[3]

INTRODUCTION.

Mountains are the homes of giants,—giants in brawn and giants in brain. The giants of brawn may be the more numerous, and in the sense of muscle and fisticuffs, more powerful; but not in the sense of manhood and power that achieves results that are far-reaching and that endure,—results that thrill a nation’s heart and command the admiration of the world.

Whoever makes you proud that you are a man,—that you are an American citizen,—makes you feel that life is not only worth living, but that to live is joy and glory,—such an one lifts you up toward those higher regions from which man has evidently fallen, and gives some glimmer and hint of the old image and likeness in which we were created. That man who comes from nearest to the nation’s heart and gets nearest to the world’s heart, brings with him lessons of wisdom, goodness, and love which 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 down from the mountains into the arena of the world’s activities. They need no introduction. The world awaits them, recognizes, and hails them. They know and are known; they love and are beloved. Place awaits them, and they enter; fitness fits; life is a triumph, and they are happy. Such men, fresh from nature’s mint, bring consciences with them,—consciences unseared, into the battle of life.

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

Especially great in powers of will are the men who come forth from the nation’s strength and give themselves back in exalted service to a nation’s life. The great streams that flow into the ocean, went forth of the ocean in mists and clouds of rain. The great men of Rome were the products of Rome. The great men of Germany and France are the products of those respective countries. And so the great men of America are the products of America. It took generations to 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 in a panoply that no host could destroy. Washington blazed forth as an orb of greater magnitude in the chair of state, in time of peace, than in the saddle in time of war. As a warrior he cut out the work, as statesman he made it. Statesmanship is more the work of the whole man and of a life-time. Garfield was splendid upon the field of battle, but while there he shone as a star among suns, while in the halls of state he shone as a sun among stars. There was a steady grandeur of purpose, a magnificence of character, a wealth of intellect, a power of thought, a loftiness of courage, of that high, heroic type which moral stamina alone can produce, which created a greater demand for him in the councils of the nation than in the battle-front when warriors were the nation’s sorest need. Others could take his place in Tennessee, but not in Washington.

Among the nation’s great productions, born midway between the war of the Revolution and the war of the Rebellion; born in times of peace, for times of direst carnage and divinest peace again, a very prince of the land; born to lead, and born to rule; springing at once with the bound of youthful blood into the foremost ranks of the nation’s monarchs of forces, and emperors of kingly powers, is he who leads to-day the giant forces of the great nation’s conquering host, the Hon. James G. Blaine, not of Maine, or[6] of Massachusetts; not of Minnesota, or the Golden Gate, but of America. He is a man of the nation’s heart, a man of the nation’s brain, a man of conscience, and a man of will; large, vivid, and powerful in his consciousness, wherein he realizes, in most brilliant conceptions, both the power and glory of men and things. He came forth from the mountains of the Alleghanies, a giant from the nation’s side.

Never since the nation’s youth was there such demand for any man. He is emphatically the typical American, and the yeomanry would have him. They caught his spirit, and would not shake off the spell of his genius. They forget not to-day that he was Garfield’s first choice, and sat at Garfield’s right hand. They remember, as only they who think with the heart can remember, that as his pride and confidant, he was by Garfield’s side in that awful hour of holy martyrdom, thrusting back the terrible assassin with one hand, and with the other catching the falling chief. Garfield knew him, Garfield loved him, Garfield sanctioned, honored, trusted, and exalted him. And the sentiments of that great heart which beat out its life-blood for the nation’s glory then, it is firmly believed, are the sentiments of the nation’s heart to-day.

[9]

CONTENTS.

I.
THE BOY.
Old Hickory—National Highway—Indian Hill Farm—The Alleghanies—Daniel Boone and the Wetzells—Scotland of America—Birth-Place—Ancestors—Mother—Valley Forge—The Old Covenanters—Dickinson College—Cradle Songs—Stories of Monmouth and Brandywine—Old United States Spelling-Book—Country School-House—Cut Jackets—Uncle Will—Grandfather’s Ferry—Too Much Spurt—Capt. Henry Shreve—First Steamboat from Pittsburgh—Life of Napoleon—Average Boys’ Ability—Working on the Farm—Revolutionary Soldiers—Home Training—Books—Spelling School—Sleigh-Ride—Victory	Page 21
II.
PREPARATION.
Inheritance—Bullion’s Latin Grammar—Campaign of General Harrison—Political Meetings—Jackson’s Methods—Newspapers—An American Boy—Plutarch’s Lives—Seeing General Harrison—Teachers—Homely People—Grandpa’s Explanation—Grandfather Gillespie’s Death—His Father’s Library—Swimming the River—Nutting—Marvel of Industry—School in Lancaster, Ohio—Two Boys by the Name of James—Hon. Thomas Ewing—The Problem of Presidents—Getting Ready for College—Contrast with Garfield	41
III.[10]
IN COLLEGE.
Doctor McConahy—Young Ladies’ Seminary—Entering College—Habits—Good Teachers—Professor Murray—New Testament in Greek—No Book-Worm—An Old Class-Mate—College Honors—Henry Clay—“Rights and Duties of American Citizenship”—Who Reads an American Book	60
IV.
TEACHING IN KENTUCKY.
A Triumph—Blue Licks Military Academy—Five Hundred Dollars—Trip to Kentucky—Stage-Coach—A Young Lady Companion—Great Country for Quail—Georgetown—“I am Mr. Blaine”—At Tea—Monday Morning—Hard, Quick Work—Lexington and Frankfort—Annual Picnic—Met his Friend—Enamored—The Future—Southern Trip—Two Winters in New Orleans—Col. Thorndike F. Johnson—Bushrod Johnson—Visits Home—Richard Henry Lee—Professor Blaine	71
V.
A NEW FIELD.
President Polk—One Old Bachelor—Reading Law—Institution for the Blind—Pine Tree State—Kennebec Journal—Franklin Pierce—Colby University and Bowdoin College—Getting Ready for Work—Editor’s Chair	95
VI.
JOURNALISM.
Master of the Situation—Henry Ward Beecher—Abolitionists—Attack on Sumner and Greeley—Senator Fessenden—John L. Stevens—Fifty Days—Blaine’s Old Foreman, Howard Owen—Slave Trade—Philadelphia—Jefferson’s Remark—Seward’s Great Speech—Momentous Period	103
VII.[11]
IN THE LEGISLATURE.
Great Year of Republicanism—Frémont and Dayton—First Public Effort—Editorials—Henry Wilson—Richmond Enquirer—Dred Scott Case—Sells Out—Coal Lands—Portland Daily Advertiser—No Vacation—Business Success—God’s Storm—Six Times a Week—Armed to the Teeth—Right Ways—Political Weather—Earl of Warwick—The Aggressor—At a Stand-Still—Speaker of the House—“Gentlemen of the House of Representatives”—Old Wigwam at Chicago—A Firm Lincoln Man—Solid Front—Send us Blaine—Hullo!—Gold-Bowed Spectacles—Advancing Backward—Can a Southern State Secede?—Glow of the Contest—Whittier’s Poem	122
VIII.
SPEAKER OF THE MAINE LEGISLATURE.
Latest from Charleston—Governor Morrill—What Did they See?—Short-Cut Words—Ten Thousand from Maine—Will Mr. Blaine go?—North’s History of Augusta—Colonel Ellsworth—General Lyon—Israel Washburne, Jr.—Bloody Work—Regiments Born in a Day—In Washington—Senate and House Honored—All the Material for the Campaign—This Sort of Thing—The New Year	155
IX.
SECOND TERM AS SPEAKER.
Demand for Legislation—Blockade-Runners—Fort Knox—Hog Island—Resolutions—Hon. A. P. Gould, of Thomaston—Opportunity for Forensic Effort—Domestic War—Great Triumph of the Winter—Will the Negro Fight?—Only Half a Negro—Nominated for Congress—Visits the Old Home—Loud Calls for Mr. Blaine—Maine What?—Republican before there was a Party—Miles Standish—Open Letter—Love of Men	176
X.[12]
ENTERING CONGRESS.
Life in Washington—Cliques—Passports—First Resolve—First Bill—Test of Ability—Great Speech—Working Members—A Slight Rebuff—Penitentiary Bill—Convention of Governors—A Little Episode—Boutwell’s Courtesy—New York City—After Him from all Sides—Union National Republican Convention at Baltimore—Frémont and Cochrane—Delegates—Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge—Idol of the Army—Million Men in Arms—“War a Failure”—Sixty Day’s Work in other States—No Mountain or Sea-shore—Squirm or Cheer—His Speeches—“Never Settled until it is Settled Right”—“Give Me Gold”—Power with an Audience—Mr. Lincoln’s Real Triumph	201
XI.
SECOND TERM IN CONGRESS.
Kittery to Houlton—Re-elected to Congress—Evolution—Greenbackism—Pay in Coin—Intuition—Long Years of Study—“I feel” and “I Know”—Befriending a Cadet—A Civil Question—Iron Clads that Will Not Float—The “Jeannette”—“A Cruel Mockery”—Bludgeon of Hard, Solid Fact—“Paper Credits”—Keen Eye for Fraud—Flag Again Flying on Fort Sumter—Unshackle Humanity—“A Little Grievance”—Amending the Constitution—Closing Speech—Thoroughness and Mastery	236
XII.
CONTINUED WORK IN CONGRESS.
Not McClellan, but Lincoln—Religious Character of Abraham Lincoln—War Closed—Lincoln Murdered—Great Review—Basis of Representation—History of Finance—A Lively Tilt—Consistency—Amnesty—At Home in Congress—Political Re-action—Brass—No Red-Tape—Volunteers in the Regular Army—Fair Play—Thad. Stevens—Strong Friendships	262
XIII.[13]
CONGRESSIONAL CAREER CONTINUED.
On their Way Up—The Place to Look for Presidents—Drivers of the Quill—Seed-Corn—Blaine and Logan Then—Little Things—Cornstalks—Not Hot-Headed—Newspapers—Europe—England’s Trade—Parliament—Home of his Ancestors—Knowledge of French—The Rhine and Florence—Malaria in the Bones—Studied from Life—Italy a Joy—Return—In his Seat—Five-Twenties—Power of Analysis—National Debt—Two Days to Reply—“Payment Suspended”—The President’s Impeachment—Field-Work—Hard or Soft Money—Wrings the Neck of a Heresy—New President of the Right Stamp	277
XIV.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS.
No Clouds—Manhood’s Prime—Vacancy in the Speaker’s Chair—How to Win—Trio of Leaders—Right-Hand Man—Chosen Chief—Tennyson’s Words—A Proud Day—National Reputation—Drawing a Resolution—Growth of Congress—Third Election to the Speakership—Statesmanship—Political Assassination—Brigadiers by the Score—Credit of the Fourteenth Amendment—Invite Him up—Betrayed—Reads the Letters—Cablegram Suppressed—Eye-Witness—Proctor Knott—Honored by Governor Connor, of Maine—Vindicated and Endorsed by the State Legislature—Answer, ye who Can!	298
XV.
UNITED STATES SENATOR.
Sabbath Morning—Ill and Weary Time—Gail Hamilton—Colleague of Hannibal Hamlin—One Inning Then—Galaxies by the Score—Old Spirit of Freeness—Statue of William King—Hard Money—Commodore Vanderbilt—Weight of the Silver Dollar—“Order”—Honoring the[14] Aged Soldier—Magnanimity, not Intolerance—Pensioning Jeff. Davis—Negro Practically Disfranchised—Groups of States—Resolutions—Contrasts and Comparisons—Peroration—White Man’s Vote North and South	318
XVI.
BLAINE AND GARFIELD.
Forever Linked Together—Lincoln and Seward—Young Men Together—Dark Days—Iron Chest—Breath of Battle Blew Hottest—Beautiful Plants—Massive Heads—Future Candidates—A Matter of Honor—Great Speech—They Crowned Him—“Command My Services”—Political Lying—Dead Upon the Field—True as Steel—His First, Best Friend—Clean as Well as Competent—At His Right Hand—Love Lights the Path	337
XVII.
SECRETARY OF STATE.
Foreign Policy of the Garfield Administration—War in South America—General Hurlbut—Chilian Authorities—The Three Republics—Object of the Peace Congress—William Henry Trescot—Received a Vindication—A Beautiful Prophecy—Lincoln and Blaine—Clayton-Bulwer Treaty—Servant of his Genius—The Assassin’s Bullet	351
XVIII.
HOME LIFE OF MR. BLAINE.
“Letters to the Joneses”—Home a Republic—Why Not Shine on?—Brown House on Green Street—Come and See Me—Pound of Steak—“James! James!”—“Must not Work so Hard”—Every Vote in America—A Baby-Boy—Sorrow—Six Children—“Owen, Have You a Quarter?”—A Good Joke—The Family Pew—Bible-Class Teacher—His Old Pastors—More Copy—The Man, Not the Clothes—Stranger to Storms—State-street Home—Press-Excursions—Bright Side of Things—No[15] Liquors—Home-Life at its Zenith—Photographs—The Hammock—The Coolest of the Company	362
XIX.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MR. BLAINE.
A Business Man’s Estimate—Incident Showing Versatility—Curiosity—Humor—Coolness and Self-Possession—Retentive Memory—Genuineness and Simplicity—Scene with a Malicious Reporter—Great-Heartedness—Lover of Fair Play—Sense of Honor—Industry—Sympathy for Misfortune—Caution—A Singular Habit—Vigorous Exercise—Punctuality—General Resume	384
XX.
NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT.
A Steady March Upward—Campaigns of 1876 and 1880—His Loyalty under Defeat—The Great Convention of 1884—Organization and Preliminaries—Maine’s Favorite Son Presented—Twelve Thousand People Cheering—Exciting Scenes—The First Ballot—Gains for Blaine—The People’s Choice—A Whirlwind of Vociferous Applause—Blaine’s Nomination Made Unanimous—The Evening Session—Gen. John A. Logan for Vice-President	402
XXI.
GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN.
His Birth—Parentage—Youth—Slight Educational Opportunities—Shiloh Academy—Enlistment for the Mexican War—Fearlessness—Promotion—Additional Studies—Enters on the Profession of Law—Clerk of Jackson County—Prosecuting Attorney—In the Legislature—Presidential Elector—On the Stump—A False Allegation—Surrounded by Rebel Sympathizers—Lincoln’s Election—In Congress—Raises a Regiment—Brilliant Career in the Army—Rapid Elevation—Major-General[16] within a Year—“I Have Entered the Field to Die, if Need be”—At the Head of the Fifteenth Army Corps—“Atlanta to the Sea”—Lincoln’s Second Election—Johnston’s Surrender—The Grand Review—Resignation from the Service—Declines Mission to Mexico—Repeated Elections to Congress—On the Impeachment Committee—Chosen United States Senator—His Eloquence—Helps Found the Grand Army of the Republic—First National Commander—Action on Financial Measures—His Modest Mode of Life—A Noble Wife—His Children—Stalwart Supporter of General Grant—Nominated for the Vice-Presidency—Conclusion	409

[17-18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

PINE TO POTOMAC

I.
THE BOY.

“OLD Hickory is coming! He will be along in his great coach to-morrow, before noon,” rang out the cheery voice of Uncle Will Blaine, who seemed glad all over at the prospect of once more seeing the Hero of New Orleans and the man of iron will.

