud, expectantnation; a great host of sustaining friends; a cherishedand happy mother, wearing the full, rich honorsof her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth,whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yetemerged from childhood’s day of frolic; the fair,young daughter; the sturdy sons, just springing intoclosest companionship, claiming every day and everyhour the reward of a father’s love and care; and inhis heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demands.Before him, desolation and great darkness!And his soul was not shaken.

“His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound,and universal sympathy. Masterful in hismortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation’s[350]love; enshrined in the prayers of a world. But allthe love and all the sympathy could not share withhim his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone.With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailingtenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniachiss of the assassin’s bullet he heard the voiceof God. With simple resignation he bowed to thedivine decree.

“As the end drew near, his early craving for thesea returned. The stately mansion of power hadbeen to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and hebegged to be taken from its prison walls, from itsoppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness, and itshopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a greatpeople bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healingof the sea, to live or to die, as God shouldwill, within sight of its heaving billows, within hearingof its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderlylifted to the cooling breeze, he looked outwistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders; on itsfar sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restlesswaves, rolling shoreward to break and diebeneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds ofevening, arching low to the horizon; on the sereneand shining pathway of the stars. Let us believethat in the silence of the receding world he heardthe great waves breaking on a further shore, andfelt, already upon his wasted brow, the breath of theeternal morning.”

MR. BLAINE was a member of thecabinets of President Garfield and ofPresident Arthur for ten months,retiring at his own request, in January,1881.

The Foreign Policy of the Garfield administration,as conducted by Mr. Blaine, was emphaticallya Peace Policy. It was without themotive or disposition of war in any form. Itwas one of dignity and uprightness, as a workof twelve hundred and fifty pages, entitled “ForeignRelations of the United States for 1881,”and another book entitled “War in South America,and attempt to bring about Peace, 1880-81,”a book of about eight hundred pages, bothprinted by the United States Government, andnow before us, amply testify.

Its two objects, as distinctly stated by him,were: first, to bring about peace, and preventfuture wars in North and South America; second,to cultivate such friendly commercial relations[352]with all American countries as would increasethe export trade of the United States, bysupplying those fabrics in which we are abundantlyable to compete with the manufacturingnations of Europe.

The second depended on the first. For threeyears Chili, Peru, and Bolivia had been engrossedin war, and the friendly offices of the UnitedStates Government had barely averted it betweenChili and the Argentine Republic, postponed itbetween Guatemala and Mexico; so also it mightin these South American Republics. War wasthreatened between Brazil and Uruguay, and foreshadowedbetween Brazil and the Argentine states.

To induce the Spanish American states toadopt some peaceful mode of adjusting their frequentlyrecurring contentions, was regarded byPresident Garfield as one of the most honorableand useful ends to which the diplomacy of theUnited States could contribute; and in the lineof the policy indicated, is a letter from Mr.Blaine to Gen. S. A. Hurlbut, United StatesMinister to Peru. While it shows the spirit ofthe president, it shows as well the hand andheart of his secretary:—

The appointment of William Henry Trescotas Spanish envoy, with the rank of MinisterPlenipotentiary to the republics of Chili, Peru,and Bolivia, was done in the same regard, notonly of the nation’s honor, but also of peaceand that commerce which brings prosperity andhappiness.

It has long been felt, and is felt deeply to-day,that there are many kindly offices of statewhich this great nation may offer to weaker,feebler, and distressed peoples, for their goodand for our glory; that it is not enough tobe simply an example and an asylum, but tobe a potent benefactor in a direct and personalway, teaching them that peace, not war, is the[355]secret of growth and greatness. This, in effect,was the object of the peace congress, whichwas a cherished design of the administration,and to which Mr. Blaine was fully committed.

No wonder that such a project commandedthe thought and enlisted the sympathies ofsuch men as Garfield and his great premier;and Mr. Blaine tells us that it was the intention,resolved on before the fatal shot of July2d, to invite all the independent governments ofNorth and South America to meet in such acongress at Washington, on March 15, 1882,and the invitations would have been issueddirectly after the New England tour the presidentwas not permitted to make. But the invitationswere sent out by Mr. Blaine on the22d of November, when in Mr. Arthur’s cabinet.It met with cordial approval in South Americancountries, and some of them at once acceptedthe invitations. But in six weeks President Arthurcaused the invitations to be recalled, orsuspended, and referred the whole matter tocongress, where it was lost in debate, just asthe Panama congress was wrecked when Mr.Clay was secretary of state over fifty years ago.

It was argued that such an assemblage ofrepresentatives from those various states wouldnot only elevate their standard of civilization,and lead to the fuller development of a continent[356]at whose wealth Humboldt was amazed, butit would also bring them nearer us and turnthe drift of their European trade to our Americanshores. As it is, they have a coin balanceof trade against us every year, of one hundredand twenty millions of dollars, and this moneyis shipped from our country to Europe, to payfor their immense purchases there. Their petroleumcomes from us, but crosses the Atlantictwice before it gets to them, and the middle-menin Europe receive a larger profit on itthan the producers of the oil in north-westernPennsylvania.

It may be both wise and prudent, in orderto completeness of biography, to state twoaspersions,—one of war, and the other of gain,—castupon the policy of Mr. Blaine.

William Henry Trescot, in a published letterdated July 17, 1882, states “his knowledge ofcertain matters connected with Mr. Blaine’s administrationas secretary of state”:—

“2. As to your designing a war, that suppositionis too absurd for serious consideration. Ifyou had any such purpose it was carefully concealedfrom me, and I left for South Americawith the impression that I would utterly fail inmy mission if I did not succeed in obtaining anamicable settlement of the differences between thebelligerents.

[357]“3. In regard to the Cochet and Landreauclaims, it is sufficient to say that you rejectedthe first, absolutely. As to the second, you instructedGeneral Hurlbut to ask, if the propertime for such request should come, that Landreaumight be heard before a Peruvian tribunalin support of his claim.

“General Hurlbut, although approving the justiceof Landreau’s claim in his dispatch of Sept.14, 1881, never brought it in any way to thenotice of the Peruvian government. During mymission in South America, I never referred toit, so that, in point of fact, during your secretaryshipthe Landreau claim was never mentionedby ministers of the United States, either to theChilian or Peruvian government. It could not,therefore, have affected the then pending diplomaticquestions in the remotest degree.”

But for these he appeared and answered, incompany with Mr. Trescot, before the Housecommittee on foreign affairs, Hon. Charles G.Williams, of Wisconsin, chairman.

“He received a vindication,” is the simplereport.

“I think Mr. Blaine has rather enjoyed hisopportunity, and his triumph,” writes one. “Itis inspiring to have Mr. Blaine associated withpublic affairs again, if only as a witness beforea committee. How the country rings with his[358]name, the moment he breaks silence! Hisfamiliar face, framed in rapidly whitening hair;his elastic figure, growing almost venerable, fromrecent associations; his paternal manner towardyoung Jimmie, his name-sake son, whom bysome whim of fancy, he had with him duringthe examination,—all these were elements ofinterest in the picture.”

And now comes a beautiful prophecy, twoyears old, which shows how one may argue hisway into the future by the hard and certain logicof events. It is this: “The administration willhave to do something that shall appeal stronglyto the popular heart; something out of the lineof hospitalities within its own charmed circle;something magnetic and heroic, or else ‘Blaine,of Maine,’ will become so idolized in the mindsof the people that he will be invincible in1884.”

In all of his foreign correspondence there is,in one particular, a striking likeness betweenMr. Blaine and President Lincoln,—the man isnot lost in the statesman, but rather the manis the statesman.

As Abraham Lincoln in all his giant formappears upon the forefront of every public documentthat came from his hand, so James G.Blaine is photographed from life in every state-paperthat bears his name. He copies no model,[359]he stands on no pedestal,—his personality isfree and untrammeled in every utterance.

In his paper to Mr. Lowell, our Minister toEngland, of Nov. 29, 1881, we get a full viewof the man at his work.

A modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty ofApril 19, 1850, is the subject in hand. Hisinstructions had been sent ten days before. Aweek afterwards the response of Lord Granvilleto his circular note of June 24, in relation tothe neutrality of any canal across the Isthmusof Panama, had been received.

And so he proceeded to give a summary ofthe historical objections to the Clayton-Bulwertreaty, and the very decided differences of opinionbetween the two governments, to which itsinterpretation has given rise. And this he doeswith singular skill and aptness, which is notunusual to him, when the philosophy of historyis needful as the servant of his genius.

No less than sixteen direct quotations of fromtwo to eight lines each, are given in a letter ofsix large pages, taken from the discussion of thesubject for thirty years, while the main body ofthe letter, in its various parts, shows a comprehensivegrasp of details, a familiarity withutterances of the leading men of the past, andwith England’s operations under the treaty, asto prove conclusively that in the highest realms[360]of statesmanship, mastery is still the one wordthat defines the man.