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

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

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

[22]“He’s coming! He’s coming! Hurrah! Hurrah! Here he comes,” shouted voice after voice of the great crowd assembled on the morrow, from valley and mountain, Uncle Will leading off 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 Martin Van Buren, after serving from 1829 to 1837, stepped from his carriage, and after a hearty greeting, spoke a few incisive words, as only the old hero could.

A boy seven years old was held above the crowd, just before him, by the strong arms of Uncle Will. The General saw the large, wondering eyes, and the eager face, patted him on the head, saying, “I am glad to see you, my noble lad.”

The boy was James G. Blaine.

The impression of that moment remains to this hour. Little did General Jackson think he was looking into the face of a future candidate for the presidency.

The National Road over which the congressmen and presidents, and the great tide of travel from the west and south, passed to and from Washington, was near his father’s door.

[23]This National highway, built by the government before the days of railroads and steam-boats, was a strong band of union between remote sections of the country. It was a highway of commerce as well as of travel, and formed one of the chief features in the country, so rapidly filling up after the fearful storms of war were over and the settled years of peace had come.

It is a remarkable fact, that inspired penmen have sketched the infancy of most of the great men whose lives they have portrayed. This is beautifully true of Moses, the great emancipator and leader, a law-giver of the ancient Hebrew people. How they glorify the childhood of this great 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 as she gives him to the Lord. The infancy of John, the mighty man at the Jordan, and of Jesus, are most impressively revealed. No lovelier pictures hang on the walls of memory; no sweeter sunshine fills the home than the little ones with their joy and prattle, and with the sublime possibilities to be unfolded as they fill up the ranks in humanity’s march, or take the lead of the myriad host.

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

We shall find there a child of nature, born in no mansion or city, but on “Indian farm,” upon the Washington side of the Monongahela River, opposite the village of Brownsville, and about sixty miles below Pittsburgh, in the old Quaker State of Pennsylvania.

It was at the foot-hills of the Alleghanies, a region wild, romantic, and grand, well fitted to photograph omnipotence upon the fresh young mind, and impress it with the greatness of the world. It was a section of country whose early history is marked with all that is thrilling in the details of Indian warfare, which constituted the chief staple of childhood stories.

Daniel Boone and the Wetzells had been there. The startled air had echoed with the crack of their rifles; the artillery of the nation had resounded through these mountains; the black clouds of war had blown across the skies, and the smoke of battle had drifted down those valleys.

All that is terrible in nature had its birth and home in that section of our country, which is most like the great ocean petrified in its angriest mood and mightiest upheavals. The bears and wolves, in their numbers, ferocity, and might commanded in early days the respect even of savages,[25] while elk and deer, antelope and fowl, and fish in endless variety, birds and flowers of every hue, and foliage of countless species, won the admiration of these rude children of nature.

Here in this Scotland of America, born of a sturdy ancestry whose muscle and brain, courage and mighty wills, had made them masters of mountain and glen,—here in the heart of the continent,—James G. Blaine was born. Eternal vigilance had not only been the price of liberty in that bold mountain home for generations, but the price of life itself.

It was in a large stone house, built by his great-grandfather Gillespie, that James Gillespie Blaine was born, January 31, 1830, one of eight strong, robust, and hearty children, five of whom survive. It was midway between the war of 1812 and the Mexican war of 1848, and in a country settled nearly fifty years before by soldiers of the Revolution. Few are born in circumstances of better promise for the full unfolding of the faculties of body and mind than was this child of four and fifty years ago, cradled in the old stone house on the ancestral farm. The house itself tells of the Old World; and those mountains whose heights are in the blue, tell of Scottish and Irish clans that never lose the old fire and the old love, and that marched from the conquest of the Old to the conquering of the New World.

[26]The father, Ephraim Lyon Blaine, was of Scottish origin, and Presbyterian of truest blood, with sign and seal and signet stamp of the old Scotch Covenanters upon life and character. His ancestors came to this country in 1720,—one hundred and ten years before the birth of James.

His mother, Maria Gillespie, was of an Irish-Catholic family from Donegal in Ireland. They belonged to the Clan Campbell, Scotch-Irish Catholics, and descended from the Argyles of Scotland. They came to America in 1764, and were Catholics through and through. They were large land-owners in America, and resided wholly in old colonial Pennsylvania.

The great-grandfather of Ephraim Lyon Blaine, father of James G., was born in 1741, and died at Carlisle, Penn., in March, 1804. He was a colonel in the Revolutionary war from its commencement, and the last four years of the war was the Commissary General. He was with Washington amid the most trying scenes, and enjoyed his entire confidence. During the dark winter at Valley Forge, he was by the side of the Commander-in-Chief, and it is a matter of history that the army was saved from starvation by his vigilant and tireless activity. It is not difficult to see how stupendous was the task of subsisting broken and shattered forces in the dead of an awful winter, upon an exhausted country. It required[27] skill and courage, tact and force of personal power, not surpassed even in the daring march of Napoleon across the Alps. But he did it, brave, determined spirit that he was. Others might falter, but not he; others might break down from sheer exhaustion or dismay, but not General Blaine, so long as the fires of the unbroken spirit of the old Covenanters heated the furnace of his heart, and their high resolve for liberty was enthroned in his affections.

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

Let the history of our day and generation make reply.

Eight years before the old patriot General died, at Carlisle, his grandson, Ephraim Lyon Blaine, the father of James, was born in the same quaint old Scottish town. At Dickinson College he received his education, and settled as a lawyer in Washington County, Penn., where for years he lived an honored and useful life as Prothonotary of the Courts; and here, amid the lull in the storm of battle-years, the boy, James G. Blaine, was born.

[28]His cradle-songs were the old songs of the New Republic. It is pleasant to think of such a personage coming to consciousness, clear and strong, among such hallowed scenes of a land redeemed, a nation born, a people free. All about our youthful hero were the scarred faces and shattered forms of those who had come back from the fields of strife.

The stories of Monmouth and Brandywine, of Concord and Lexington, of New Orleans and Yorktown, were lived over and dreamed about. Living epistles, walking histories, were all about him. Instead of reading about them, they read to him, poured out the dearly-bought treasures of a life, painted scenes that were forever impressed upon their minds; with all the shades of life and death, unrolled the panorama of the great campaigns, through those long, dread battle-years. What education this, in home and street, in shop and store, on farm and everywhere, for patriot youth! It gave a love and zest for historic reading, which must be traced when we enter more largely upon his literary and educational career.

At five years of age the systematic work of an education began by sending James to a common country school near by. The old United States spelling-book was the chief textbook. Webster’s spelling-book was not then in[29] vogue. Nothing remarkable transpired, except to note the proficiency and steady progress he made in mastering the language he has learned so well to use.

The intensity of his life was that within, rather than the outer life. He was observing, drinking in with eyes and ears. Robinson Crusoe was his first book, as it has been with many another boy, and from this beginning he became a most omnivorous reader.

His first two teachers were ladies, and are still living. The first, a Quakeress, Miss Mary Ann Graves, now Mrs. Johnson, living near Canton, Ohio, eighty-four years of age; the other was Mrs. Matilda Dorsey, still living at Brownsville, just across the Monongahela River from Washington County, where Mr. Blaine was born. While speaking in Ohio, five years ago, during Governor Foster’s campaign, his old teacher, Mrs. Johnson, came forward at the close of his speech to congratulate her old scholar. How little these two women dreamed of the splendid future of the young mind they helped start up the hill of knowledge; how little they thought of the tremendous power with which he would one day use the words, great and small, he spelled out of that old book; the great occasions upon which he would marshal them, as a general marshals his men for effective warfare;[30] of the great speeches, orations, debates, papers, pamphlets, and books into which he would put a power of thought that would move nations.

It was merely a country school-house, and the old frame-building has been torn down, and a new and more modern brick house substituted. It was not simply to spell words, but also to read and write, and, indeed, gain the rudiments of a thorough English education.

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

It was upon the hardest kind of high, rough seats his first lessons were learned, with none of the splendid appliances of the graded school of to-day. Then was the time of the rod and fool’s cap, which many remember so distinctly. Boys that fought were compelled to “cut jackets,” as it was called. The stoutest boy in school was sent with an old-fashioned jack-knife to cut three long switches, stiff, and strong, and lithe. The offending boys were called upon the floor before the whole school, and each one given a rod, while the teacher reserved the third. They were commanded to go at it, and at it they went, to the uproarious delight of the whole 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 contest ended only when the switches gave out. When one was broken and cast away, the teacher stepped up and laid his switch on the back of the boy whose switch was whole, while the other fellow had to stand and take it from the boy whose switch was yet sound. So they kept at it, stroke after stroke.

The demoralizing effect for the moment had a great moralizing power afterward. No boy ever wanted 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; but he never failed to take full notes of the fracas, when other boys received their just deserts. His observations have always been very minute, and his remembrances distinct. Among his earliest recollections is one in 1834, when he was but four years of age, the building of a bridge across the Monongahela River to Brownsville, by the company that constructed the National Road. His Uncle Will took him by the hand and led him out upon the big timbers, between which he could look down and see the waters below. The building of this bridge was a great event to the people, and one of special interest in the Gillespie family, as his grandfather owned the ferry, which of course the bridge superseded, and which[32] had been a source of revenue to the extent of five thousand dollars a year to him. But in the march of progress ferries give way to bridges, as boyhood does to manhood, and by a sort of mute prophecy that bridge made and proclaimed the way to Washington more easy. It was to him the bridge over that dark river of oblivion from the unknown of childhood to the consciousness of youth and manhood. This same uncle, William L. Gillespie, who held him by the hand while on the bridge, was often with his favorite nephew, and exerted a strong influence for good upon him. He was a fine scholar, a splendid gentleman, and a man of infinite jest. The impressions received from one so accomplished, and yet so genial, loving, and tender, during these walks and talks, of almost constant and daily intercourse, are seen and felt to-day in the character of the nephew of whom we write.

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

He found his man just where he wanted him, and without reflection as to consequences, began immediately to throw clods and stones upon him, which of course was no source of amusement to the man below. He screamed lustily, and on being rescued went to the house and complained of the young offender, saying,—

“He has too much spurt” (spirit).

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

His grandfather Gillespie was the great man of that region. His Indian Hill farm, with its several large houses and barns, was a prominent feature of the country. He was a man of large wealth for his time; built mills and engaged in various enterprises, damming the river for milling purposes, which was a herculean task. In 1811, in company with Capt. Henry Shreve, later of Shreveport, he sent the first steamer from Pittsburgh.[34] It was not until the year following that Fulton and Livingston began building steamers in that city.

This grandfather, Neal Gillespie, was five years old when the war of the Revolution began, and as a boy received the full impression of those scenes from the very midst of the fray in his Pennsylvania home. It doubtless helped to produce and awaken in him that great energy of character, and force of personality which enabled him to amass a fortune in that western wild, and in every way help forward the country’s development.

It was the good fortune of James to spend the first nine years of his life in the closest relations of grandson to grandsire, with this remarkable man; and doubtless much of that magnetism and rich personality for which Mr. Blaine is so justly noted, may be traced to this strong-natured and powerful ancestor upon the side of his mother, as well as to Gen. Ephraim Blaine, on the side of his father. He inherits the combined traits of character which gave them prominence and success in life.

The little country school and its slow, monotonous processes, were not rapid enough for the swift, eager mind of the boy. He had learned to read, and a new world opened to him. He caught its charm and inspiration. He had read[35] Scott’s Life of Napoleon before he was eight years old,—a little fellow of seven, on a farm in an almost wilderness, devouring with his eager mind such a work! Half of our public men have never even heard of it yet. But what is perfectly amazing, before he was nine years old he had gone over all of Plutarch’s Lives, reciting the histories to his grandfather Gillespie, who died when he was nine years of age.

He acquired all that Isocrates and Alcibiades tell of, before he was ten years old, and it is a conviction with Mr. Blaine that the common ideas of the average boy’s ability need to be greatly enlarged. Certain it was, that he inherited a hardy mental and physical constitution. Life on that great farm kept him engaged and associated constantly with men who both enjoyed and appreciated learning, and who loved him and saw in him at least a remarkably bright boy.

Especially did his father, who was a college-graduate and member of the bar, see that he was steadily and persistently drilled, and to his father Mr. Blaine freely gives the credit so largely and justly due. His reading was not the careless, hap-hazard doing of a big-brained boy, who read from curiosity simply to while away time, but there was method in it,—a quieting[36] hand was on him,—it was all done under intelligent, wise, and loving direction.

There was none of the hard, rough, and bitter experiences in his boyhood days or early manhood, to which so many of our nation’s great men were subjected. He had none of the long and desperate struggle with poverty and adversity which hung on Mr. Garfield’s early years. He knew nothing by experience of the privations and hardships through which Mr. Lincoln came to the high honors of the nation and the world; but sprang from the second generation after the Revolutionary War, and from a long line of ancestors who had been large land-owners and gentlemen in the sense of wealth and education, as well as in that finely cultivated sense, of which Mr. Blaine is himself so excellent an exponent.