His previous letter of instructions, presentingan analysis of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, singlingout the objectionable features to be abrogated,and stating his reasons, is of the same clear,strong type, compactly written, and applying thegreat arguments of common sense to a subjectof international importance.

“The convention,” he says, “was made morethan thirty years ago, under exceptional and extraordinaryconditions, which have long sinceceased to exist,—conditions which at best weretemporary in their nature, and which can neverbe reproduced.

“The development of the Pacific coast placesresponsibility upon our government which itcannot meet, and not control the canal nowbuilding, and just as England controls the Suezcanal.

“England requires and sustains an immensenavy, for which we have no use, and might atany time seize the canal, and make it impossiblefor us to marshal a squadron in Pacific waters,without a perilous voyage ourselves around theHorn.”

Great events of permanent importance woulddoubtless have been the result, had the presidentand his secretary been permitted to continue[361]as they were for the full term of office.Already Mr. Blaine was showing himself a masterin the arts of diplomacy, not with aught ofcunning artifice or sly interrogation, but withstraight-forward, solid utterances upon the greatinterests of the nation’s weal. Not only of theloved and honored president did the assassin’sbullet deprive us, but also of the services ofMr. Blaine, as well. A Providence more kindseems to be giving him back to the nation, tocomplete their unfinished work.

IN his “Letters to the Joneses” J. G.Holland describes various homes aspossessing all the elements of an empire,a kingdom, a monarchy, or arepublic. Mr. Blaine’s home is a republic.Every member of his family seems to be on anabsolute equality; and he, as one, has describedhim, and an intimate friend confirmed it, ismore like a big brother than aught beside.Certainly he is no emperor, no monarch, czar,or king. He is not even president or governor,nor chieftain there, or general; but rather thesenior member of the family, the head by rightof priority. He is there deeply loved, greatlyrespected, and highly honored. Why need he bea tyrant where a father’s wisdom and a father’slove will serve him best and win high encomiumsof praise? Why not shine on when heenters there, as well as in the places of thestate and nation, or in the simpler walks andhaunts of men? Why put out his light when[363]among those who most admire and love? Whyring down the curtain upon all those splendidqualities of soul that make him famous in theworld abroad, when in the charmed circle ofthose who love and share his fame andhonor?

Mr. Blaine’s first home in Augusta was theeastern half of a large, brown, double house, onGreen Street, nearly opposite the Methodistchurch. It was a simple, unpretentious, pleasanthome, all through his editorial, legislative, andon into his congressional life. It was where hedid the hard work of those first years, wherehe made his friends and bound them to him,where he entertained them and gave them cheer.His business was a constant thing with him;he never quit or laid it aside; and it was agreat part of his business to get acquainted.He took them to his home; it was open to all,and there was a seat for any and all at histable. He kept open house the year around.When friends came it was hard to get away;he would hold on to them as he would to abook. He loved the people; they were a studyto him; a very joy and pleasure, a real delight.Among the people he is perfectly at home, andthey are made to feel that “come and see me”means just that, and all that that means. Heis like a father or big brother out among them.[364]They all knew him, and knew where he lived,—inthat “brown house on Green Street.”This was back in those years before he was solargely in Washington, and before he had hispleasant and more commodious house andgrounds near the capitol.

The whole care of the home was upon Mrs.Blaine, who looked after everything down tothe veriest minutiæ. She was thoroughly insympathy with him, was pleased with what heenjoyed; and so was perfectly willing theirhome should be the rallying-place for his hostsof friends, who might come and go at will.The Maine legislature met at his house duringthe Garcelon trouble.

Mr. Blaine attended strictly to his work, andthat meant the people,—strangers, and townspeople,one and all. He never, I am crediblyinformed, bought a pound of steak in his life,nor a barrel of flour; never went to a grocerystore to buy anything. He has had no time orthought for things like these. He has been astudent and teacher all his life; a close, deep,careful reader and thinker. He had never beenin a printing-office in his life until he becameeditor, and had to learn the people, study them,get politics from their ways of thinking andlooking at things; and it was a matter of principlewith him to make the thing go. It is[365]not a half-dozen things, but “This one thing Ido,” with him, and he does it. But he hasalways been regular at his meals, as a matterof health, and so a law of life. He was noepicurean; cared only for the more substantialthings of diet, and never seemed to be particularabout what he ate, except one thing, andthat he liked, and always wanted them in theirseason, and always had them. It was bakedsweet apples and milk at the close of everymeal. And then he would sit and read, andread, and read, especially after supper, and Mrs.Blaine, if she wanted him to move from thetable, would say, “James! James!” and again,“James!” like enough half a dozen times beforehe would hear, and she pleasant and carefulof him all the time. She has had mind andheart to know his worth, and has needed noone to tell her that teaching school in Kentuckyhas paid her a handsome dividend and is fullof promise for the future. He has made nomove but what she has seconded the motion.Her life is in his, and not a thing independentand apart from it.

One who knew her well in those early years,and knows her well to-day, said of Mrs. Blaine,“She is just as lovely as she can be; of superiorculture, and a real, true mother.”

The gentleman who was Mr. Blaine’s foreman,[366]and for a year and a half made his home withthem, is most enthusiastic in their praise. Hetells what a real mother Mrs. Blaine was tohim if he was sick, or anything the matter withhim, how she would take the best of care ofhim. Every winter they published a tri-weeklyduring the session of the legislature, and thiskept him at the office late every-other night,and she would be “worried about him becausehe had to work nights,” and Mr. Blaine wouldsay, “Howard, you are worth a dozen boys(shiftless, good-for-nothing boys, he meant), butyou must not work so hard.” The humanitiesof life were the amenities to them.

This same man, who has since been editorand proprietor of Mr. Blaine’s old paper, saidwith depth of feeling, and strong emphasis, “Iwish every voter in America had had my opportunityfor eighteen months, right in his ownhome, to see and know Mr. Blaine, they wouldfind out then what a royal man he is.”

In less than ten days after his nomination,parties of prominence, connected with a paperfavorable to his election, but located in quite acity where a leading Republican paper affectsto oppose him, visited Augusta, and called uponhis political enemies, and enquired into his private,social, and domestic life, and they finallyconfessed there was no lisp or syllable of aught[367]to tarnish his name or cause a blush. It is allpure, and sweet, and clear.

When Mr. and Mrs. Blaine first entered theirAugusta home, a bright and beautiful baby boywas in the arms of Mrs. Blaine. He was thepride and joy of the home, their first-born. Hisname was Stanwood Blaine, taking his mother’smaiden-name. One short, bright year of sunshine,and prattle, and glee, and a dark cloudrested on that home; a deep sorrow stung thelife of that father, and heavy grief oppressedthe heart of the mother,—their little Stanwoodwas gone; he was among the jewels on high,and there he is to-day, while a lovely pictureof him adorns the present home.

Since then, six children have been born tothem,—John Walker, a graduate of Yale college,and a member of the Alabama Court ofClaims; Robert Emmons, a graduate of Harvardcollege, now connected with the North-westernRailroad, in Chicago; Alice, the wife of ColonelCoppinger; Margaret; James Gillespie, Jr., andHattie, named for her mother, Harriet. Walker,the oldest, is about thirty-one years old, andunmarried. Hattie, the youngest, is fourteenyears of age. All of the children have beenborn in Augusta, and with but two or threeexceptions, in the old home on Green Street.

Mr. Blaine has been accustomed to sit up[368]quite late at night with books, papers, and letters,and make up his sleep in the morning.He loves a good story, and keeps a fund onhand constantly, and they serve his purposewell. There is one he has enjoyed telling toknots of friends here and there, and especiallywhen friends have gathered at his table. TheMaine law, in the interest of temperance, was aleading issue in the state during Mr. Blaine’sconnection with the Journal. It fell to the lotof his partner, John L. Stevens, who had beena minister, to write the temperance articles, andhe would write them long and strong. It wasa custom with Mr. Blaine to go around amongthe workmen and chat with them, a few wordsof good cheer. Among them was an Irishmannamed John Murphy, who loved his glass. Hewas a witty fellow, and generally had somethingto say. One day while Mr. Blaine was around,Murphy had a large, long manuscript from Mr.Stevens, on temperance, which he was settingup in type. It was a hard job, and the daywas hot. He was about half through, when hecalled out to the foreman,—

“Owen, have you a quarter?”

“Yes, sir! What do you want of it?”

All were listening, including Mr. Blaine, forthey expected something bright and sharp.

“Well, sir, I thought I would have to be[369]after having something to wet me throat widbefore I got through with this long, dry temperancejob.”

Everybody roared at the Irishman’s quaintsally. It struck Mr. Blaine as particularly dryand ludicrous; he laughed outright, and hewould tell it as a good joke on his partner.