James worked on the farm, carried water to the men, and carried the sheaves of grain together for the shockers, and did just as any school-boy on a farm would do;—hunt the eggs, frolic with the calves, feed the pigs, drive up the cows, run on errands, pet the lambs, bring in wood, and split the kindlings. He loved the sports in which boys still delight; went fishing, played ball, rowed his boat on the river, and would laugh, and jump, and tumble, and run equal 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. The nation was then young, and new, and fresh. The Fourth of July was celebrated as it is not now; when old soldiers passed away, their deeds and worth were all talked over. The result was an intense Americanism, for which he has since become noted, and which has made him an American through and through, of the most pronounced loyalty and patriotic type, as to deem a stain upon his country’s honor an individual disgrace.

Empty sleeves and nothing to fill them, limbs gone and no substitute for them, were as common then comparatively as they are now, only now there is an artificial substitute.

James enjoyed the benefits and blessings of a large family home. It was the practice of his father to read aloud to his family, and thus the evening-hours were utilized in the early education of his children. Home training, so often neglected now, was in vogue then, and the legal, scholarly mind of Mr. Blaine could well choose in his fatherly love and pride, just what was best suited to the young minds about him, while he was amply competent to give intelligent and suitable answers to the numerous questions called forth by the narration in hand. That great National Road to the[38] cities of the Union, and its larger towns, was a highway of intelligence. Not only did it bring the mail and all the news, but many a book, magazine, or other periodical they were pleased to order.

Beside, the direct communication by steamer with Pittsburgh and points above, which had been the case eighteen years before the birth of James, supplied abundant means for travel and correspondence with other quarters. Living where the steamers passed the highway, they were more highly favored with facilities of commerce and the news than perhaps any other portion of the land. They could get all there was going. There was no telegraph, and none of the swifter means of travel so common now; canal-boats were a luxury then. But all was life and energy. The enthusiasm of manhood was on the nation. Then, indeed, it was in manhood’s glory. It had grown to be its own ruler and governor; was truly of age, and did its own voting. British interference had learned its lesson of modest withdrawal, and for the same period of eighteen years no unnaturalized Englishman had been found on American soil with a 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 an excellent player, and frequently delighted the household with music. Songs abounded; a harpsichord[39] was in the home, and it added its quaint music to the melody of the circle.

But James could not leave books alone, especially history. The history of the country was read by him over and over again. The books he had read, and that had been carefully read to him by the time he was ten years of age, would surpass in number, size, and literary value, the libraries of many a professional man, outside his purely professional works, and not only had the principal ones been read, but studied and recited. Seldom is any boy so highly favored with the interested personal efforts of such a trio of educators as were the father, uncle, and grandfather of Mr. Blaine.

It is frequently said by college-graduates, that they learn more outside of the recitation-room, from association with teachers and students from libraries and in the societies, than in the room for instruction. It was in associating with these relatives, cultured and gentlemanly, able and instructive, that he was encouraged and inspired to his task of learning. James mastered the spelling-book; in fact, he was the best speller in the school, 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 came toward the last, and was one of the test words. The sides were badly thinned as “independency, chamois, circumnavigation,” and a host of other difficult words had been given out. But the hour was growing late; some of the young fellows began to think of going home with the girls, of a big sleigh-ride down the mountain and through the valleys, and one big, merry load belonged over the river at Brownsville, and they began to be a little restless. But still there was good interest as this favorite triumphed, and that one went down. Finally the word was given, all missed it and sat down but James. Every eye was on him as the president of the evening said “Next,” and our little master of the situation spelt “En-feoff.”

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

[41]

II.
PREPARATION.

AT the death of his grandfather Gillespie, who was worth about one hundred thousand dollars,—a large sum for that early time,—Mrs. Blaine inherited, among other things, one-third of the great Indian Hill Farm, comprising about five hundred acres, with great houses, orchards, and barns,—a small village of itself.

This, with his father’s office in the courts, and other property, placed the family in good circumstances, and it was decided to give James a thorough education. He was now nine years old, with a mind as fully trained and richly stored 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 him by the lively debates and conversations into which he was drawn.

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

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

The thoroughness with which he did his work is a delightful feature of his career. One is not compelled to feel that here is sham, and there is shoddy; that this is sheer pretense, and that is bold assumption, or a threadbare piece of flimsy 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 of men; mastery of subjects and of the situation; mastery of principles and details. He goes to the top, every time and everywhere, sooner or later. And it is largely because he has been to the bottom first, and mastered the rudiments, one and all, and then risen to the heights, not by 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 development of his youthful habit and character.

[43]It was not so much an infinite curiosity as an infinite love of knowledge that made his young mind drink so deeply. His was a thirsty soul, and only by drinking deeply and long could the demand be met.

When ten years old, the great campaign of General Harrison came on. He was ready for it, and soon filled up with the subject. His impulsiveness was powerful and intelligent, vastly beyond his years.

Few men were fresher or fuller of the history of the colonies and states than this boy. He was, in fact, a little library on foot, filled with incidents, names, and dates, familiar with the exploits of a thousand men and a score of battles, posted as to the great enterprises and measures of the day, by reason of his distinguished relations and his abundant facilities and sources of information. Perhaps, too, no campaign was ever more intense and popular, or entered more into the heart and home-life of young and old, than that of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” “Log Cabin and Free Cider.” The great gatherings, barbecues, and speeches, and multiplied discussions and talk everywhere in house and street, in office and shop, would fire any heart that could ignite, or rouse anyone not lost in lethargy. James was not troubled that way, but was always on hand; he would sit in the chimney-corner,[44] or out on the great porch, while the old-line Whigs gathered to read, and hear, and digest aloud the news.

The political world had dawned upon him. He was in it for sure, and in earnest. His historical mind was gathering history ripe from the boughs. It was luscious to his taste. He was somewhere in every procession that wended its way with music and banners and mottoes innumerable to the place of speaking, and absorbed the whole thing.

Few could have voted more intelligently than he when election day came, for few had taken a livelier interest in the whole campaign, or taken the matter in more completely.

In three years he was admitted to college, so this was no spurt of mental power, but a steady growth, and but marked an era of intellectual unfolding.

It was a genuine and profitable source of most practical education, for all through the great and exciting campaign he did nothing else but attend the monster demonstrations. Dr. William Elder and Joseph Lawrence, the father of Hon. George B. Lawrence, now in Congress, were particularly powerful in impressions upon him.

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

Hon. Thomas M. T. McKenna, father of the present Judge McKenna, was a distinguished personage in that portion of the state, and took an active and influential part in the contest,—a contest full of vim, as it was the first Whig victory on a national scale, but as full of good nature. Jackson’s severe methods and measures, throttling the Nullifiers, sweeping out of existence the great United States Bank at Philadelphia, with its $150,000,000 of capital, and sundry other measures, had filled the people with consternation, and a great change was imperatively demanded.

Newspapers were numerous in the home of Mr. Blaine, and never escaped the vigilant eye of the young and growing journalist and statesman. The Washington Reporter made a large impression upon him, as did also the old Pittsburgh Gazette, a semi-weekly paper, and the Tri-weekly National Intelligencer (Gales and Seaton, editors) was of the strongest and most vigorous character; also, the United States Gazette (semi-weekly), published at Philadelphia, and edited by Joseph R. Chandler, of that city, and later on Joseph C. Neal’s Saturday Gazette. Surely the incoming of these nine or ten papers into the home every week, counting the semi- and tri-weekly issues, would furnish mental pabulum of the political sort in sufficient[46] quantity to satisfy the longing of any young mind. No wonder his growth was strong and hardy. We have heard of an American boy of ten or twelve, who followed the Tichborne Claim case at its original trial through the English courts, but he was a bright high-school boy, who had every advantage of the best graded schools, and improved them steadily, and yet it was greatly to his credit. Graded schools were unknown in 1840, yet James, who had finished reciting Plutarch’s Lives the year before to his Grandfather Gillespie, watched eagerly for the heavily loaded sheets as they came by post or steam-boat, and posted himself on their contents. Besides these numerous papers, two magazines were taken and steadily read by the boy. They were both published in Philadelphia,—Graham’s Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book. The one was dinner, and the other dessert, to the ever hungry mind.

The magazines will be remembered as among the very best the country afforded at that time. But things that do not grow with the country’s growth are soon outgrown in the day of steam and lightning.

The boy who read those periodicals then has not been outgrown, but he has outgrown much that then caused him to grow. They constituted the chief part of polite literature, as it was[47] called, of that form, and helped in the culturing process which has resulted in harvests so abundant.

Can we imagine the deep joy and satisfaction of that mere boy of ten years at the election of General Harrison, for whom he had cheered a hundred times? And when he came through on his way to Washington, to be inaugurated president, he stayed over night at Brownsville, just across the bridge over the river, and James was presented to him.

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

In addition to the two lady teachers who bore a part in the early education of James Blaine, there are four men who held a conspicuous place as instructors in the neighboring country school he attended, and who are remembered with gratitude to-day. These are Albert G. Booth, Joshua V. Gibbons, Solomon Phillips, and Campbell Beall. Mr. Booth is still living, and has doubtless rejoiced many times that he did his foundation 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 to Abraham Lincoln. When an old man, he visited Mr. Blaine in Congress, at the time he was[48] Speaker of the House. Mr. Blaine invited him to a seat beside him, in the Speaker’s desk. It was a worthy honor to a noble teacher, a moment of thrilling 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 deeply and strongly felt in the progress of young Blaine’s mental growth. He did solid, accurate, and enduring work.

Homely people, as a general thing, have quite a fund of native goodness, a sort of genial love and sympathy, to atone for physical defects. Such seemed to be the case with the man who so resembled Mr. Lincoln, and it drew all hearts to him. There was no rod or ruler in school so long as he taught, and no need of any. Such things are generally used in the school-room or family to supply deficiencies of wisdom, tact, and genuine ability. He simply won their love and respect, and it was their joy to give it. He taught them, also, things outside of the books, and told them plenty of good, wholesome stories. One day, in speaking about the heathen being away round on the other side of the world, he simply remarked,—“Of course you know the world is round,” but of course they did not.

The great eyes of James dilated, but he said nothing. He could not help thinking and taking[49] a child’s view of it when school was out. It did not hurt much to fall down four or five times as he went home that night, with his eyes upturned toward the Heavens, and the great thought revolving in his brain. The first question his mother heard was,—

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

“Yes, my child,” and the old story of the ship was told, and he was examining the picture in the atlas when his father came in, and he was sounded and agreed with the assured fact of science; and that night when he went up 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 him through the window the great round haystack, on whose top and sides there was room for twenty boys like him without falling off, and how “the earth keeps turning around and around all the time, and a great power holds people on, just as the roots hold the trees, so no one can fall off,—and the fact is, it is so big, and large, and round, and wide, they cannot fall off,” Jimmy thought he saw it and felt that it must be so.

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

But what puzzled the boy fully as much, was the grave assertion, made without proof, that the sun does not move, when he knew that it did rise and set. Grandpa, and his parents, and Uncle Will, had to hold court every day until these questions were all settled, the testimony all in, and the dreams of the young learner reflected other scenes.

His youth had a great sorrow. No grandson was ever loved and petted and cared for and helped in a thousand ways as his Grandfather Gillespie had helped and loved and cared for him. Though a man of affairs, and carrying on business operations on a large scale and in distant parts, he loved his home and all about him, and took special pride in this boy. The heart of James was truly won. It was his special joy to be up at grandfather’s. It was not the big red apple-tree, nor the great clock on the stairs, nor the old rusty sabre and flint-lock musket, and the many relics of the Revolution that attracted him, but grandfather himself.

But grandfather did not get up, one morning, and the doctor was there, and nobody went to work, and there was general alarm. The delirium of fever was on him, but his strong constitution resisted its ravages of inward fire for days and[51] weeks. Now he went there oftener, walked more softly, asked more eagerly. It all seemed so very strange. There was his great chair vacant, and the hand that had so often lain on his head seemed void of touch and power now. Everything seemed to stop. Books had nothing in them now; papers were unopened. The world grew darker and darker, until one black night, amid a terrific storm, word came that grandfather had just died, and father and mother would not be home for some time. The sun seemed to set to James, and he cried himself to sleep, while the other children bewailed their loss.

The morrow was bright and clear, but full of sadness, and as he looked upon the dear old man lying there, and felt his cold face and hand,—he had never seen death before,—he was filled with wonder. The loss, indeed, was great to him. But his memory was an inspiration, and knowing what grandpa would have him do, he returned to his study with renewed energy and to feel more than ever the worth and power of books the departed one had prized so highly.

Solomon Phillips was a Quaker and a farmer, but a man of strong, powerful intellect, honest as the day was long, painstaking and persevering. Mathematics were his special delight. It is 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 worth and power. He would divide 0 by 1 (zero by one), and get infinity, and sit and gaze out into its clear, white depths; and reversing the process he would divide one by zero, and get the same result, and again gaze upon the white depths of a world most beautiful to thought, in its clear, unclouded, not nothingness, but somethingness, and that something infinity. He seemed almost to worship at the shrine of this kingly science, and would tell again and again how brilliant and beautiful, and with what delightful accuracy, the labyrinths of the most gnarled and vexed problems opened to him.

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

He followed promptly wherever the Quaker master led the way. Week after week, and month after month, and term after term, the drill went on. There were no bounds or limits then, as in academies now, so these were passed as ships pass the equator, or railroad trains pass state or county lines. Hard study was the work of the hour, but hard study made work easy, and this was the secret, of all his progress,—constant study brought constant victory.

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

His father had a fine, large library, in which he delved by day and night, and aroused his son not only by example to constant application, but also by persistent pressure. Here is the real key to that early career of youthful days so thoroughly utilized,—the father’s intelligent watchfulness, and careful method, and constant direction. Only gauge the wheel to the stream, and the grist to the wheel, and there will be no danger.

The father determined his son should be educated to the utmost, and planned and wrought accordingly. No time was lost, and no undue haste made; it was the persistency of constant pressure that won the day.

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

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

[54]There was nothing unnatural about young Blaine. He was no prodigy; no marvel, except of industry and constant training. He was simply a fair exhibition of what a good average boy, well endowed with pluck and brains may become in the hands of good teachers, and under the guidance of intelligent love and the unyielding pressure of a strong paternal will. What his Eulogy says of Garfield is equally true of himself:—“He came of good stock on both sides;—none better, none braver, none truer. There was in it an inheritance of courage, of manhood, and of imperishable love of liberty, of undying adherence to principle.”

Mr. Blaine could also speak of himself as “fifth in descent from those who would not endure the oppression of the Stuarts,” and had fought under Prince Charles in the affair of 1715 and 1723.

So satisfactory had been his progress thus far in 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 by a younger brother of Lord Lyons, so long our Minister from England, who according to English law inherited nothing from his father’s estates, the eldest brother receiving all; and so he made his home in the New World, and worthily engaged in training future presidents of the great Republic.

[55]During his term in Lancaster his home was in the family of Hon. Thos. Ewing, his mother’s cousin. Mr. Ewing was a United States Senator when James was born, and entered the Cabinet of President Harrison the year before James’s appearance there as student, as Secretary of the Treasury, and in 1849 in Taylor’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior, both of whom died soon after their inauguration. In 1849 Governor Ford appointed him to the Senate in the place of Hon. Thomas Corwin, who entered Fillmore’s Cabinet.

This first and only term of school away from home and out of that little country school-house in preparation for college, under the broadening influences of such a home and the inspiration of such a teacher, was a long stride forward toward the desired goal. It was a great journey in those days for a boy only eleven years old to make, but it added another large chapter to his already wide range of knowledge and experience.

The other James, only a year younger, was living with his mother in the woods of Orange, in the same state of Ohio, improving the modest privileges of school, and maturing slowly, the winter James G. Blaine spent at Lancaster in the spacious home of that distant relative who had enjoyed all the high honors of the government, next to the presidency.

[56]These boys were probably not over one hundred miles apart that winter, and both at school,—investing more largely in themselves than in all besides, using themselves as capital, their own powers and endowments. Surely no course is wiser, as their careers amply prove. It is gathering what is outside that one may get out what is inside, that is the process of education; not getting what is outside regardless of what is within, that may be developed into treasures of transcendent worth, more valuable than the contents of forest and mine.

American history furnishes few examples of the practical value of cultivated brain more illustrious and potent than James A. Garfield and James G. Blaine, and each the opposite in temperament and opportunity, but both brought up on a farm, and both getting their first start up the hill of knowledge in a country school.

Where are the two boys who, forty or fifty years from now, will take the helm of state and guide the ponderous ship farther on her tireless voyage?

No ever-recurring problem for the nation’s wisdom and the nation’s choice, is greater than this one problem of presidents. It is the nation’s offer of greatness and renown to any boy who, through long years of patient and persistent[57] endeavor, will seek full and honorable preparation for the prize she proffers.

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

In one year he is to pass his examination to enter Washington and Jefferson College, in the village of Washington, their shire-town of three thousand inhabitants, twenty-four miles away. Will he be ready? Much depends on Campbell Beall, much on his father, and much on himself.

The common English branches are well wrought over, languages and mathematics have come to be a delight, and in the old atmosphere, and the old ways, with the old inspiration on him, progress comes anew. Lines of reading from the library are kept up; the papers and magazines are not neglected; political matters are settled; bad news comes in from every quarter; Tyler is at the head of affairs; Ewing has sent in his scathing letter of resignation as Secretary of the Treasury, charging him with violating every promise 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, and so the winter goes by. Time seems literally to be alive and drifts like the snow as it goes rushing by. As Benj. F. Taylor has it:—

Father, mother, teacher, Uncle Will, all seem convinced that James can pass and enter college; so, though only thirteen years of age, his father takes him in the carriage, and they drive over to Washington.

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

It does not take long to convince the president that he has drawn a prize, and he is entered with about forty other bright, smart boys, for the Freshman class in the autumn. After three months of vacation, the great work is to begin in real earnest, and the stuff those boys are made of is to be thoroughly tried and tested.

There was none of the hard, rough, and bitter experience in his boyhood days and early manhood to which so many of our nation’s great men were subjected. He had none of the[59] long and desperate struggles with poverty and adversity which hung on Mr. Garfield’s early years. He knew nothing, by experience, of the privations and hardships through which Mr. Lincoln came to the high honors of the nation and the world, but sprang from the second generation after the Revolutionary war, and from a long line of ancestors who had been large land-owners and gentlemen, in the sense of wealth and education, as well as in that finely cultivated.

[60]

III.
IN COLLEGE.

THE summer of 1843 was bright with the anticipations of college life to the eager boy. Manhood seemed dawning upon him, in all its glory. Since his examinations, the great Dr. McConaughy had grasped his hand so kindly and drawn him to his side; 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 you and know you. We shall have a good place ready for you September third, and I shall be glad to see you in my home.”

The president of Washington and Jefferson College could appreciate to the full the fact before him, that this boy, without the aid of high school or academy, was more than ready for the studies and honors of college.

The three months of summer were not lost. A general review was had, and particular attention paid to toning him up physically. He would [61]plunge into the river and swim to his heart’s content; dash away on horse-back for a good ride; go over to Brownsville, where they all did their trading, on errands, and regularly for the papers and magazines; go on excursions up and down the river, and, withal, help in the field, especially at harvest-time, and fill up regular hours with his best endeavors at study. So that 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 the community. The neighbors took pride in it, for James was greatly beloved. His exploits with books were known to all. Teachers had reported his progress and rejoiced in it.

It took a long while to say all the good-byes, but early Monday morning he was off, and soon nicely settled in a good boarding-place, and when the great bell rang out the beginning of new school-year, James G. Blaine was in his place taking in the situation in all its magnitude and interest.

There were one hundred and seventy-five scholars present, all boys and young men. There was a young ladies’ school, or seminary, in another part of the town, but they were entirely separated, and boys and girls were not mingled together, as now in some of our colleges.

[62]James devoted himself strictly to study, and retired promptly at ten o’clock each night. He found himself in a large class of bright, energetic students, full of pranks, jokes, and fun, but still boys of nerve, and pluck, and ample brain; boys who had been well fitted for the task before them, many of them in the preparatory department of the institution itself, so that they were familiar with the place, and had known each other for several years. They were not long in finding that the new boy, who came from down near the big bridge, knew about Greek and Latin grammars, and could read without difficulty when his turn came.

He did not have the town-boy sort of look that many of the others had, but his good manners, and kind, easy ways made them feel and acknowledge that he was a little gentleman, anyhow. His mother had never neglected her boy, and his father, being a professional man, knew the joy and worth of being a gentleman; and, if they had done but little, his grandfather had planted seeds of kindness in him enough to produce a bountiful harvest. He moulded and shaped his ways and manners to the clear, strong model that was never wanting in the old Scottish clans and seems to remain in the very blood and very atmosphere of life and character.

[63]There was nothing brusque or acrid about him. He took on and wore the air and atmosphere of the enlightened, quiet, and cultured home-life in which he was brought up. He was modest and retiring, there for a purpose, and devoted to its accomplishment. It was not hard, distasteful work to him, but a loved and longed-for opportunity. He had no ills or aches to nurse, or trouble him. He felt greatly the absence from home. But he was not off in Ohio now, only four and twenty miles from old, familiar Indian Hill farm. But his books absorbed him; study roused and cheered him; competition electrified and nerved him. Nothing would sting him like missing a question, or any petty failure. But these were few and simple. He took first rank at once, and held it steadily to the end.

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

He was rather retiring in his disposition, and sought rather to be a worshiper at the shrine of knowledge, than as is so often the case, be worshiped.

The quiet reticence and reserve referred to may strike some, owing to their knowledge of his dashing brilliancy of later years. But as a[64] surprise, the modest, unobtrusive habit was happily conducive to study, and served as a guard against many of the intrusions of a student’s life. While kind and affable, he was not of the hail-fellow-well-met order. But he was not a recluse,—no monk with monkish ways. He was a student, through and through, and he loved study; it satisfied him and served his aspirations.

He was a boy no longer; he had come to himself, to self-consciousness; a consciousness of his powers, to a recognition of his own personal identity. Manhood was fast coming on him; he was out of childhood. It was a new world in thought to him, and life at college a new world in fact. He was respected and honored and trusted now, in a sense different from being loved and petted and cared for at home. There was not so much praise, but more power in it. He was on his own responsibility now, and must rely largely upon his own resources. Manliness was the needful quality. It was everywhere in demand. At study it was the prelude to victory; in the recitation-room it was the well-poised harbinger of success, and in association with others it always won. This was just the quality that those who loved him had sought to develop in him, and they had not failed. He would take hold of the hardest task with a marvelous[65] energy of resolve. His will was a strong feature of his personality. It was an element of power that served him now. He had reached a long-sought height and was pushing on.

Good teachers are not long in finding good scholars in a new class. They look for them as a miner watches for gold, and prize them as highly. There was such a teacher in the faculty at Washington, and to Professor Murray Mr. Blaine feels a deep and lasting debt of gratitude.

Like all good teachers, he felt the dignity and power of his profession. He could help the weakest into strength, and put a window in the darkest mind by his varied questionings, illustrations, suggestions, and explanations. He was quiet, but forceful, genial, but severe if laziness or wanton disregard showed its hydra head. In his own peculiar way, by virtue of an immense personality, he would light up and enthuse a whole class-room.

The Professor found in young Blaine a pupil to his mind, and James found in the teacher just the man of his heart. He learned to love him. A genuine teacher can incarnate himself in his pupils, just as Napoleon seemed to reproduce himself in his armies, firing them with his spirit, arming them with his purpose, so that they would move with the solid impetuosity of[66] his own daring, scaling the Alps, triumphing at Austerlitz, until they came to look, and breathe, and act him out long after; but Professor Murray was training men and citizens of the great Republic. His was a solemn, sacred work, of grave responsibility. It was worthy of life and manhood’s strength and prime, as the great ideals which burned in the heat of his glowing life fully assured him.

To sit in such a light, to dwell in such a presence, was to be lead over the fields of conquest by the hand of Alexander after he had conquered the world. No wonder this man is loved and honored, and his memory cherished sacredly.

Outside of the regular college course, Mr. Blaine read through the New Testament in Greek with him three times. This was a Sunday Bible-class exercise, and shows how deeply his mind became imbued with the truths of the Christian religion, which have since made him a devoted member of the Congregational Church in Augusta, Maine.

James was no book-worm in college. He was a severe, close student. This was his chief business there. He was on his honor, and loved his work, and so did it well.

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

[67]“James G. Blaine was always looked up to as a leader, by his class-mates, being universally recognized as such. While a close student, he was genial in his habits, and decidedly popular with all, being the very reverse of what is known as a book-worm.”

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

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

“Third, by reference to my class-book you will see that at the time he graduated Mr. Blaine was given the second of the three honors of the occasion. The first, the Latin salutatory, was delivered by Jno. C. Hervey, of Virginia; the second, English salutatory, by James G. Blaine, of Pennsylvania; and the third, Greek salutatory, by T. W. Porter, of Pennsylvania.”

When Mr. Blaine graduated he delivered a masterly oration, most of which he can speak to-day, after a lapse of thirty-seven years. The subject was,—“The Rights and Duties of American Citizens.” How fitting such a theme for[68] such a man, and how admirably it shows his trend of mind!

During his course at college, in 1844, occurred the great campaign of Henry Clay. It had been Mr. Blaine’s privilege to meet Mr. Clay, and he took the liveliest interest conceivable in the contest. He was a very positive man, decided and aggressive, especially in his political opinions. Of course the great question of the day was debated in the college-society, and Mr. Blaine was on hand. He usually was on such occasions, and had a large part in the discussion. He was so well read in the history of the country and of parties, had entered so into the merits of the campaign of General Harrison, four years before, that with all his growth and acquisitions since, he was well qualified to take his position and maintain it against all who chose a tilt with him. His was the force of accumulated strength, the weight of reserved power. He was so full of his subject, that it seemed to require no effort to bring out the facts and figures and formulate the arguments that demolished his antagonist. He joined, as if by instinct, the fresh young Whig party of progress and of power. Clay was their idol, and this was the hour of his destiny. No young life was ever given with more ardent devotion to any cause than did the young collegian give[69] heart and thought, sympathy and endeavor, to the star so surely rising. He lead in the fight among the boys, and won the day; and wherever voice or influence could reach, he energized others with the wholesome truths of political equity, justice, and common sense that filled his soul. No wonder his theme on Commencement day was so near the nation’s life. It was near his heart, and so his first great triumph was celebrated by considering, back in those times of the slave-power, Rights and Duties of American Citizenship.

Washington and Jefferson College was famous in those days for sending forth great men. It was a great institution of the times. Indeed, it was two colleges united. Jefferson College had been located at Connersburgh, some four miles distant, and was merged into Washington College at Washington.

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

[70]The college-library was a great resort for him, a sort of second home. Here he could delve, with no thought of time or weariness. It was his delight and joy. Books seemed a part of him; he was seldom without them, and yet he utilized, by good mental digestion and strong powers of assimilation, the substance of what he read. He ranged over a wide field, principally of English works then, as works of American authors were comparatively few. Indeed, it is only within the last quarter of a century the sneer, “Who reads an American book?” has ceased to sting. Vacation was his busiest time with books. He was never empty, but always full.

But all his study and meditation; all his reading, thought, and observation; all he had gleaned, gathered, and garnered from books, teachings, and associations; all that had come to him from newspapers, periodicals, travel, great men, found their fitting and powerful culmination in the great oration he delivered on Commencement day, in June, 1847. It was sound and convincing, patriotic and manly, and would do credit to any graduate to-day, though twice his age. It was the key-note of a life-long career, which has ever since been urging in a most potent way the rights, and discharging the duties of American citizenship.

[71]

IV.
TEACHING IN KENTUCKY.

THE world opened grandly to young Blaine at his graduation. His college course had been a triumph, his reception home an ovation. The heart of the great class beat with his; their hopes were justly high, and high especially for him whom they had learned to love and honor. His power to make friends and hold them was remarkable. Those who knew him best loved him most.