Mr. Blaine has never talked about people behindtheir backs; he is no gossiper. He is afearless man, and if he has anything to say toa man he says it squarely to his face. Thereis a purity of tone and richness of life in hishome, that are both noticeable and remarkable.There seem to be no frictions, gratings, orharshness. One of ample opportunity has said,“I never heard him speak a cross word to hischildren.” He is rather indulgent than otherwise.While he may be, as case requires, thestrong, central government, they are as sovereignstates; no rebellion manifests itself, requiringcoercion.

Mr. Blaine’s family have been accustomed toattend church, and the family pew is alwaysfull. Father and mother are both members ofthe Congregational Church, and have the reputationof being devoted Christians and liberalsupporters of the church. Mr. Blaine tells themto put down what they want from him, and hewill pay it.

[370]He has the reputation of being one of thebest Bible-class teachers in the city. His longdrill at college, reading the New Testamentthrough in Greek several times, has helped himin this. A Mission Sabbath-school was starteddown in the lower part of Augusta, and hewent down with the others and taught a largeBible-class. His old pastors, Doctor Ecob, ofAlbany, N. Y., and Doctor Webb, of Boston,Mass., bear the highest testimony to his Christiancharacter and integrity. It was said ofhim at Cincinnati, that “he needed no certificateof moral character from a Rebel congress,”and a very careful examination proves it true.No man could, it would seem, by any possibility,stand better in his own home communitythan does Mr. Blaine. It is not simply cold,formal endorsem*nt, as a matter of self-respectand state-pride, but the clear, strong words ofa deep and powerful friendship, that one constantlyhears who will stand in the light andlet it shine on him.

There were in his Green-street home, parlor,sitting-room, dining-room, and kitchen, down-stairs,and corresponding rooms up-stairs. There wasquite a large side-yard, with numerous trees, andgarden in the rear. The barn and rear part ofthe house were connected by a long wood-house,as is the custom in New England. It was an[371]ample and respectable place for a young editorand politician to reside, and while it was up onthe hill or low bluff from Water Street, downnear the Kennebec River, where the business portionof the city was, and his office was located,still it was quite convenient for him.

His old office was burned in the big fire of1865, which destroyed the business portion of thecity, but the desk was saved at which he didmuch of his writing when in charge of the officeof the Journal during the presidential campaignof 1860.

During this campaign there was so much toexcite him, so much news to read, so manyspeeches to make, so many ways to go, andsuch a general monopoly of time and attention,that very early in the morning they would getout of “copy.” The foreman would say,—andhe was a very kind-hearted man, and loved Mr.Blaine,—

“I don’t see any way for you to do, Dan,but to go up to Mr. Blaine’s, and wake him up,and tell him we must have some more copy.”

Up he would go to the Green-street home,and rouse him up. Mr. Blaine would come downin his study-gown and slippers and say,—

“What, that copy given out?”

“Yes, sir, and we will have to have moreright away!”

[372]“Well, what did he do, sit right down anddash it off for you?”

“Yes, sometimes, and sometimes he would takethe scissors.”

This was said with a mild, significant smile.

Mr. Blaine could write anywhere, and didmuch of it out in the dining-room on the supper-table,with his family all about him. Hewould become oblivious of all surroundings, andwith his power of penetration and concentration,adapt himself to his work, utterly lost to circ*mstances.

He had no mercy on meanness. It roused hiswhole nature. He would walk the floor at home,plan his articles, think out his sentences, andsend everything to the printer just as he hadwritten it first,—but when he came to correctthe proof he would erase and interline until thearticle had passed almost beyond the power ofrecognition. His finishing touches were a newcreation.

Of course the poor printers never said anythingeither solemn or wise at such times,especially when driven to the final point ofdesperation. But they could not get madat him, and there was no use trying. Dansaid,—

“He would just as soon shake hands with aman dressed up as I am now, with this old suit[373]of overalls on, and sit down and talk with himas with the richest man in town.”

“The men knew this, and saw and felt hispower. He looked at the man, and not at theclothes?”

“Yes, that is just it.”

Mr. Blaine’s business and home-life are soblended, it is impossible to separate them. Henever left his business at the office. It was allhours and every hour with him, except upon theSabbath.

He took some time to look after the educationof his children, something as his father andgrandfather had dealt with him. But Mrs. Blaine,having been a teacher, took this responsibilityupon herself. They all attended the publicschools of the city, and were early sent away toacademy, college, and seminary. The home alwayshad an air of intelligence. Busy sceneswith books were common, day and night. Materialsfor writing, papers, magazines, and books forgeneral reading, and for review, seemed omnipresent.There is order and system amid all theseeming confusion.

Mrs. Blaine’s hand and touch are felt and seeneverywhere. She is a large, magnificent woman,a born queen, as fit to rule America as QueenVictoria to rule England. She has a quiet, commandingair, with nothing assumed or affected[374]about her. A gentle, wholesome dignity makesher a stranger to storms, and her clear, strongmind makes her ready and at home in society.She is not a great talker, and encourages it inothers by listening only when it is sensible. Sheis too wise and womanly to ever gush, and neverencourages talk about her husband. There isnothing patronizing about her.

The fact is, the presidency, since the deathof Mr. Garfield, and the terrible ordeal throughwhich they then passed, has been very seriousbusiness to them. They have not labored for it.It has been thrust upon them,—for they areone in every sympathy and every joy.

About a year ago, while calling upon hisold friend, Ex-Gov. Anson P. Morrill, Mr. Morrillsaid,—

“Are you going to try for the presidencyagain, Blaine? Come, now, tell me, right out.I want to know.”

“No, sir,” was the reply. “I do not want it.If you could offer it to me to-night, I wouldnot accept it. I am devoted to my book atpresent, and love it, and do not wish to be divertedfrom it.”

Mr. Morrill went on to say, that “eight yearsago, when they tried to nominate him at Cincinnati,I was opposed to it, and told my neighbor,Mr. Stevens, I would not vote for him. I[375]thought he was too young, and had not grownenough.”

“Well, how is it now?”

“O, he is all right now, well-developed, solid,and strong. The nation can’t do better than puthim right in. He will make a master president,and give the country an administration they willbe proud of.”

This shows the honor and honesty of the oldgovernor, and that he loved the nation abovehis friend. The happy, blessed, prosperous yearsof home-life ended on Green Street, when Mr.Blaine was advanced to the third office in thenation, as speaker of the House of Representativesin congress,—and they removed to thelarger home, with ampler grounds, on StateStreet, next to the capitol. Here they havesince resided, except when living in Washington.Mr. Blaine loves home, and has his family withhim.

There is nothing extravagant about the homeon State Street, either in the house or its furnishing.It is plain, simple, and comfortable.The sitting-room and dining-room upon the rightof the main hall, and the two parlors on theleft are thrown into one, making two largerooms, which have always been serviceable forentertaining company, but never more so thansince his nomination for the presidency. The[376]hallway extends into a large, new house, moremodern in appearance than the house proper,erected by Mr. Blaine for his library, gymnasium,etc. Mr. Blaine is careful about his exercise,and practises with dumb-bells, takes walks,rides, etc.

He has a large barn for horses, and generallykeeps a number of them. The house is of Corinthianarchitecture, without a trace of Gothic.Corinthian columns, two on each side, indicatethe old division of the large room on the leftof the hallway into the front and back parlor,but all trace of doors is removed, and they arepractically one. A large bay-window, almost aconservatory, built square, in keeping with thehouse, looks out upon the lawn.

It is, all in all, a very convenient, home-likeplace, with nothing pretentious or to terrify themost plebeian who would care to enter, and theyhave been there by the score and hundred. Notless than a thousand friends, neighbors, and visitorswere cordially invited to come in and shakehands with General Logan, when he visited Mr.Blaine soon after the convention that nominatedthem, and received a quiet serenade, decliningany public reception.

A bright, important feature of Mr. Blaine’shome is his cousin, “Gail Hamilton,”—MissAbigail Dodge,—the gifted authoress. She is[377]an intellectual companion, and an important factorin the social and home-life of the family,deeply interested, but with native good grace,in all that pertains to the honor and welfare ofher distinguished relatives. Books, music, bric-a-brac,abound in their present home.

They do not “fare sumptuously every day,”though feasts of course there are, but continuein their simple, democratic ways. Eating is nota chief business in that home. The childrenare very intelligent, and minds, rather thanstomachs, have premiums on them. WhenWalker was a little fellow, long before he couldread, less than two years old, he could turn toany picture in a large book; he knew them all.But none of them have surpassed, or equalled,their father’s work at books,—going throughthose great lives of Plutarch by the time hewas nine years old,—and this we hear from Mrs.Blaine herself. Only the three younger are athome,—Margaret, James Gillespie, Jr., and Hattie,who, although she is the baby, wearsglasses. She is a wide-awake and pleasantchild, and finds so much of life as is now adaily experience, a burden rather than a delight.James has many of his father’s characteristics,it is said. He is a tall, noble, manly fellow,and, though still in his teens, has been tutoringin Washington the past winter. Margaret,[378]older than Hattie or James, has achieved anational reputation by a dexterous use of thetelephone at the time of her father’s nomination.She was the first to receive the intelligence.She has mature, womanly ways, and is verylike her mother, though the children allresemble their father,—have his strong, markedfeatures,—unless it may be Emmons or Alice.

Alice was the oldest daughter, and wouldaccompany, with perhaps other members of thefamily, Mrs. Blaine herself, at times, back inthe editorial days, upon the press-excursions.Upon those occasions Mr. Blaine was in hisglory, full of facts, full of life, and full ofstories. There was none of the wag or loaferabout him; he was never idle or obsequious;but he knew all about the bright side ofthings, and never failed to find it. His ownlife seemed to light up all around him. Theludicrous side was as funny as the mean wasdespicable. He was very popular among thejournalists of the state. He was an honor tothe craft, and they felt it, and easily recognizedhim as a royal good fellow,—a sort of leader orrepresentative man. He was called out whentoasts were to be responded to or speeches tobe made, and was the captivating man on alloccasions. The crowd gathered about him. Henever would tell a story but that any lady[379]might listen to it without a blush. They werewell selected, and always first-class, and told inthe shortest, sharpest manner possible. Hewould never spin a long yarn. It must bequickly told, and to the point, and have aspecial fitness for the occasion.

A story that he enjoyed hugely, and couldtell with a gusto inimitable, was of a country-manelected to the legislature, and for thefirst time stopping at a large hotel. The waiterswere busy, and while he awaited his turn heobserved a dish of red peppers in front; takingone of them on his fork, he put it in hismouth, and began the work of mastication. Alleyes were turned on him. The process was abrief one, and he very soon raised his fair-sizedhand, and, taking that pepper from hismouth, laid it beside his plate, and said, as hedrew in a long breath to cool off his blisteredtongue, “You lie thar until you cool!” Thiswas only matched by one regarding a manfrom the interior, at a hotel-table in St. Louis,who, observing a glass of iced-milk on theouter circle of dishes that surrounded the plateof a gentleman opposite to him, reached for itand swallowed it down. The gentleman watchedhim closely, and, with some expression of astonishment,said simply,—

“That’s cool!”

[380]“Ya-as,” the fellow blustered out, “of courseit is; thar’s ice in it!”

Few toasts touch the heart of Mr. Blainemore deeply than the great toast of the familyand of friendship, and one to which he couldrespond with the happiest grace and the liveliestgood cheer, “Here’s to those we love, andthose who love us! God bless them!”

Mr. Blaine drinks no liquors, not even thelightest kinds of wine, I am credibly informedby one who was with him on those occasions,and frequently at his table.

Mrs. Blaine, like her husband, is a greatreader, and while a devoted mother and faithfulwife, never neglecting her home, husband, orher children, has kept herself well informed, andis intelligent and attractive in conversation.

Old friends say, “I do love to hear Mrs.Blaine talk; she has a fine mind, is so welleducated, and so well informed.”

An old school-mate testifies that she was afine scholar when at the academy over the riverfrom her present home, and that she also studiedand finished her education at Ipswich.

She has trained her children with a skill thatfew mothers could command. Her children areher jewels, and are loved with a mother’s affection.They are as stars, while her husband is asthe great sun shining in the heaven of her joys.

[381]The present Augusta home has been, for years,little more than a summer-resort, to which theyhave come the first of June. Their great homehas been in Washington. This, for twenty years,has been life’s centre to them. Here home-lifehas reached its zenith; its glories have shone thebrightest; it has been at the nation’s capital, andhusband and father among the first men of thenation. Wealth has been at their command, tomake that home all they desired. They couldfill it with the realizations of their choicestideals, and friends, almost worshipers, have comeand gone with the days and hours, from allparts of the nation. They have lived in thenation’s life. They have been in the onwarddrift and trend of things, ever on the foremostwave, caught in the onward rush of events.Life has been of the intensest kind, rich in allthat enriches, noble in all that ennobles. Theyhave occupied a large place in the nation, andthe nation has occupied a large place in them;and yet, though at the very farthest remove fromthe quiet, simple life of the cottage or the farm,it has been an American home; it could be noother with such a united head, and retains muchof the old simplicity. The habits of early lifeare still on them, and in nothing are they estrangedfrom the people.

It has been an experience with them so long,[382]and came on so early in its beginnings, andgradually, that they have become accustomed tohonor and distinction.

Another home is likely to be theirs in Washington,the crown of all the others. But in itthey will be the same they are now; just asglad to see their friends, as home-like as themselves,as genuine and true. Their heads cannotbe turned if they have not been, and home inthe White House will be, if in reserve for them,the same dear, restful, cheerful spot, for theloved ones will be there, and that makes home,not walls, and floor, and furniture.

Photographs of the family abound at Mr.Blaine’s, all except the picture of Mrs. Blaine,—shehas not had it taken. “They are not true,”she says, and she brought a half-dozen of herhusband, and only one seemed good, and sheadmitted it. The others showed, I thought, howterrific has been the conflict of life with him.They show him when haggard and worn, andperhaps prove, by her judgment on them, howconsummate is her ideal of the man of her heart.Mr. Blaine loves the open air. The hammock,seen in the back-ground of the picture of hishouse, is soothing and restful to him, and to a manof such incessant activity rest is very welcome.He was out in the hammock, as shown in thepicture of his home, with his family and some[383]of his nearest neighbors about him, when theballoting was going on in Chicago. The third ballothad just been taken when his neighbor, Mr.Hewins, came on the grounds.

“Well, Charley,” he said, “you don’t see anybodybadly excited about here, do you?”

“Mr. Blaine,” he said, “was the coolest oneof the company.”

These lawn-scenes are a part of the home-life,a very large and pleasant part; for thereare no pleasanter grounds in Augusta thanthose surrounding Mr. Blaine’s modest mansion.

IN conversation with a leading businessman in Maine, the question was asked,“What are the chief characteristics ofMr. Blaine?” The man was well situatedto know, and well fitted to comprehend,although he was not the man to analyze character,except in a general way, and largely froma business point of view. His answer was,—

“His immense industry; his great enlightenment,and he has always been a growing man!He has such great force of character, and suchlarge intellectual power, and then he is such asocial man. He knows so much, and is so interestingin conversation. He will talk to a peasantso that he will take it all in, and a princesitting by will enjoy it.”

Captain Lincoln and his wife, New Englandpeople, but from the Sandwich Islands, wherehe had been for some five years in charge of avessel, called to see him about the middle ofJune, to pay their congratulations; and it was[385]pleasant to observe, how, without a trace of aristocracy,but with a genuine manliness, he sat downjust like a brother, and talked with them of theirinterests, the Island and ocean affairs, and observed,“They don’t have any more roast missionaryout there now”; but this was slippedinto a sentence that almost gave a history ofthe Islands. And as he discussed ocean problems,routes to Mexico, and different parts ofAmerica, North and South, the captain’s eyesopened with admiration. And it was not a displayof knowledge, but brought out in questions,as to what do you think of such a project, andin stating a few brief reasons for it, the man’sinformation not only cropped out, but burstforth. He seems so full of it, that when it canfind a vent it comes forth in deluge fashion,much as water does from a fire-plug.

Mr. Blaine never could be a specialist, butmust be world-wide in his knowledge, as he isin his sympathies. Some men are like ponds inwhich trout are raised,—small and narrow, servea single purpose, and serve it well; but he ismore like the ocean,—broad, and grand, andmanifold in the purposes he serves, and deep aswell. Mr. Blaine is not a shallow man. Hishas not been the skimming surface-life of theswallow, but rather the deep-delving life of realityand substance. Deep-sea soundings, both of[386]men and things, have been a peculiar delight tohim.

Curiosity has ever been a secret spring in him.He must know all, and he would hunt, and rummage,and delve, and search, until he did. He hasthe scent of a greyhound for evidence, howeverabstract, and he would track it down somehow,“with all the precision of the most deadlyscience,” as he did the telegram which ProctorKnott suppressed. This inborn faculty, which hehas developed to a marvelous degree, has been amighty weapon of defence to him, when combinationsand conspiracies have been formed againsthim, and of the most cruel character, for hisdestruction. For, let it not be forgotten, thathe has lived through that era of American lifewhen the great effort was to kill off, politically,the great men of the Republican party. A rebelcongress of Southern brigadiers did their worst,but the nation applauded as he triumphed.

The same knowledge seems greater power inhim than in ordinary men, or than in almostany other man, because of his great intellectualforce. Just as a dinner amounts to more in somemen, because of greater power of digestion,—justas the smooth stone from the brook when inDavid’s sling went with greater precision andpower, penetrating the forehead of Goliath. It isthe man and in his combinations, manner, methods,[387]and the time, and yet all of these have littleto do with it. Force and directness seem to expressit all. Conventionalities are merely conveniencesto Mr. Blaine, and when not such areinstantly discarded. Common sense is the pilotof his every voyage. Everything is sacrificed tothis. This, and this alone, has been the crownedking of his entire career, and all else merelysubjects.