One who knew so much of the world must see some of it, and as yet he had traveled but little; but a good rest is taken, and the summer spent at home. Old, familiar scenes are viewed through larger eyes. Books are reviewed, fresh volumes read; the news, home and foreign, is seized with a new avidity by one whose business of life is just beginning. As yet, though, he has not been earning money, he has gained something he can never lose, and that can never be 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 comes for a teacher in Blue Licks Military Academy, at Georgetown, Kentucky, and he is selected and 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 knowledge of methods. He believes he can do it, for, as yet, he has never failed, and has always been able to make himself understood, whether in private conversations and discussions, or society debates in college.

The question is decided. He is to receive a salary of five hundred dollars a year, while boys of his age are working for eight and ten dollars a month. It is a man’s work. He is to start September first, and he will not be eighteen years old until January. There is not a hair on his face. But there is a man within, strong in manly powers, and rich in stores of knowledge.

He had a fine address, clear and strong of speech, large lustrous eyes, fine conversational powers, and in all respects, of good appearance. His youth was in his favor, since it made his accomplishments all the more marvelous. He had been well written up and highly recommended before going, so that anticipations were high on both sides.

[73]It was harder than ever to say good-bye, especially for mother and son, but it must be done. They recalled the time when their ancestors left native land across the seas, to come to this country, and were reconciled. His father and Uncle Will tried the name of Professor on him before he started, and it seemed to fit, though at first it startled him. It weighed him down with the gravity of his position, and drove the last remnant of pedantry from him. He declined a tall hat and discarded a cane. He was simple, genuine, and true, and went for just what he was worth.

The trip to Pittsburgh, and down the river to Louisville, and out to Georgetown by public conveyance, was full of interest to him, because it was his country he was seeing. A steam-boat explosion, and talk of an insurrection among the negroes, made him a little nervous. But the fact that he was going to the state of Henry Clay, gave him a sort of home feeling, and made him feel they were his sort of folks, and then some of the students were from down that way, and he had met several of the public men from Kentucky, besides Mr. Clay.

There happened to be an old Jacksonian Democrat in the stage-coach, who had been attracted to the young professor by his manly bearing, his quiet urbanity, which cost him no effort,[74] and especially by his politeness in giving a lady from the Blue Grass region a back seat, insisting “that she take it” in a most gentlemanly manner, while he took a far less comfortable one, riding backward. This brought him face to face with a full-blooded Kentuckian of the 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, has he 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 would have made an excellent president, in my judgment.”

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

“But he has good sense, in my judgment, if you 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? Is that a Divine institution?”

The man was puzzled, but finally said,—

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

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

He had never been placed under any particular restraint, but had talked right out the best he knew how, and so followed the person up who encountered him pretty closely, until the questions were all answered to their satisfaction, and a few difficult ones asked to his satisfaction. But when the identical lady whom he had favored with a seat, asked right out,—“Would you marry a nigger?” he seemed lifted from his moorings 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 those days, such as “nigger-lover,” “nigger-stealer,” and “black abolitionist,” found expression. James’ only apology was,—

“Madame, I only asked you the very respectful and lady-like question you had so kindly asked me.”

“I admire your courage and independence of character, sir,” said a young lady opposite, with some warmth, who, though rather large, and with a look of rare intelligence, and a voice of peculiar sweetness and volume, was evidently still in her teens,—possibly sweet sixteen, in its fullest glory.

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

“Give us your hand, young man,” said a fellow-passenger, as the stage passed on. “I like yer pluck; brains is good, but it ain’t much without pluck. I tell you, you sot the truth right home that time. You are a right smart kind of a boy. Do they raise meny sich up in the old Keystone or Yellowstone—What did you call it? I reckon that that Missis was right down put out when you axed her what[77] she axed you. But, then, they do say a heap of jokers don’t like to be joked. But my rule is, tit-for-tat. I tell you, a little nip and tuck now and then is a mighty edicating sort of thing, and I guess you’ve been educated, haven’t you?”

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

All had a good dinner, and felt better.

It was a simple act of courtesy which the occasion demanded, to help the young lady of sixteen, more or less, from the coach, as she was ready to step out after James had alighted, and as she thanked him very graciously he could but offer to escort her to the table, and with rare good grace she assented.

James had done such things before, and done them very handsomely, in connection with their college-exhibitions and socials in the town, to which he occasionally went.

Kentucky is a great country for quail, and the colored cook had broiled and buttered them that day exactly to the taste of an epicurean. They were simply delicious, and just in season. They enjoyed them hugely, and chatted with the cheer and gusto of old friends, mostly speaking of the glories of the North, in which they perfectly agreed, and upon their homes. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin” may be true[78] or not, but that little touch of nature in the stage-coach had made them kin.

Another fresh brace of the savory quails had just been placed before them, when the coach dashed around to the door, and the lusty voice of the driver crying “All aboard!” resounded through the hall and open door of the dining-room.

There was no alternative, so without delay they resumed their old seats, and conversation was discontinued.

The political status of the company had been pretty well defined, and James had made two friends, the names of neither of whom, however, he had learned.

There was a lull in the conversation, and James was going over his scheme of study and recitations for the twentieth time, when at three o’clock Georgetown was announced. He bade his two friends good-bye, and expressed the hope that all would enjoy their journey.

The stage had but just started, when the old Jacksonian said, “I dunno but the boy is more n’r half right, anyhow.” The young lady knew he was, but the lady number one did not know about it.

“Well, it’s mighty sartin the Declaration is agin’ Slavery, and the Bible can’t stand up for both, nohow,” said the man who walked up the hill with James.

[79]James was now in his lodgings, and liked the looks of things. He had just brushed and dusted 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 fifty fine-looking young men, handsomely uniformed, each with a musket, marching to music of fife and drum. They stood erect and stepped together. It was a fine sight to him. They went through the evolutions, marked time, marched, and countermarched.

The entire faculty were present. He ventured in, and soon heard a messenger announce that Mr. Blaine had come, but he had missed him. He simply said, “I am Mr. Blaine,” and the Principal grasped his hand with evident delight, placing his left hand upon his shoulder and saying, “I am glad to see you, Mr. Blaine,” and introduced him to the other teachers, and then 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 recognition of his reception. “Perhaps you have a word for the boys,” said the Principal, and the battalion was brought to a “shoulder arms,” an “order arms,” and then to a “parade rest,”[80] when, stepping forward, he said,—“I am glad to see you, gentlemen, in such fine form and spirit, and so accomplished at your drill, for I watched 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’s service, though it does begin to look a little as though there might possibly be war with Mexico. But as I have been nearly two weeks on my journey, and as we shall have ample time to get acquainted, I will not detain you longer.”

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

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

“With great pleasure.”

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

The hour spent in the study with the Principal was not without a purpose on his part. It confirmed all that Doctor McConaughy and Professor Murray had written about him, and afforded certain knowledge that they had drawn a prize. By an adroit, yet careless method of conversation, introducing a general discussion of the textbooks of the day, with their general contents,[81] their defects and excellences, the great knowledge of the new man was made evident, and it was not restricted to the mere curriculum of studies.

“Surely,” thought he, “I am in for it now in earnest,” as he was left alone for a few moments while his host went down to receive his other guests.

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

He was treated, respected, and honored as a man and a scholar. The world had opened to him, and he had entered. It was well there was no show or shoddy about him, and he knew it. The stamp of the mint was on him, and he passed at par, with the ring of honest coin.

There is a power in some men to meet any emergency when it is fairly on them. They rise with 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 presented to the ladies, he said to himself, as he threw back his hair with a quick, decided toss, “No politics to-night”; and this prolific subject was mentally 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 pleasure he experienced in coming to a state so great in the nation’s life.

It was a matter of conscience with Professor Blaine to know where he was going and where he had been, so that he had made his own state as well as that of Ohio where he had spent the term at school, and the state of Kentucky, a special study; so that when they were fairly seated at table, and after repeated questions had been asked, he fairly eclipsed all his former attempts at conversation, by the brilliancy of his historical allusions, extending far back into colonial days.

He had learned, by his early drill in Plutarch’s Lives, where a brief biography of a Roman and a Greek are alternately given, and then comparisons and contrasts between them introduced, so to deal with states and individuals. He had thus dealt with political parties and their leaders, but not to-night. This method helped him greatly.

Events, dates, names, places, fell into line and were marshalled like troops just when the drum tapped, 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 panorama of those three great states, three of the greatest in the Union, seemed to march before them in sections and decades.

The members of the faculty, who understood very 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-eight young men marched into the school-room and faced him as their teacher, twelve of them older than himself. They had taken his measure when on drill, and felt honored to call him teacher.

They were from the best families of the state, were clad in bright uniforms, and sat erect. Mathematics was the first recitation. He looked around almost instinctively for Solomon Phillips or Professor Murray, but they were not there. He was on the platform, not in the seats. He must lead off. A list of names had been furnished him. As he read them over, calling each name by itself, the scholar came forward and received a hearty shake of the hand, and was photographed at once in the mind of the teacher. This was the work of but a few minutes, yet it recognized each one of them, and made them feel acquainted. No other[84] teacher had done this, but it was something they could tell of, write home about, and made them say,—“He is a fine man; I like him.”

He then told them many things about mathematics as a science, its power in intellectual development, and its great value in the practical business of life; its place in astronomy and engineering, in naval and military operations, and the certainty with which it assures the mind.

It was a simple, quiet talk, illustrated in various ways by references to the book and the sciences spoken of. He thus drew them nearer to himself, and removed the dread with which so many approach the vexed subject of mathematics. This class was in algebra, on at cube root, doing pretty solid work. The ground was familiar to him. Problem after problem had been performed; the whole class seemed roused to a new interest, and in stepped the Principal, but the work went on. Every blackboard was in use; it was a busy scene; there were no idlers there.

“Never touch a problem hereafter,” he said, “unless you are certain you have the rule fixed in your minds. Do not forget this, and if you have that clear, then ask yourself, in case of difficulty, ‘What axiom shall I use next?’ for you must keep using them, as you do the letters of 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 now that every one gets ready for it, and we will have a splendid time.”

Mr. Blaine’s resources had never been drawn on before in any real, business-like way. But it was an experience he was ready for, and he liked it. He next had a class in Latin, and then in United States history. He could not have been better suited in studies. They were just the ones that delighted him. Christmas seemed to come that year on wings, and soon the spring-time was on them, and the picnic season.

He had shut himself up closely to his work. Visitors had abounded, but he accepted but few of the invitations that were given. He did not even accept any one of several invitations to spend 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 with his recitations must he read up carefully, and every spare hour was devoted to these lines of study.

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

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

It was Miss Hattie Stanwood, of Augusta, Maine. She also was teaching school, not far away. It was quite the thing in that day for well-educated New England girls or young ladies to go South and teach school.

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

The picnic had no further charms for them. They quietly strolled away together over the hills after the lunch was served, and for three full hours they lived in each other’s lives. They seemed strangely near to each other, and a peculiar peaceful joy seemed living in their hearts. It had evidently come to stay. None other ever seemed to be so needful to life itself. No formal words were spoken, only cards exchanged and carefully preserved. In two weeks her school[87] would close, and she would spend the summer northward at her home, and he would take a long trip southward through various states, and see what could be seen as far down as New Orleans. They spent two afternoons in each other’s company before the time of departure came; correspondence was agreed upon, and in the autumn they would meet and renew acquaintance in the old posts of duty. Some slight tokens were exchanged, and as they must they nerved brave hearts for a long and perilous separation.

When the time for their departure came they were found seated side by side in the same old coach, for Louisville. The ride was much shorter and far more pleasant in that rich and beauteous spring-time than in the ripe and luscious autumn before.

Politics was a barren subject now. Homes were admired as they passed along; bits of sentiment indulged; snatches of song and lines of poetry; much sober, sensible talk filled in the hours which served as a needed respite to minds kept hard at thought throughout the year.

The future loomed up, real and grand. Their lives took on a glow of interest and earnestness of hope they never had known. There seemed to be a reason in them now, before unseen.[88] They felt their worth and knew their joy, as it was never felt or known before.

Mr. Blaine took his southern trip, and made business of it. He knew the history of all that country, every state and town.

It had a vastly different look to him from any region of the North which he had visited. Slavery was the hideous monstrosity of evil that met him everywhere. It was to him the great contradiction and condemnation of the South.

He had heard and heard, but determined to see for himself, and see he did. There was much that seemed pleasant in plantation-life, but when he went to the slave-pens and the slave-auctions, and saw families broken and sold asunder, and heard their cries, and saw the blows,—their only recognition,—his patriot-blood boiled fiercely in his veins. It was enough. He sought his old home, and spent a happy month or more with its loved ones, those who rejoiced with him greatly over the achievements of the year.

Miss Stanwood made her journey northward amid all the loveliness of Nature, and arrived home far more the woman than when she left. Life was more real and earnest now, and filled with larger hopes. She was charmed with the South, and had strange longings to return. But letters are tell-tale things, for men, without any special reason, will write a great, bold hand.

[89]James was able to lay two hundred dollars on the table on his return, and entertained them by the hour with stories of the South. He had seen much gambling and drinking, many bowie knives and revolvers, and seen many splendid specimens of men.

He was filled with its beauties and glories, and with its generous, kindly hospitalities. It was a region so historic, so immense in possibilities, so alive and magnificent with the old ante-bellum greatness, and splendor of cities and homes; so many graduates from Yale and Harvard, which had been a dream of fame and greatness ever 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 the time. His business was in the South, and his great social powers gave him friends and entrance everywhere.

The kind letters of his fellow-teachers,—Colonel Thorndike F. Johnson, the principal of the Academy, and Colonel Bushrod Johnson, after of the Confederate army,—gave him many pleasing acquaintances. This was twelve or fourteen years before the war. The political business and educational interests of the country were a unit.[90] There was no talk of rebels or of treason. The prominent men of the country, politically, were largely from the South. The presidents had been selected largely from that section, and the political contests throughout were carried on by parties whose strongholds were North and South. Only the summer before, President Polk had made a tour through the Middle and Eastern states, going eastward as far as Portland, Maine, and was received with every demonstration of respect. Nathan Clifford, of Maine, was his Attorney-general, and Mr. Bancroft, his Minister to England.