What he has seen in the clear, strong lightof his own best judgment, enlightened by a vastand varied knowledge, he has seized and swornto. He has never plundered others of their cast-ironrules; he had no use for them. Saul’s armornever fitted him. He has delighted in thefathers’ reverences and laws, though but seldomquotes them. He has no time or taste for sucheasy, common methods. He is too original. Andthis is one of the strongest features of the man.He is not simply unlike any other man, but hasno need of resemblance. He has much of theimpetuosity and fiery eloquence of Clay, butthen he has more of the solid grandeur ofWebster. But then he is too much like himselfto be compared intelligibly with others.

There are great extremes in his nature,—notnecessarily contradictions, yet opposites. He isone of the most fervid men, and yet one of themost stoical at times, perfectly cool when others[388]are hot and boiling. He never loses his head.There is never a runaway,—but great coolnessand self-possession when it is needed, and abilityto turn on a full head of steam, when the occasionrequires. Here is the testimony of a scholarand author:—

“One element in his nature impressed itselfupon my mind in a very emphatic manner, andthat is his coolness and self-possession at themost exciting periods. I happened to be in hislibrary in Washington when the balloting wasgoing on in Cincinnati on that hot day in June,1876. A telegraph-instrument was on his librarytable, and Mr. Sherman, his private secretary, adeft operator, was manipulating its key. Dispatchescame from dozens of friends, giving thelast votes, which only lacked a few of the nomination;and everybody predicted the success ofMr. Blaine on the next ballot. Only four personsbesides Mr. Sherman were in the room. Itwas a moment of great excitement. The nextvote was quietly ticked over the wire, and thenthe next announced the nomination of Mr. Hayes.Mr. Blaine was the only cool person in the apartment.It was such a reversal of all anticipationsand assurances, that self-possession was out of thequestion except with Mr. Blaine.

“He had just left his bed after two days ofunconsciousness from sunstroke, but he was as[389]self-possessed as the portraits upon the walls.He merely gave a murmur of surprise, and, beforeanybody had recovered from the shock, hehad written, in his firm, plain, fluent hand, threedispatches, now in my possession: one to Mr.Hayes, of congratulation; one to the Maine delegates,thanking them for their devotion; andanother to Eugene Hale and Mr. Frye, askingthem to go personally to Columbus and presenthis good-will to Mr. Hayes, with promises ofhearty aid in the campaign. The occasion affectedhim no more than the news of a servantquitting his employ would have done. Half anhour afterward he was out with Secretary Fishin an open carriage, receiving the cheers ofthe thousands of people who were gathered aboutthe telegraph-bulletins.”

This power of self-control seems to be supreme.It is just the particular in which so many ofour great men, and small ones too, have miserablyfailed. This enables him to harness all hispowers and hold well the reins,—to bring all hisforces into action when emergency requires, andsend solid shot, shrapnel, or shell, with a coolhead and determined hand.

Mr. Blaine has a great memory. Nearlyall who know him will speak of this. Heseems never to forget faces, facts, or figures.

Thirty years after he attended school in Lancaster,[390]Ohio, he went there to speak. It was,of course, known that he was coming, and anold acquaintance of the town, whom he had notseen all these years, said, “Now I am goingto station myself up there by the cars, and seeif he will know me. They say he has such awonderful memory.” Several were looking on,watching the operation. Mr. Blaine had nosooner stepped off from the train than he spiedhim, and sang out at once, “Hello, John, howare you!” and a murmur of surprise went upfrom those who were in the secret.

At another time he was near Wheeling,—myinformant thought it was across the river fromWheeling,—in Belmont County; he met a manand called him by name. The man said, “Well,I don’t know you.” Mr. Blaine told him justwhere he met him, at a convention, and thenthe man could not remember. That night hetold some of his friends about it, and they saidit was a fact; they were with him, and sawhim introduced to Mr. Blaine and talk withhim, and not till then did the man rememberhim.

As General Connor, ex-governor of Maine,who appointed Mr. Blaine to the United Statessenate, said: “He could do a thing now as wellas any other time.”

“Governor Connor was in Washington,” he[391]went on to relate, “and called upon Mr. Blainewhen he was secretary of state, and he said, inhis familiar way, ‘Now you talk with Mrs.Blaine awhile,’ and went into his study. Inabout an hour he called him, and all about histable were lying sheets of paper on which hehad just written. It was his official documenton the Panama canal, and which he read to thegovernor. It had been produced during the pasthour, and appeared in print, with scarcely achange. It came out in a white heat, but itwas all in there ready to be produced at anytime.”

The General remarked, “This one characteristicof the man, and an element of his popularityand hold on others, is this close confidencehe exercises in his friends, of which theabove is an illustration.”

And this touches at once another feature, andthat is his ability to read character, and so toknow whom to trust. He goes right into a man’slife, when he gets at him.

While out riding, during the preparation ofhis volume, with his wife, two or three milesfrom Augusta, in Manchester township, he gotout to walk, and finding a farmer in a fieldnear by, he stopped, talked with him some time,asked him about his history, his ancestors, andfound out pretty much all the man knew about[392]himself, and could have told whether it woulddo to leave his pocket-book with the man orno. Such a thing is a habit with him, andkeeps him near the people, gives him a lookinto their minds, a peep into their hearts,as well as a view of their history.

Character-readers usually are persons of strongintuitions. They see not so much the flesh andblood of the individual, as the soul within. Justgiving one sharp, quick, penetrating look at theman in the concrete, and the abstract questionis settled; the man is rated; his value writtendown. It is not so much a study as a look,—thoughttouches thought, mind feels of mind. Itis power to know clearly, quickly, strongly, andcertainly, with him. He does not have to eat awhole ham to find out whether it is tainted,nor drink an entire pan of milk to find outwhether it is sweet.

Mr. Blaine is very obliging, and he can usuallytell an opportunity from a chance. Life isno lottery to him; he keeps his feet on thegranite, and gives all “fortuitous combination ofatoms” the slip, being too discriminating to invest.One day he was in the old Journal office,now owned by Sprague and Son,—a very kind andconsiderate firm, who are producing a sprightlydaily,—when a citizen entered who had just beenappointed clerk of the Probate Court, and asked[393]the gentleman to go on his bond. Mr. Blainespoke up at once, “I will do it,” and then saidit reminded him of a story, which he proceededto tell:—

“Governor Coney lived in Penobscot, shire-townof Penobscot County, and was judge ofthe Probate Court. The sheriff of the Countyhad failed, and Mr. Sewall, a citizen, met JudgeConey and said, ‘The sheriff has failed, andyou and I are on his bond.’ ‘Well, that’s good,’said the judge, ‘I guess you can fix it up.’ ‘O,but my name is on the left-hand side, as awitness to his signature.’ So the unlucky judgewas left to contemplate the delightful privilegeof paying what amounted to a rogue’s bail.”

This same clerk of the Probate Court of formeryears, but still a friend and neighbor, aman, however, with an unhappy physical disability,came upon the lawn when the largecommittee to notify him of his nomination weregathered there to perform that duty, and as theman told me, Mr. Blaine caught sight of himoff some distance, and “notwithstanding all thosem*n were there, he spoke right up in his old,familiar way, ‘How are you, ——?’”

It shows his genuineness and simplicity. Thereis enough to him without putting on any airs.It could not be otherwise than that a nature sohighly wrought and intense, should be possessed[394]of the powers of withering scorn and just rebuke,and when the occasion required, could usethem. There happened such an occasion in1868.

General Grant had been invited to attend theopening of the European and North AmericanRailway, at Vanceboro’, in the State of Maine. Itformed a new connecting-link with the BritishProvinces. There was a special train of invitedguests, and as General Grant was then president,and had never been in the state before, it wasquite an honor to be of the company. Mr.Blaine was, of course, of the number, as werethe leading citizens without respect to party.A newspaper-correspondent, without any invitation,got aboard the train, and went with theparty, and on his return reported that PresidentGrant was drunk. This cut Mr. Blaine to thequick, because of its untruthfulness, and as hewas a Republican president, and politics usuallyran high in Maine during the palmy days, from1861 to 1881, when Mr. Blaine was at the helm,and also because the president was guest of thestate. Not long after, he met the reporter inthe office of Howard Owen, a journalist of Augusta.

“And if you ever saw a man scalped,”—Iuse the exact language,—“and the grave-clothesput on him, and he put in his coffin, and[395]buried, and the rubbish of the temple thrownon him forty feet deep, he was the man. Inever heard anything like it in all my borndays: philippics, invectives, satires, these commonthings were nowhere.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“What didn’t he say?” was the reply,—“‘Youwere not invited, you were simply tolerated;you sneaked aboard, and then came back hereand lied about us,’ etc.”