Mr. Blaine’s father had moved to Washington, as he was prothonotary of the courts, during his term at college, so that he had made his home with them during some of these years, and the remainder of the time with a Mrs. Acheson. He had ample opportunity to renew acquaintance with old friends; with Prof. Wm. P. Aldrich, who had drilled him so faithfully in mathematics: with Prof. Richard Henry Lee, grandson of Richard 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 the languages, and gave Mr. Blaine a regular theological drill in the study of Greek, that most perfect receptacle of human thought, in all its[91] shades and vastness, even now,—a language which took up Christ, his kingdom, and his mission, thoughts and doctrines, and perpetuated them for the world.

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

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

To renew acquaintance with these men, and a multitude of other friends, was a part of his great pleasure. He was fresh and full as ever, taller by an inch, and larger every way. He no longer seemed to them a boy, but had the air and manners of a man, and yet his laugh was as merry and hearty, his shake of the hand as vigorous and friendly as ever.

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

He had taken his course at college principally for the sake of study, simply, and the knowledge he gained; but the prominent thought in his mind had been journalism. This had not been his purpose in education, but simply a chief idea in his mind rather than a chosen aim in[92] life. So that with this thought within him, and the habit of seeing everything on him, but little escaped the wide range of his vision during his southern journeyings.

Of course when home he did not ignore the old college-library. It was a resort so greatly loved, and almost sacred.

But when the hour struck he was eager to be off for his post of duty,—Kentucky. Promptness and despatch were ever elements of power with him. He reached Georgetown ahead of time, and was rested and in readiness when the new year of work began, and it was a year of hard, steady, constant work with him. He not only had now a reputation to sustain, but to be greatly advanced. That a man stops growing when he is satisfied, was a thing perfectly understood by him. A man without ambition is dead while he lives, and the one content to live with his head over his shoulder may as well be turned into a pillar of salt. It is the men who look ahead, and who look up who have a future. A backward look is a downward look to them.

Competition was strong at the academy. Enthusiasm was great. Professor Blaine had done much to arouse it, but all unconsciously. He had held steadily to his fixed habits of study, preparing carefully for each recitation himself,[93] permitting no shams in his class-room. The military discipline at the institution aided greatly its matter of discipline. Life and energy were everywhere manifest.

And so the year passed with nothing special worthy of note, except the amount of real work performed, and the large measure of success achieved.

Acquaintance with his lady friend was early renewed and pleasantly continued. It had much to do with the inspiration of the present and in shaping his future. Of course it was kept a profound secret, and no one in Kentucky permitted to know that they were aught to each other except chance friends, and indeed in point of formal fact they were not until near the close of the year, when the crisis came; but the young professor was a gallant knight, and had occasion required might readily have performed some thrilling act of knighthood that would have set the neighborhood agog, for none can doubt he had it in him even then. Milder methods have ever been his rule, except emergency arise, and then he arises with it.

It is this ability of abilities, this almost perfection of powers, that has made him equal to every occasion, however dire or desperate opposition may have been; that has given him his great prominence in journalism, in halls of legislature,[94] both of state and nation, and in the field of politics. But he has had this mountain-peak of power because beneath and back of it lay a long mountain-range of endeavor, capacity, and growth.

The patient, hard, honest toil of years has ever and anon had its culmination in hours of splendid victory.

[95]

V.
A NEW FIELD.

THE years at Georgetown reviewed and solidified the work of his student scholarly life thus far, beside carrying him forward to new fields of conquest. Courtship could not interfere with study and with work, and it did not.

This new relationship had changed somewhat the plan of life. Other years could be but a repetition of the two now nearly passed, so that while he was in the line of promotion and in a place to grow, it was not just the thing, so he relinquished his professorship and went northward.

These years had been eventful in the history of the country. The Mexican war had been fought, and General Taylor, its hero, elected and inaugurated president. Both were triumphs of the Slave-Power.

President Polk had taken part in the ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of General Taylor, and gone to his home in Tennessee[96] by way of Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, 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 a desolating blast. It swept over the valley of the Mississippi, carrying off thousands with the suddenness of the plagues of the old world.” The South was surely no place for northerners at such a time.

The great gold-fever of California was on the country, and scores were hurrying to the Pacific coast. But Mr. Blaine had no taste for adventure,—no thirst for gold. He was a man of books and a man of affairs, profoundly interested in all that pertained to the country, but too young 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 his end, at the age of fifty-five years.

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

He early became impressed with the extent and richness of the great coal-fields of Pennsylvania, and before he was thirty years of age made those investments which have so enriched him in later years.

[97]It is the part of wisdom and sagacity in men to make the most of their first years, or the first half of life. This is an eminent feature in the career of Mr. Blaine. There are no wasted years in his life; no baneful habits to destroy his energies or dry up the fountain of his joys. He is a clean, strong, vigorous man, and is able to celebrate the year of his majority with a more extensive preparation and experience as scholar, teacher, traveler, and man of business, and a brighter outlook for life, than falls to the lot of many young Americans.

In this year of 1851 transpired the event more propitious than any other. It was his marriage, at Pittsburgh, to Miss Hattie Stanwood, the present Mrs. Blaine, a lady of fine culture and rare good sense, who loves her home with the devotion of a true wife and noble mother.

It would require the sagacity of a sage to have predicted the future of Mr. Blaine, had it not been his kindly fortune to have his life crowned with so much of goodness, wisdom, intelligence, and love, as is found in the companion of his honors and joys.

Six children, now living, have come in these years to honor their wedded life;—a goodly family indeed.

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

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

These quiet years of reading and study and teaching in a great degree fitted Mr. Blaine for his career as a statesman.

He fitted himself for admission to the bar, but never committed himself to the practice of the profession by assuming its functions. The love of journalism would not die. It was in his heart. The time had come to give it light and opportunity. Often had the attractions of the Pine Tree state been presented to him by Mrs. Blaine in all the glowing colors with which youth is accustomed to paint the scenes that lie near its heart. No state had the charms for her possessed by the state of Maine. Here she was born, and here those dearest to her resided.

As yet they had not settled down for life. The time had come for their decision. Her powers of argument, and its very eloquence of oratory, 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 and grow up with the country, but go east and grow where greatness has its models.

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

In 1854 Mr. Blaine removed with his family to Augusta, the capital city of Maine, where he has since resided.

He purchased, with Joseph Baker, the Kennebec Journal, founded in 1823.

Now, the political field could be reviewed and studied at will; the political arena was entered. The paper had been first started by a meeting of the principal citizens to found a Republican paper, and such it was in real earnest. No longer the secluded life of the student, or the quiet life of the teacher.

Embarking in journalism at such a time was like embarking on the sea, where storms and collisions abound; where icebergs show themselves, and rocks and reefs are found. No country has more political storms and commotions, perhaps, than America. They are of all kinds and sizes, from city, town, county, up to state and national storms, and blows, hurricanes, and tempests. In those times of the slave oligarchy, they beat with a fury unknown to-day. Sometimes they were fierce in their[100] cruelty. It was a fight of great learning and profound convictions on both sides, a fight of dearest principle and of Christian faith.

President Taylor had died on the 9th of July, 1850, and Millard Fillmore served out his term of office. March 4, 1853, Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, who, in 1846, had declined to be Attorney-general in President Polk’s cabinet; also an appointment of United States Senator by Governor Steele, and the Democratic nomination for Governor, but had plunged into the Mexican war and won his honors there, and who stood at the head of the New Hampshire bar, was inaugurated President, and ruled the nation when Mr. Blaine became an editor. He had a powerful cabinet, who, of course, were among the prominent public men of the time.

When Mr. Blaine entered political life, though not of his ilk, there were William L. Marcy, of New York, Secretary of State; Robert M’Clelland, of Michigan, Secretary of the Interior; James Guthrie, of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Secretary of War; James Dobbins, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, 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 was drawing nigh, and the young editor was in position to help bring it on.

It was the centennial of the city’s history. The celebration was very beautiful, an account of which appeared in Mr. Blaine’s paper, the Kennebec Journal, of July 6, 1854, and seemed auspicious of his arrival in the city, and the inauguration of his work.

Augusta is about midway between towns that boast two of the leading institutions of learning in the state, Colby University at Waterville, and Bowdoin College at Brunswick, where Longfellow graduated, and his class-mate, Hon. James W. Bradbury, who was, about this time, United States Senator from Maine, when the great men of the nation,—Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Douglas, Cass, and others,—were discussing in the senate the constitutional and slavery questions involved in the compromise measures.

It was a time and place where great historic interests centered. It had been the scene of grave military operations, a fort and outposts on the nation’s frontier, less than a hundred years before, had been conspicuous in the French and Indian wars.

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

He came with no beat of drum and blare of trumpet, but quietly, with no parade or display, and went to work with good grace and strong determination. He brought his capital with him. It had not been embezzled, nor squandered, nor stolen. It was in a portable bank in which he had been depositing his investments, or investing his deposits, steadily for nearly twenty years. Already he had drawn compound interest, and yet, unlike air, water or money, the more he drew, the more there was on deposit, bright and clear with the polish of the mint. He had invested in solid, reliable knowledge and education. He had taken stock in James G. Blaine, taught and trained him to think, to know, to talk, to write, and act. There is always a demand for just such men. Communities want them, the state and nation wants them. From the distant South, explored and carefully surveyed and estimated, he had come to the farthermost North and East, and here for life his home is to be.

[103]

VI.
JOURNALISM.

IT was not the policy of Mr. Blaine to undertake a work for which he was not specially fitted. General adaptation and preparation were not enough; he must be master of the situation or not at all, so he did not sit down in the editorial chair at once. He was among a new people. He must know them. His paper was published at the state capital. He must know the state. He must 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 to that standard of circulation and of excellence, its position warranted and required. In the words of one thoroughly conversant with its affairs, “The paper was badly run down.” It was the opposition paper, and had long been what, in common parlance is known as “the under dog in the fight.” There was the largest opportunity[104] for the display of the new editor’s push and tact in business matters. To these two things, therefore,—public acquaintance and business affairs,—he gave himself until November, 1854.

About this time a turn came in the political tide, and William Pitt Fessenden, “that good Whig,” was elected to the United States senate, routing the Pillsbury Democracy. Governor Crosby and his council were also Whigs.

Everything of a political character seemed highly favorable for the best editorial work, just as after the war the highest statesmanship was requisite to garner and perpetuate its results, crystalize its victories, and thus secure their glory untarnished.

So now conservatism, power, and radical might,—the one to hold, and the other to defend what had been gained,—were needful. It did not take long to catch the spirit of the hour. Mr. Blaine had been familiar with the fight from boyhood, and in the great campaign of General Harrison had seen, upon a grander scale, a similar victory. Now he was on the stage of action, in the responsibilities of life.

He had really entered the state in one of the happiest years, politically, of her history. It was not until several years later that the legislature of his old state of Pennsylvania defeated the express wish of President Buchanan upon this[105] same issue, and sent Gen. Simon Cameron to the senate in place of Mr. Buchanan’s selected candidate, John W. Forney. This, at the time, was said to be one of the most severe blows his administration could receive.

In Maine it was the voice of the people against the nefarious attempt to fasten slavery upon the territories, and against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Then the opponents of slavery were not all abolitionists. They were rather restrictionists. In an address delivered by Henry Ward Beecher about this time, he makes these two points,—

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

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

There were, indeed, abolitionists then, red hot, just as there are prohibitionists now, and as events have proved, they were the vanguard of Vicksburg and Gettysburgh, where there were no compromises of the Missouri, or any other kind, and no Mason and Dixon’s line, but lines of battle. And in the one case the words “surrender of slaves,” written with bayonets dipped in blood, and in the other, resounding from cannon 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 arbitrament of civil war with its consequences, more dire than pen could write or tongue could tell. It was a time for greatest wisdom and loftiest courage.

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

No wonder the wise and prudent Pennsylvanian surveyed the field with great deliberation, and gained the fullest possible knowledge of the situation ere he balanced his spear for its first lunge. It was but the putting on of his full armor ere the soldier enters the fray. It was no business venture or financial investment merely, but rather the solemn dedication of himself to the nation’s weal.

Then and there the public career begins that has brought him to this hour. It is a career of alternate wildest storm and serenest sunshine. There were at this time, practically, four parties in Maine, and two great questions, both of them moral in character, namely: Temperance and Slavery. The Democratic party was split into two most radical sections, with slavery for their dividing line. Beside these were the Whigs and Liberalists.

[107]The birth-hour of the Republican party was near at hand. The elements were in existence demanding organization. Already men in sympathy with each other upon the great questions of the day in the different parties and divisions had acted together upon occasions of great political importance, as in the election of Mr. Fessenden, an ardent Whig, to the senate. Anti-slavery men, of the Democratic party, could and did vote for him. The nation demanded the man, somewhat as to-day she demands another son of Maine. The New York Tribune, in an issue prior to his election, said,—“The nation wants him.” Not party names, but principles, ruled the hour.

Less than ninety days after Mr. Blaine, quill in hand, made his bow on the 10th of November, 1854, to the people of Augusta and to the state of Maine, the Republican party was in existence, a full-fledged organization. Conventions had met a little earlier in Wisconsin and in one of the counties of Maine for a similar purpose. Mr. Blaine was with the movement, heart and soul. He was present at its birth, and rejoiced in its existence. It had come into existence full of life and power, as it had taken nearly all the life and power out of the other parties.

It had taken a minority of the Democrats, a[108] majority of the Whigs, and all of the Anti-slavery or Liberty party. “Liberty national, Slavery sectional,” was upon its shield. No one, of course, stopped to ask, in the rejoicing of the hour, how in the name of reason liberty could be national and slavery sectional. But they were organized for victory, as right against wrong. How auspicious and full of promise that Mr. Blaine should celebrate the twenty-fifth year of his remarkable life by entrance with this party of progress and of power upon its marvelous career, himself an integral part of it, and a power within it.

About this time John L. Stevens, a man of great good sense, takes Mr. Baker’s place, a large law-practice demanding his attention, as co-editor of the Journal. But Mr. Stevens is so occupied with the details of party organization, that most of the editorial work at this time falls to Mr. Blaine, and it shows great vigor and ability.