But sixteen years had effaced much, and yetthe impression was vivid, as the man’s very expressivemanner betokened.

And a leading Washington correspondent, conversantwith all the sights at the capital, says,“It would look strange to see him with thewhiskey-drinking crowd at either bar in the capitolbuilding. He does not visit them, and hedoes not drink.”

The great-heartedness of Mr. Blaine comes outin his book, “Twenty Years in Congress,” andshows how large are his sympathies. He devotesover fifteen pages of that great work toan historical vindication of Brig. Gen. Charles P.Stone, who was the victim chosen to atone forthe Ball’s Bluff disaster, in which Col. E. D.Baker, of California, a most gallant officer, losthis life. It is a deeply interesting portion of theseventeenth chapter.

[396]Mr. Blaine is a great lover of fair play. Heis too great to cherish any feeling of resentment,for he is true-hearted as well as great-hearted.

In this same chapter he presents Mr. RoscoeConkling very handsomely, and does him thehonor to quote more extensively from his speechthan from Chandler, Lovejoy, Crittenden, Richardson,or Thad. Stevens, although Conkling wasyounger than any of them. The Republicanparty is like a great family to him, and he lovesand cares for all, in the sense of valuing themhighly for their principles’ and works’ sake, andso studies the things that make for peace,—butnot peace for peace’ sake, but for the sake ofprinciple.

He asks no quarter for himself, but will followout the behests of his great nature in theinterests of others, and the great cause throughwhich his life has run, like a thread of purestgold. It is his great friendliness which has enabledhim to take others into his very life, andlive and toil for them so largely. He seemsever living outside of self,—going outside of selfand entering into their cause and condition, andmaking their case his own. He aims to knowenough about those within his reach so that heshall be interested in them, and can think andfeel intelligently regarding them. His whole nature[397]acts in unison, just as heaven designed.His mind must know, and his heart must love,and his will must act, while conscience detectsand demands purity of motive.

This honor makes life a joy, a melody, a delight,and so resonant with constant notes ofpraise. He cannot be idle; this is against hisnature; and to be vicious would give him pain.He is not mean, or low and truckling, butlarge and open as the day.

An old Democrat, who had known him eversince he landed in Augusta, said, when asked apoint-blank question about him as a man, “Heis a good neighbor and a great citizen,” andthis man had had many dealings with him, buthe could not escape the impressions of his work.No man, it would seem, could stand a betterexamination among his neighbors. If a court ofinquiry were established, covering these points,right where he is best known, it would not benecessary for him to challenge a juryman, or impeacha witness.

This same old Democrat said, “A number ofyears ago we wanted to fix up the Baptistchurch, and they asked me to go and see Mr.Blaine, as they were making a general call uponthe public. It was on the eve of his departurefor California, but he gave his check at oncefor a hundred dollars, and said, ‘If that is not[398]enough I will give you more when I return.’”He is interested in all good enterprises, andturns none empty away. As an instance of thehumanity of the man, a neighbor related thefollowing:—

“A laborer fell in a fit right out there in theroad near Mr. Blaine’s house, and his sympathieswere all roused for the man. He helped himwhat he could, and as he came out of it rightaway, Mr. Blaine called to his coachman, andsaid, ‘Fred, harness the horse, and take thisman to Hallowell,’ which was ten miles away;and Mr. Blaine helped the man into his carriage,in his kindly way, and so sent him home.” Hehas time for all these occasions to help andcheer a fellow-man.

And Mrs. Blaine is just like him. Since theirreturn from Washington, and since the nomination,she was returning from a ride, and when near thegate, there was a crowd. A circus was in town,and a girl had been run over and badly hurt.Mrs. Blaine did not begin to scold and blame thegirl for being out in the crowd, but said, “Takeher right into my parlor,” and they did, whenshe sent for a doctor, and had every care takenof the child. She has a mother’s heart, and amind suited for the best companionships.

There has been a reference elsewhere to Mr.Blaine’s marked liberality as a distinguishing[399]characteristic. He is not a wealthy man, aswealth is reckoned to-day, but whenever he hasturned his great abilities to financial matters forthe purpose of money-getting, he has succeeded,showing most conclusively that, had he servedhimself all these years instead of serving thenation, he would be worth reputed millions. Asit is, he told a friend who asked him, about ayear ago, if reports were true that he wasworth several millions, as people were saying,and his answer was, “No, I am worth lessthan half a million.”

His great activity is very noticeable, especiallyin society. He has been compared to Mr. Burlingamein his ability to see and converse withthree or four persons, while another is seeingbut one. He moves rapidly at times, but withgreat care, especially in examining any documentor letter requiring his signature.

He will sign nothing unless it be a commonletter prepared by his private secretary, withoutreading every word. But out among men hisactivity is quick and constant. He is always inmotion, not in an aimless, nervous way, but ina wide-awake, fully alive manner. His battery isever charged with the freshest and purest electricity.It would be a thing incredible to findhim asleep in the day-time.

He had a singular habit when editor, of folding[400]up little slips of paper and inserting thembetween his teeth quickly, or tearing them offfrom a newspaper, inserting them, and thenthrowing them away, so that after a few moments’conversation, he would be surrounded with bits ofpaper which he had torn off and used in this way.

Long walks have been his habit, and at timeshe would strike off across the fields and jumpthe fences. “What,” I said to my informant,“jump the fences?” “Yes,” he said, and anotherparty confirmed it. To go across lots, they say,is “the Yankee of it.”

This vigorous exercise is a part of his programmefor keeping up his health. He has hada cross-bar also, for athletic sports, and madeuse of it, too. Life is never dull and monotonouswith him, but always full to the brim.

It is this active, energetic spirit which tookhim to England, and for four or five monthsall over the continent of Europe; and in 1875to California, and up and down the Pacific coast;and it was this same mighty energy of being,which led him to make five speeches a daysometimes when he was campaigning in Ohio.He did this one day, when the last one was toan immense assemblage in Columbus. And hegenerally spoke until he was quite satisfied thathe had the people with him, and they were certainto vote about right when the time came.[401]His resources of strength, at times, seemsamazing. Many who have known him for thirtyyears, speak of his great energy, of his decisionof character, of his power with an audience.

His private secretary, who has been by hisside for fifteen years, says that all the time hewas speaker in congress, he was never late asingle moment, that just exactly at twelveo’clock, the usual time for meeting, his gavelwould fall, and the House be called to order.

It is a consciousness of responsibility, andconscientiousness in the discharge of duty, greatreadiness for the work, and eagerness to performit, that have made him prompt, energetic, accurate,and determined.

He has been among the broadest of men inhis thinking, reading, observation, experience,travel, sympathy, purpose, motive, and activities.Truly his life has been onward and upward,and with these as his principal characteristicshe has been tested as few men are tested, andnot found wanting. In ten great departments,—asstudent, teacher, editor, stump-speaker, legislator,speaker of the House at home, congressman,speaker of the National House of Representatives,United States senator, and secretaryof state,—has he been tried, and not foundwanting. Only a man of transcendent abilitiescould have triumphed in such a career.

MR. BLAINE’S steady march upwardin the line of promotion, was constantand irresistible, from 1856 to 1876,and even that year was crowned witha seat in the United States senate. But thepresidency seemed within his grasp. It was thedemand and expectation of the people that heshould have it. The popular fervor was intense.He was the ideal statesman of the multitude.But the cast-iron political machinery, then runningso deftly and with such precision in severalstates, was manipulated with a craftiness sosubtle as to defeat their strongly expressed andurgent wish. They were ready, hat in hand, inevery state and territory in the Union, to cheerhis nomination, when the intelligence came thatthe “dark horse,” Rutherford B. Hayes, was thehonored man. No one was more loyal to himthan Mr. Blaine.

The state machinery was run by a Corlissengine in 1880,—band, pulley, and cog united[403]the complicated and ingenious device into asingle and powerful combination of great effectiveness.The whirl of its great wheel, and thewhir of the wheels within, were swift and precisein their momentum. There was no cessationof control, no deviation in rate of speedor execution. The result was ever the same.The steam-gauge registered three hundred andsix, simply that and nothing more. They would“make or break,” and so they broke;—Garfield,grand, and splendid, and worthy, came to bethe convention’s man. And the people lovedhim and were loyal to him,—none more so thanMr. Blaine.

For the third time the people sent theirchosen men to take for them the great initiative,that they might have the long-sought privilegeof endorsing him with their suffrage. It was agreat day in Chicago,—that Tuesday, the thirdof June, 1884,—when the great convention openedin the massive exposition building, where four yearsbefore the stubborn contest was had. Freshmen were there. The old machinery was wornout, broken, and cast aside,—not a squeak ofit was heard. New men were at the helmwhen Senator Sabin, of Minnesota, chairman ofthe Republican National Committee, called theconvention to order.