One who was associated with him intimately at this time, in professional life, speaks of him as “a man of great natural and acquired ability, and of adaptation, familiar with all questions of government, with a remarkable facility for getting at the core of a question, a man of genius and talent to a striking degree”; and as we went over year after year of editorials, some of them[109] very striking and forceful in their headings, about the time the young party of great men was fairly on its feet, and had become the target for rifle shots from the enemy, the old man turned, and with that peculiar emphasis which always comes with conviction of the truth, said, “He always calculated to draw blood, if there was a tender spot.”

He invariably struck to demolish when fighting his great political battles. There was no play about it, and none could doubt the moral earnestness of the man. It was a battle of great moral ideas with him all the way through.

But his work was more largely literary in conducting the paper. It would be difficult to find more solid or instructive reading in any paper during those years. Mr. Blaine was himself a great reader of the best journals and reviews, and with a high standard ever before him, not only in his own ideals, but also in the great papers of the nation at his command, and having high aims and a mind whose rich stores were constantly increased, and with all his varied powers of expression, books were reviewed, the substance of lectures given, and the best lecturers of the day entertained Augusta audiences, and a multitude of articles upon various subjects abounded.

Within fifty days after he became editor, the[110] legislature met, and it devolved on him to gather in the substance of their speeches and addresses, and record the principal part of their doings. This brought him into immediate and extensive acquaintance with members of the senate, whose hall he chose to visit chiefly. They soon became acquainted with him, and saw and felt his power.

His life was stirring and active, and upon a scale quite in contrast with the life of a recluse teaching 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 control that upon such occasions he has won his highest praise for brilliancy. He has made mistakes and blunders, and has had his share of regrets and misgivings, giving ample proof that he is a member of the human family.

Mr. Blaine’s old foreman, who was afterwards proprietor of the paper, Howard Owen, says that he wrote most of his editorials at home, and came down to the office to see his numerous friends, and that they would have great times pounding for “copy” while he was entertaining hosts of friends in the office below. One who knows 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 a wonderful simplicity. There is no dragging prelude, no verbose details preceding a stupid finale; the story is presented always dramatically, and fired almost as from a gun, when the point is reached.

The dinner-table in the Blaine house is the place where the gayest of good-natured pleasantry rules. From six to eight the dinner speeds under cover of running talk upon the incidents of the day.

Mr. Owen says that “when they came to ‘making up the form’ Mr. Blaine would stand over him and attend to every detail, decide the location of every article, and give just that prominence that would produce the best effect.” It showed the interest he took in the children of his own brain, and the great activity of the man.

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

He has lived his life on a rising tide, amid immense prosperity, and the great cheerfulness of temper thus produced has made life less a drag and more a joy to him.

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

[112]He got into the national drift of the new party and has kept it ever since. It was like a splendid ship, all staunch and strong, launched at his hand; he sprang aboard, was soon at the helm, and has steadily passed along the line of honorable promotion.

There have been storms whose fury has been terrific; and there have been triumphs whose brightness has reflected the nation’s glory.

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

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

He soon became a favorite in Augusta, and among the public men of the state. People love to hear good things said well, and he never failed in this.

He soon appears on the Republican Central Committee. The party is victorious from the start, and elects Anson P. Morrill Governor. Mr. Morrill is still living in Augusta, hale and hearty at eighty-one, a great reader, and soon after his nomination called upon Mr. Blaine to congratulate him. The name of J. G. Blaine appears as chairman of the Republican Central Committee soon after its organization, and the following year he is presented as a candidate for the legislature.

[113]He enters a city seventy-five years older than himself, rich with numbers of strong men, but is taken up and speedily honored with a place in the councils of the state.

It was an era of great and almost constant political conventions. The remnants of the Whig party and the Know-nothings kept up a struggle for existence, but they were doomed, and failed to submit gracefully to the inevitable. They must be watched and won, if possible, to the new party of the future, whose substantial, steadfast principles,—as expressed by Mr. Blaine and his editorial colleague, Joseph Baker, in their inaugural,—were freedom, temperance, river and harbor improvement within constitutional limits, homesteads for freemen, and a just administration of the public lands of the state and nation; and the present testifies how well those principles, embracing all that were needful then in a political 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 paper is worthy of note. It furnished a column of “Religious Intelligence” each week. Many of its selected articles, notices of books, its correspondence, and even editorials, were deeply religious.[114] The work of that time was solemn, serious business. There was much of the Puritan and Pilgrim in the people then. There was a reliance upon God, a demand for his wisdom expressed in prayer and song and sermon, that told that the importance and magnitude of the great principles at stake were fully appreciated. There had been so much failure in the past, so many parties had been organized and proved inadequate, and still the encroachments of slavery, the nation’s foe, continued with an audacity unparalleled. Already Kansas was conceded to the slave-power; secession was already in the air. The great war was only seven years in the future. A Charleston paper had stated the issue distinctly, “We must give up slavery or secede,” as it viewed the first contests and sweeping victories of the new party. And Mr. Blaine, in a ringing editorial of caustic power, quoting the entire paragraph, said, “This is the exact issue, squarely stated.”

His life in Kentucky and extensive winter trips through the South had been a revelation to him, and were now an inspiration. He knew what was in the South, and he knew what was in the North, and he knew that they could not keep house together for centuries, with slaves in the country, without quarreling. And, moreover, he knew that the destinies of the country could[115] not be divided. She could not remain half slave and half free. The South itself was not satisfied with this, as all their measures of legislation at their various state capitals, and in Washington clearly indicated. Slavery must conquer or be conquered. Blaine saw it at that early day, as anyone may in the light of more recent events.

But this was not the position or demand of the Republican party then. Anti-slavery did not mean abolition. In 1855 the Free Democratic party, as it was called, was achieving victories in the state of New York, and various phases of the great question were championed in different states and sections, until the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. And it was not until about two years of the war were gone, and it was imperatively demanded as a war-measure; not until it had been held back for months by the sagacious Lincoln, after it was written, that the emancipation of the slave was proclaimed in states then in armed rebellion. But it was a fact fated and decreed, signed, sealed, and delivered in a higher than earthly tribunal, long years before.

There are always high-wrought souls, keenly alive and sensitive to issues of the hour, who seem ordained to catch the foreshadowing of events and report to others of duller and heavier mould. Mr. Blaine had projected himself upon[116] the future with the use of his princely personal power, and with an eagle eye had read out the doom and destiny of that “peculiar institution” which violated the fundamental principle of the government, the great end for which it was established,—a doom which nothing could avert. God’s time for liberty had come, and chosen men far out upon the frontier of human thought had watched its dawn and seen it mount the heavens.

But first, the shining of this same sun must produce a similar harvest of ideas, where the mists of a false and sophistical political philosophy, and the fogs of a wrong and vicious science of government, and an unnatural and cruel selfishness and monopoly of liberty prevent the cleanest vision, the fullest knowledge, and the most righteous thought.

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

Some are ready now with their verdict of principle, despite the mists and fogs and storms; yet not all. The party of Freedom organized in counties and states all over the country, must be brought together, unified and organized as a great national party; a convention must be held and all must be invited who can be induced to affiliate. It is a preliminary meeting, as it precedes the great organization. They want to get acquainted and see their strength. It is to be a time of great argument and powerful speeches. Where so appropriate to hold it as in the goodly city of Philadelphia? Whigs, Know-nothings, Free-soilers, are to be there; anti-slavery Democrats, and staunch Republicans.

Mr. Blaine was there. It continued for eight days. Its value lay in the full and free discussion[118] of the absorbing questions of the day, by people widely separated and subjected to varied local influences. Men were influenced by mercantile and commercial, by social and domestic interests; by educational and religious interests, and it is almost impossible for many minds of most excellent, though conservative quality, to rise above fixed orders of things to the clear apprehension and vigorous grasp of a great principle.

Early education or neglect, also, may have dwarfed or blunted perceptions and capabilities; but, however, they came largely to see, eye to eye, and great progress was made. There was a lengthening of cords and strengthening of stakes, and on the 22d of February, 1856, the Republicans met in Pittsburgh and appointed its national committee, and arranged for its first nominating convention. The aim of the party, according to Mr. Blaine’s voluminous report, had been declared to be “the restoration of the government to the policy of its founders; its ideal of patriotism, the character of Washington; its vital philosophy, that of Jefferson; its watchwords, American enterprise and industry, Slavery sectional, Freedom national.”

The delegates of twelve Northern states withdrew from the Philadelphia convention, and left the New York and Southern delegates to their fate.

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

Jefferson has remarked, that “in the unequal contest between freedom and oppression, the Almighty had no attribute that could take part with the oppressor.” And yet the Democratic party, in violation of its name and prestige could invoke the shades of this great man; could continue its warfare upon the life of the nation, and its encroachments upon the constitution, and violation of a plighted faith wherever slavery 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 Henry Clay in the United States senate, “I repeat it, sir, I never can and I never will, and no earthly power can make me vote, directly or indirectly, to spread slavery over territory where it does not exist. Never, while reason holds its seat in my brain; never, while my heart sends its vital fluid through my veins, NEVER!”

Wm. H. Seward was battling against “the fall of constitutional liberty” in the senate. The Fugitive Slave Act had passed in 1850, and the Missouri Compromise abrogated in 1854, and now an extreme measure is pending to protect United States officers in the arrest of fugitive[120] slaves. Mr. Blaine prints the great speech in full. It had the true Republican ring.

Mr. Blaine’s final editorial for 1855, prior to the Republican convention, and first presidential campaign, is every way so fine a summary of the situation, and affords so clear a view of the man in all the moral earnestness of his powers and wide comprehension of the subject, that we give two or three extracts from his editorial in the Kennebec Journal of Dec. 28, 1855, on the “Condition of the Country”:—

[122]

VII.
IN THE LEGISLATURE.

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 voice of conscience on the moral questions of the nation. Money had stiffled it with some; for others the climate and location were not propitious; blight and mildew had struck some,—darkness to them was light, black was white. Some, perchance, held the truth in unrighteousness; trimmers and time-servers abounded. But the press and the pulpit had been great educators. God was in the contest, and it was beginning to be apparent. There were light and glory all about the sky, but reformations that reform, and revolutions that revolutionize have in them not only forceful, but voluntary powers. There are always those who will not be persuaded or won, on all grave questions. They must be passed by or overpowered.

To get men into position upon all questions[123] of the nation’s life and destiny, it is needful to first get the questions into position. Republicans had undertaken a herculean task. It was not the emancipation of slaves, but of the nation itself. The thraldom of a mighty woe was on her.

Mr. Blaine entered the year with the same great purpose, and the same bold enunciation of principles. He was a true knight. His pen was mightier than the sword. It was never idle, never cold. From home to office, and office to senate, and back to office and home he went, day by day, wherever truth and right could be served.

Washington’s birthday came soon, and with it the Republican gathering at Pittsburgh, and then the great convention that nominated Frémont and Dayton at Philadelphia, in the summer of 1856;—Blaine was there; it was on his native heather. Never had men listened so intently since the farewell address of Washington; rarely had they thought, and felt, and resolved so deeply. Conscience and will, intelligence and love, were in all they thought, and said, and did. They chose their men for standard-bearers, and fought out the hard, bitter fight. It was a good fight, and they kept the faith.

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

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

“This was his first public effort. He was then twenty-six years of age. Although remarkably ready and easy of speech and holding a practiced and powerful pen, he had an almost unconquerable repugnance to letting his voice be heard, except in familiar conversation, where his brilliant powers of statement and argument, his marvelous memory of dates and events in political history, and his acquaintance with, and keen estimate of the public men and parties of the day, were the delight and wonder of all who listened to him. The writer well recalls the trepidation, at once painful and ludicrous, with which he rose to address the meeting. In confronting the sea of faces, almost every one of which was known to him, he seemed to be struggling to master the terror that possessed him. He turned pale and red by turns, and almost tottering to the front, he stood trembling[125] until the generous applause which welcomed him had died away, when, by a supreme effort, he broke the spell, at first by the utterance of some hesitating words of greeting and thanks, and then gathering confidence, he went on with a speech which stirred the audience as with the sound of a trumpet, and held all present in breathless interest and attention to its close. From that moment Mr. Blaine took rank among the most effective popular speakers of the day; but it may be doubted if among the many maturer efforts of his genius and eloquence upon the political platform or the legislative tribune, he has ever excited an audience to a more passionate enthusiasm, or left a profounder impression upon the minds and hearts of his hearers.”

His editorials of this year would fill a large volume, and all bold, trenchant, and uncompromising in tone. His experience of the year before had just fitted him for this hard, strong work. The temptation is exceedingly great to make copious extracts, for it is our single effort to cause the man to appear in all the just and worthy splendor of his enduring manhood, and if a scar is found in all of wide research, no hand shall cover it.

Not alone the great cause, but the great men who 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 they incarnated. Henry Wilson was to him an inspiration. “All praise to the cold and lofty bearing of 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 party loomed up before him at full stature, and had a large place in his affections. They were the apostles of liberty to him.

The last year of Mr. Blaine’s journalistic career in Augusta was tame compared with other years, and yet the paper continued a splendid specimen of what the leading paper at the state capital ought to be,—rich in every department, and justly noted for the courage and acumen of its editorial writings.

The great presidential campaign had resulted in the election of James Buchanan, to whom the Richmond Enquirer immediately gave this friendly word of caution: “The president elect will commit a fatal folly if he thinks to organize his administration upon any other principle than that of an avowed and inflexible support of the rights and institutions of the slave-holding states. He who is not with us is against us, and the South cannot attach itself to an administration which occupies a neutral ground, without descending from its own lofty and impregnable position.”

[127]In announcing the cabinet of Mr. Buchanan and the Dred Scott decision in the same issue, Mr. Blaine says,—“The conquest of slavery is complete. President, cabinet, congress, judiciary, treasury, army, navy, the common territory of the union are all in its hands to be directed as its whims shall direct.” The five great acts in the drama of national shame and degradation he mentions as, “the Fugitive Slave Act, repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the raid on Kansas, election of James Buchanan, and the supreme court 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 to the iniquity to be overthrown by the Republican party in the next election. Five of the nine judges were from the South, and two of the others, Nelson and Grier, were selected with special regard to their fidelity to the slave-holding interests of the South.