After prayer, and the reading of the call for[404]the convention, Senator Sabin addressed the convention,welcoming them to Chicago, as amongstthe most cherished spots in our country, sacredto the memories of a Republican. “It was thebirthplace of Republican victories. Here thefathers chose that immortal chief who first ledus on to victory,—Abraham Lincoln; here theyelevated to the first place in the nation thatgreat chieftain of the conflict,—General Grant;here they nominated that honored soldier, thatshining citizen, that representative American,—JamesA. Garfield.”

Hon. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi, a coloredgentleman, well known throughout the South forhis conspicuous parliamentary ability, for hiscourage, and for his character, was chosen temporarychairman.

The following day, after prayer, memorials andresolutions were presented in great profusion,which were referred to committees, save one,and that was, “that all are bound to supportthe nominee of the convention,” which, after adetermined discussion, pro and con., was withdrawn.

Gen. John B. Henderson, of St. Louis, wasmade permanent chairman.

Thursday, June 5th, the nominations began.When in the call of states Maine was reached,the vast assembly arose, and for nearly six or[405]eight minutes, twelve to fourteen thousand peoplewere shouting at the top of their voices,cheer upon cheer, and could not be restrained.Then Judge West, of Ohio, in a speech from thepeople’s heart, presented, amid almost continuousapplause, the name of the people’s choice,—JamesG. Blaine. The names of Generals Hawleyand John A. Logan had been presented.

When Hon. T. C. Platt, of New York, secondedthe nomination of Mr. Blaine, the applause brokeout anew at the mention of the magic name,more tumultuous than before. It was a nationin miniature, sending forth the sovereignty oftheir hearts, not to be baffled a third time, butsurely to win.

Governor Davis of Maine, Goodeloe of Kentucky,and Galusha A. Grow of Pennsylvania,joined in most exalting kind of commendations,in seconding the nomination, while flags werewaved, and every conceivable form of demonstrationconsistent with the hour, was indulged in.

Mr. Townsend placed President Arthur innomination, seconded by Bingham of Pennsylvania,Lynch of Mississippi, Winston of NorthCarolina, and Pinchback of Louisiana.

Judge Foraker, of Ohio, presented the nameof John Sherman. Judge Holt, of Kentucky,seconded Mr. Sherman’s nomination, and Ex-GovernorLong, of Massachusetts, seconded by[406]George William Curtis, of New York, presentedthe name of Senator Edmunds, of Vermont.

Friday, June 6th, after the usual prayer andpreliminary exercises, the voting began. On thefirst ballot Mr. Blaine had three hundred and thirty-fourand one-half; Arthur, two hundred andseventy-eight; Edmunds, ninety-three; Logan, sixty-threeand one-half; John Sherman, thirty;Hawley, thirteen; Lincoln, four; and W. T.Sherman, two.

The second ballot resulted in three hundredand forty-nine for Blaine; two hundred and seventy-sixfor Arthur; eighty-five for Edmunds;sixty-one for Logan; twenty-eight for John Sherman;thirteen for Hawley; four for Lincoln; twofor W. T. Sherman.

Cheering followed the announcement of gainsfor Blaine. With many incidents the third ballotwas taken, increasing Mr. Blaine’s ballottwenty-six votes, to three hundred and seventy-five;Arthur went down to two hundred andseventy-four; Edmunds, sixty-nine; John Sherman,twenty-five; Logan, fifty-three; Hawley,thirteen; Lincoln, seven; and W. T. Sherman,one.

Cheers again rent the air, and confusion ensued;the inevitable was in sight, and motionsto adjourn, and in various ways to postpone theresult, were resorted to; but Stewart, of Blaine’s[407]native state, said, “We are ready for the bruntof battle, Mr. Chairman; let it come.” Andcome it did, though filibustering abounded toprevent it.

In the midst of the fourth and decisive ballot,General Logan’s despatch came, to cast hisstrength for Blaine.

Senator Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, beganthe stampede by announcing thirty-four votesfrom Illinois for Blaine, seven for Logan, andthree for Arthur.

Judge Foraker, of Ohio, followed, and withdrawingJohn Sherman, cast forty-six votes forJames G. Blaine, amid a tremendous outburst ofapplause.

A whirlwind of vociferous cheering, unmanageableand unparalleled, greeted the announcement:Blaine five hundred and forty-one; Arthur stillhad two hundred and seven; Edmunds, forty-one;Hawley, fifteen; Logan, seven, and Lincoln,two.

But Blaine was nominated, after contesting foreight years, in three of the greatest conventionsever held, with the principal men of the nation.The nomination was made unanimous, in themidst of the wildest enthusiasm.

At the evening session, Senator Plumb ofKansas, seconded by Judge Houck of Tennessee,Thurston of Nebraska, Lee of Pennsylvania,[408]and Congressman Horr of Michigan, nominatedJohn A. Logan for vice-president.

Gen. J. S. Robinson, in seconding the nominationof General Logan, moved to suspend therules and nominate him by acclamation, whichwas carried.

Logan’s total vote was seven hundred andseventy-nine, the New York delegation havinggiven six votes for Gresham, and one for JudgeForaker.

The voice of the people had at last beenheard, and the men of their choice presented asthe standard-bearers, and from East to Westwent up a shout of joy, which had in it thering of a long-cherished purpose to see thatthe “calling and election” of their heroes should“be made sure” at the polls.

IT was on the 9th of February, 1826,that John A. Logan was born, atMurphysborough, Ill., a little townamong the hills that hem in theMississippi River. He was the eldest of elevenchildren.

His father was a physician, and came toAmerica from Ireland three years before, whilehis mother, Elizabeth Jenkins, was from a familythat lived in Tennessee.

He grew up, strong and powerful in youth,amid the exciting scenes of purely western life.It was a life that appealed to courage, placeda premium upon all of manly energy and exertion,and infused into him, with every breath,that best of robust health which, like bank-stockdrawing a high rate of interest, has metevery demand made upon it for over half acentury.

[410]His advantages of education in early youthwere of a slender character, except as hederived instruction from the teaching of hisfather and at his mother’s knee; for no regularschools existed in the settlement, exceptat a log school-house, where an itinerant teacherpresided, under whose tuition only the quickestand aptest boy or girl would make advancement.

One who knows him well says that when eighteenyears old he was sent to the nearestschool, called Shiloh Academy, under the jurisdictionof the Methodist Church, and graduatedfrom it into the Mexican war. He had breathedan atmosphere of war from childhood. In hisyouth the stories of the war of 1812 and ofthe Revolution were fresh in the memories andconstantly in the mouths of those about him,many of whom had been actual participants.The Seminole and Black-Hawk wars had occurredin his youth, and personal acquaintancewith many who had participated in them kindledin him the glow and fervor of adventure. Heenlisted in the First Illinois Regiment, and wentto Mexico.

Though among the youngest of the men, hecame at once into prominence by his energyand bearing, and the quick activity of his mind,and the great fearlessness with which he occupied[411]and held each post of danger to which hewas assigned.

There was about him such an utter abandonmentto the work of battle, that his strongmarks of leadership were quickly recognized,and he was made lieutenant, then adjutant, andfinally quartermaster, a position of grave responsibilityin the enemy’s country.

After the war he studies at college, and thenreads law with his uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins,who was a great man in southern Illinois. Hehad at one time been lieutenant-governor of thestate, and was a Jacksonian Democrat.

In 1849 Mr. Logan was elected clerk ofJackson County, and continued his study of law.He took a course of law-lectures at Louisville,and was admitted to the bar. He commencedpractice with his uncle, and soon gained prominence.But political life, for one so active,filled with an unbounded energy, had charms forhim.

Soon after his return from Louisville, he waselected prosecuting attorney for Jackson County,in 1852, and the same year to the legislature,and re-elected in 1853, 1856, and 1857. In 1854he was elected prosecuting attorney of the thirdjudiciary district of Illinois, and in 1856 was apresidential elector on the Buchanan and Breckenridgeticket.

[412]It was at this time he began his career asa stump-speaker, and his speeches were regardedas remarkable examples of eloquence, giving hima reputation that sent him to congress in 1858.He was an earnest Douglas man, and being re-nominatedin 1860, he stumped the state withgreat success, and was re-elected by a largemajority. This was a transition period. Thegreat contest was coming on, and “the pipingtimes of peace” were angry with the mostdread forebodings.

At this point we will let one speak whoknows him well:—

“Right here came a critical period in hiscareer, and although there are men who stillassert that his sympathy was with the secessionists,there is plenty of evidence that theSouth had no claim upon him,—that whateverhis original sentiments may have been, his publicutterances were always loyal, and that whenthe crisis came he was on the right side. Thecountry he lived in was full of Southern sympathizers,his mother’s family were secessionists,and his surroundings made loyalty unpopular.The story that he tendered his services to JeffersonDavis is contradicted by that gentleman,who says he never heard of Logan until morethan a year after the war began.

“There are several witnesses to the fact that[413]in November, 1860, when Lincoln’s election wasassured, and threats were freely made that heshould not be inaugurated, Logan publicly declaredthat he would shoulder a musket andescort the ‘Rail-Splitter’ to the White House.

“While he was in Washington, attending thecalled session of congress in the summer of1861, he went to the front, as many representativesdid, to visit the army in Virginia, andbeing the guest of Colonel Richardson when thebattle of Bull Run took place, he was given amusket and fought through that eventful Julyday as a private in the ranks.”

When congress adjourned in August, he wenthome, resigned his seat in congress, raised theThirty-first Illinois Regiment, was commissionedits colonel, and led them into battle at Belmont,Missouri, ten months after they were musteredinto service. One has well said, “Logan was developedby the war. The bugler of the armysounded the key-note of his character, and in anatmosphere of dust and powder he grew great.”

In that first battle at Belmont he had hishorse shot under him, while leading a successfulbayonet-charge. He fought with General Grantat Fort Henry, and in the siege and terrific contestat Fort Donelson he bore a brave, conspicuouspart, and was wounded in the left arm.He was off duty for a while, and refused a re-election[414]to congress, but reported on March 5thto General Grant for duty at Pittsburgh Landing,only about a month after the Fort Donelsonengagement, and was at once made a brigadier-general.

Nashville had fallen. Tennessee was largelywithin the Union lines, and entrance was beingeffected into Georgia and Mississippi; hence thestubborn resistance of the foe at Pittsburgh Landing.But victory brought them to the siege ofCorinth, Island No. 10 falling under the guns ofCommodore Foote. Grant and Logan led theirarmies down to Vicksburg.

During the winter-campaign in Mississippi andthe siege of Vicksburg, Logan’s bravery was proverbial.He was given command of a division inMcPherson’s corps, and made a major-general inthe army, within a year of entrance.

During the summer of 1862 he was repeatedlyurged to “run for congress,” but his reply wasworthy a hero: “I have entered the field to die,if need be, for this Government, and never expectto return to peaceful pursuits until the objectof this war of preservation has become afact established.”

His personal bravery and military skill wereso conspicuous in Grant’s Northern Mississippimovements, where he commanded a division ofthe Seventeenth Army Corps, under General McPherson,[415]he was promoted to the rank of major-generalNov. 26, 1862. He was present in everyfight, his daring bravery animating his men atFort Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill,and Vicksburg. He was in command of McPherson’scentre, June 25th, when the assault uponVicksburg was made. His column led the entranceinto the city, and he became its first militarygovernor.

In November, 1863, he was called to succeedGeneral Sherman in command of his famousFifteenth Army Corps. The following May hejoined Sherman as the Georgia campaign wasopening. It was Logan who led the advance ofthe Army of the Tennessee at Resaca, whowhipped Hardee’s trained veterans at Dallas, anddrove the enemy from Kenesaw Mountain.

On July 22d he was in the fierce assault beforeAtlanta. In this desperate attack uponHood, Logan fought as he never fought before,and when McPherson fell he took command ofthe Army of the Tennessee, and with resistlessfury avenged the death of the beloved commander.

After the fall of Atlanta he returned to Illinois,temporarily, to take part in the presidentialcampaign. It was our privilege to hear him then,and never, it would seem, did such witheringscorn, such utter denunciation, such infinite contempt,[416]show themselves, as he manifested in agreat speech, full of vim and fire, not for thebrave, honest rebel in arms, but for the cowardlycopperheads in the rear.

He was less than forty years of age, onlythirty-eight, but his name and fame as a soldierwere a tower of strength, and he drew togetherimmense crowds.

Soon after Mr. Lincoln’s second election hereturns to the front, and joins Sherman in hismarch to the sea, and continued with him untilthe surrender of Gen. Joseph Johnston, on April26, 1865. After the surrender he marched hismen to Alexandria, and rode at their head inthe grand review in Washington. He had takencommand of the Army of the Tennessee, Oct.23, 1864, and tendered his resignation when activeservice was over, being unwilling to drawpay unless on duty in the field.

President Johnson tendered him the mission toMexico, but he declined it, and returning homewas elected successively to the fortieth, theforty-first, and the forty-second congresses. Hewas selected as one of a committee of sevento represent the House in the impeachment trialof Andrew Johnson.

Before he had taken his seat in the forty-secondcongress, the legislature of Illinois electedhim to the United States senate for the full[417]term from March 4, 1871, to succeed the Hon.Richard Yates, the gallant war-governor of thatstate. He was again chosen for the senate, andtook his seat the second time March 18, 1879.His present term expires March 3, 1885. Heled the delegation of his state in the nationalconvention of 1880, and was one of the mostdetermined of the “three hundred and six” whofollowed the fortunes of “the old commander,”General Grant.

He has been an active man at military reunions,and was one of the founders of the GrandArmy of the Republic. He was the first nationalcommander of that organization, and assuch issued the order in 1868 for the decorationof the graves of Union soldiers.

His financial views have been the subject ofcriticism, but they have generally represented thesentiments of his constituency. In 1866 he tookstrong grounds in favor of the payment of thenational debt in gold coin. In 1874 he followedthe popular Western movement, and voted forthe Inflation bill, which President Grant vetoed.But in the following year he favored the ShermanResumption act.

General Logan was always a leader in securingpension legislation. He has been radical infavoring internal improvements, has always votedfor liberal appropriations for rivers and harbors,[418]and has given his support to railroad land-grantmeasures. His property consists of a residenceon Calumet Avenue in Chicago, which is worthfrom twenty-five thousand to thirty thousanddollars, and a farm at his old home in southernIllinois.

He resides in Washington at a boarding-houseon Twelfth Street, occupying two modest rooms,the same in which he has lived for twelveyears.

In 1855 he married Miss Mary Cunningham,of Shawneetown, Ill., and she has proved amost valuable helpmeet, being as good, if not abetter politician than himself, and a lady ofgreat refinement as well as intellectual force.There is no woman in public life who possessesmore admirable traits than Mrs. Logan, and herpopularity with her own sex is quite as greatas with the other. She can write a speech onfinance, or dictate the action of a political caucus,with as much ease and grace as she canpreside at a dinner-party, or receive her guests.At the same time she is a devoted mother.She has two children,—a daughter, who is thewife of Paymaster Tucker, of the army, and ason, Manning, a cadet at West Point. Both ofthem have been educated by her, or under herpersonal supervision.

As a society woman she is graceful and accomplished;[419]in charities she is always activeand generous; in religion she is a devoutMethodist.

During the campaign of 1866 General Loganwas running for congressman-at-large. The multitudescame to hear him; a grand stand waserected in the court-house yard at Bloomington;thousands were gathered, filling the grounds andcovering the roofs of buildings. He was in hisglory; for three hours he spoke; the peoplelaughed, and cried, and shouted cheer on cheer.We had heard Douglas, Lovejoy, Colfax, butnever such a speech as that.

The rebel army was whipped and gone, andnow the Democratic party loomed up as anenemy in the land.

In telling why he had left the party and becomea staunch Republican, his sarcasm burnedlike caustic. He told a story in an inimitableway, to illustrate the point. It was the storyof the flock of sheep the farmer gave hisboys:—

“Tommy was to divide the flock, and Johnnytake his choice, so Tommy put all the fine, largeones by themselves, and all the scabby, scaly,shaggy ones in another yard, and with themhe put Johnny’s little pet lamb, which he hadraised and cared for all summer, feeding it withfresh, warm milk, and had put a little blue ribbon,[420]with a bell on it, about its neck; andTommy knew how he loved it, and so he putit in with the poor, old, scaly lot of sheep.When Johnny came to look at the sheep helooked for Nannie, his lamb; he heard its bell,and saw it was in bad company, with a miserablelot of bad sheep, and so he said, ‘Nannie,good-bye; I’ve loved you. I tied that blue ribbonabout your neck, and put that bell on it.I’ve fed you and taken care of you all thistime’ (and this description was given with themost dramatic effect); ‘but, Nannie, we mustpart. Johnny, I will take this lot,’ pointing toall the best sheep.”

The roar was tumultuous when they saw thepoint, and it was a terrific hit for the old party,in with the copperheads and rebels.

It was surely one of the happiest steps ofhis life, when he came out on the Republicanside of the Republic’s great battle for theliberty of the enslaved and the citizenship offreemen.

Few soldiers are now living, not excepting theold commander himself, who in a political campaignwill make the heart of the old veteransbeat faster and warmer at the remembrance offormer times, and the achievements of battlesnow enjoyed, than Gen. John A. Logan, UnitedStates senator from Illinois, and Republican candidate[421]for vice-president, with James G. Blaine,of Maine, for president.

The old hearts thrill anew, and the old shoutrings out again, and the victory of the past mustat their hands be perpetuated in the victory ofthe future.

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