But there was some honor and joy in the fact that Hannibal Hamlin was Governor of Maine, and United States senator elect. His inaugural address Mr. Blaine heads,—“A Paralytic Stroke.”

It was, indeed, a time for great men to speak out, and this Mr. Hamlin did with power. So greatly had the Journal prospered under the firm management of Stevens and Blaine, that they[128] removed from the office at the corner of Oak and Water Streets, which it had occupied for twenty-four years, and at great expense, added new and improved machinery. This had scarcely been done a month when Mr. Blaine’s name disappears from its management. He had sold his interest in the paper for “a good, handsome price,” and invested it all, beside money loaned from a brother-in-law, in coal lands in Pennsylvania.

He urged his partner, Mr. Stevens, to sell out his interest and do the same. This investment, says Mr. Stevens, was very fortunate, and has yielded him handsome returns. But Mr. Blaine was wanted on the Portland Daily Advertiser. John M. Wood, a man of wealth, owned it, and was looking around for an able editor. Mr. Blaine had acquired a reputation as editor, and was offered the position, which he accepted at three thousand dollars a year salary, but never removed to Portland.

This year of 1857 is remembered as the year of the great financial crash. It was anything but a crash to Mr. Blaine. He had sold his paper, which he had brought into a leading position in state journalism, at a large advance, made a profitable investment of his funds, gone on a salary of the first-class, for the time, and also been nominated and elected a member of[129] the state legislature, as one of the two representatives of the city of Augusta.

His popularity is seen in the fact that at the time of this seeming break-up, when if he had been a machine man with insatiable political aspirations he would certainly have held on to his paper, and parted with it at no price, he artlessly sells out and enters business about eighty miles from home. But the people wanted him. He would not leave their midst. He had served the cause of his espousal with ability and fidelity for three years, and the time had come to honor him.

It is not often that a man so young comes into an old established state, and in a time so brief makes for himself a name and a place so large.

It is only needful to read over the files of that paper from the first hour his pen touched it to see that he had made for himself a place so large. He had put himself into its columns, and so into the life both of the state and the nation. He lived, and thought, and wrought for that paper. That was the instrument of his power. The bold thunder of artillery is heard along its columns; the charge of cavalry and the sweep of infantry are seen and felt upon its pages. There is push, and dash, and rush, and swing, 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 the line. It was all upon the broad scale of the nation’s existence and welfare. He spoke the truth as such; he had no dreams to tell.

He took no vacation, but summer and winter was at his post. In July and August there is no relaxation, but the same dash of breakers on the shore. No wonder he was in demand elsewhere, and the fee was large. He was a business success, and had made a success of politics thus far. The first Republicans of Maine had gone into office mid the glow of his genius, and now his turn had come. It was a weekly before, but now it was a daily, and a seat in the legislature to fill beside. But he was abreast of the times, a full man, a large man, with immense capabilities of work, and a strong, tenacious memory, or he could never have done the work of two men steadily, and four men much of the time, and a man destined for leadership. He took to Portland all his powers, and soon was felt as fire is felt, or the rising sun, for foes and friends learned speedily of his presence. Every day was a field-day in politics then. It was a political revival all the year round. No ponds or pools were visible. There were currents in every stream. There was a mighty flood to the tides. The states[131] were raising men and building characters. They were mining gold and minting it. Life then was a Bessemer steel-process; the heat was intense, and hydraulic pressure drove out all impurities. The great columbiads that did the execution were cast before the war; they were large of calibre and deep of bore, and thoroughly rifled, for it was the men who manned the guns in war times who made the guns man the rebellion.

The clouds are drawing water and marshaling forces for the sweep of a mighty storm,—the storm of a righteous judgment, of a holy justice. It was God’s storm and must come. Already the lightning played furiously along the sky, and mutterings of thunder could be distinctly heard. The air grew thick, and heavy, and dark. All signs were ominous. From throne to cloud, and cloud to brain, and brain to pen, the electric current flew. Men were thinking the thoughts of God. They were being filled with his vision and armed with his purpose. No times were grander since men had pledged their lives, and fortunes, and sacred honor at the shrine of Liberty, for its perpetuation; and now their sons from heights of manhood just as lofty, were breathing the same spirit and plighting the same faith. How men stretch upward to a kingly height when such grand occasions come, or wither and waste like[132] froth on the billows that charge along the shore!

It was promotion to rank of greater influence when Mr. Blaine took his sceptre of power in Portland. Six times a week instead of once, he went out in teeming editorials to the people. Every department of the paper was enriched and felt the thrill of his presence. He was a graduate in journalism now. Its ways were all familiar. His study of it and experience had brought him the ability of hard, rapid work. It was the testimony of his old associate at Augusta, that he would go at once to the core of a subject, and get the wheat out of the chaff. The beginning and ending of an article, he said, were its heavy parts, and Mr. Blaine knew just where to look, whether in newspaper, review, or book.

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

Some men have a peculiar faculty for getting at what is going on. They seem to know by instinct. It is not always told them, but they are good listeners, as all great men are. They are men of great industry; search and research are ever the order with them.

Some men are sound asleep when the decisive hours of life are passing, others seem ever awake[133] It is this ability to see, and hear, and feel, to catch and ever know, that has made Mr. Blaine a living centre of the political intelligence of his time. As a student of history he had learned the ways of men and nations, the policies of governments, and the methods of their execution, their meteorology, mineralogy, and ways of navigation,—for nations have all of these, political weather, materials of construction, together with tides and currents in their affairs, besides rocks and reefs and coasts of danger. The right ways are always the great ways, the light the best ways.

All the light of any subject comes from the truth it holds within, and the man of mastery is the man of light and life and energy. It is unfilled capacity that makes of so many the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Unfed, untrained, and unworked minds have filled the world with wrecks.

Mr. Blaine is climbing the ladder now. Coming up out of the ranks, as some must come, with worth or worthlessness.

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

Soon after he entered the legislature Mr. Blaine encountered Ephraim K. Smart, one of the greatest men of his party, a man who had been in congress, and afterward was twice their candidate for governor. While in congress he had opposed the extension of slavery in Kansas, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise which limited slavery to the Southern states; but now, during the Buchanan régime, when the party seemed hopelessly sold to slavery, he went back on his record, swore by the party, and stood by its record, regardless of his own.

Mr. Blaine was thoroughly posted, and when the 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 enacted everywhere. Each hour brought the country nearer the verge of war. Our man was fearless and he was strong,—strong in the right, strong in his knowledge of the situation, strong in the command of his powers; so with his ever aggressive spirit of true progress, he hurled his lance. With a merciless skill he unfolded the history of the man, with all of its inconsistencies,[135] sophistry, and contradiction, and reaching the climax he held it up to view, and advancing towards him (his name was Ephraim), he said, with great dramatic power, “Ephraim is a cake unturned, and we propose to turn him.”

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

With this same spirit and power he did his work at Portland. His position afforded him the best opportunity for news of every sort, and his legislative work was largely in the line of his editorial, so that preparation for the one was fitness for the other. Yet life was full to the brim. He was a man of immense vitality, and is to-day, as almost daily intercourse with him can testify.

The first day of his duties in the legislature he is appointed chairman of a committee of five to inform the newly-elected governor, Lot M. Morrill, of his election. Thus he is recognized and honored as the chief one, worthy to represent the body in the presence of the governor.

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

As one of the chairmen of the State Prison committee of the house he delivers a long speech upon the 17th and 18th of March in reply to one delivered by the same Hon. E. R. Smart, who had opposed resolutions presented by Mr. Blaine’s committee upon improving the present prison and building another.

Mr. Smart was evidently the aggressor, and very much his senior in age, but Mr. Blaine sharply tells him that large portions of his speech were irrelevant, having been delivered the night before in a democratic meeting downtown; calls him the Earl of Warwick to the Democratic Plantagenets; compares him, with great vigor, to a character in Gil Blas, who had written a book in support of certain remedies sure to cure, and which, though utterly futile, he argued with a friend he must continue to practice, because he had written the book, and so Mr. Smart must inflict his speech because he had written it.

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

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

A careful examination of the proceedings of the legislature prove this to be a fact, that Mr. Blaine was a devoted, constant, and faithful member; that about every motion he made was carried; and that he ranked in ability as a speaker, both in matter and method, with the best of them. His three years’ work as an editor had made him well acquainted with its members, and thoroughly conversant with the ways of the house, so that he was thoroughly at home in their midst, with none of the nervous diffidence which a new member from the country, however good and honest he might be, would be very likely to have. He spoke about as he wrote. He had written about five hundred good, solid editorials in the previous years, as they issued a tri-weekly during the session of the legislature, and in reporting its doings had caught the drift of its operations.

[138]Moreover, he had a good business preparation for his work. He had been largely upon his own resources for ten years, and in the business management of his paper, and in studying up the business interests of the city and of the state, he had acquired experience and knowledge. No one, it would seem, can read the record of his speeches, short and long, or the motions he made, resolves he offered, without being impressed that he had a clear, strong way of looking at questions. He could tell the husk from the corn at a glance, and if he had anything to do with a member’s speech would tear off the husk without any ceremony and make quick search for the corn.

But the affairs of the country were in a bad way as Mr. Blaine was daily recording them. There had been over nine thousand business failures in the country in 1857 and 1858; or, to be exact, there were four thousand nine hundred and thirty-two in 1857, and four thousand two hundred and twenty-five in 1858, with a loss of three hundred and eighty-seven million four hundred and ninety-nine thousand six hundred and sixty-two dollars, a sum in those days of enormous proportion. Slave-holders, who had the power then, were urging the purchase of Cuba, at a cost of two hundred million dollars, for the purposes of slavery.

[139]The country seemed to be at a stand-still, or going backwards. The state of Vermont had increased in population but one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven in ten years, from 1850 to 1860.

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

Fessenden had been re-elected to the United States Senate, and New Hampshire had gone Republican.

But Stephen A. Douglas had beaten Abraham Lincoln for the senate from Illinois by a vote of fifty-eight to forty-four, and Seward had introduced his famous bill for the repression of the slave trade, just to bring the Southern senators into position on that subject, and this only a year before Lincoln was nominated. It provided for ten steamers, as a part of the navy, to cruise along the coast of Africa, as the president might direct.

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

Mr. Blaine deals with all the questions of the day with skill and effectiveness. A municipal election is going on in Portland, and Mr. Blaine does his part by tongue and pen to aid in achieving a Republican victory, which is triumphantly accomplished just as the legislature is[140] closing. But Mr. Blaine has time to deliver his best speech of the session, on Friday before final adjournment on Tuesday, April 5th, after a session of ninety days. Now he has nearly nine solid months of straight editorial work. The one great object is ever prominent,—slavery must go, or it must be restricted and kept out of the territories. The country is in great commotion; state after state fights out its battles and wheels into line. In border states, especially, political revolutions are taking place. The gospel of Liberty is taking the place of the hard political doctrines of pro-slavery Democracy. Mr. Blaine has to fire at long range, so efficiently has the work been done at home, but it is cheering to see the beacons lighted along the coast of Maine, and to know that the bonfires are lighted all over the state. Men have already been trained and gone forth to do yeoman service in other states. The Washburns are in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, while Israel Washburn, Jr., has just been elected governor of the home state.

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

He is in a position of power and influence now; he is in the third office of the state. His ability will be tested; great presence of mind, quickness of decision, tact, and skill are needful. But he is ready and at his ease. He has the knowledge requisite, and experience seems born of the man. He fits wherever placed. He must know each member, and he knows them; 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 Representatives of the state of Maine, not because of any one good quality,—he is excelled in single qualities by many another,—but because of a[142] large combination of good qualities, and these, cultivated to a high degree. This it is that wins; many a face is beautiful in some one or more of its features, but so distorted in others that the effect is bad, and beauty, which is the harmonious blending of many lines upon the canvas or features on the face, is lost. Character is 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 character is marred.

Thus it is not so much the symmetry as the large and splendid combination of talents and genius which make him what he is. He simply does his best, and keeps himself at his best all the time. He anticipates every occasion, and has forces in reserve all the time, and they are brought forward, if his tactics are not known, very unexpectedly. The most telling points in all his earlier speeches are not brought out at first, and when they do appear you wonder why he did not produce them before, and this very wonder increases its power on you. This is rather a necessity, it would seem, because there is point and pith, and power all through.

A great year of destiny is before the nation; a mighty, conquering battle-year. Slavery refuses any concessions, and Liberty loves itself too well[143] to be compromised. The great convention of Republicans in the old wigwam in Chicago is an event of so great importance that all minor events dwindle before it. James G. Blaine is there.

Excitement is at the highest pitch. The tone and temper of the North is felt and feared. The old Democratic party is shattered into fragments. It has several wings, but no body. The Union seems on the verge of dissolution. But strong men, tried and true, who cannot be brow-beaten and crushed; men who have not been deceived or intimidated, or despoiled of their convictions since the Whig party sold out to Slavery in 1852; men who have waited eighteen long, eventful years for the iron to get hot enough to strike, are there; there in their power; there, not to become demoralized, and drop their guns and run, but to stand firm and strong in a mighty phalanx, and do tremendous battle for tremendous right against tremendous wrong.

William H. Seward is the choice of men, but Abraham Lincoln is the choice of God. He has been fitting and training him for half a century, much as he trained Moses, the great leader and emancipator of his ancient people. They try in vain to elect their man. The way is hedged up; ballot after ballot is taken, but it cannot[144] be done. Finally, the moment comes, and “honest old Abe” is crowned by the hand of a remarkable Providence, and God’s will is done.

Men shake their heads, but high yonder on his throne the King does his thinking. All is clear to him. Well-nigh a century of prayer is to be answered.

Mr. Blaine’s description of the sessions and impressions at Chicago, make the great, inspiring scenes live before the imagination, and show how his broad, eager mind took it all in.

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

He had no vote then, but he had a voice and a pen. From that time he was a great admirer and friend of Mr. Evarts. This convention greatly enlarged Mr. Blaine’s knowledge of men and acquaintance with them.

The party in the four years since Frémont and Dayton had been nominated at Philadelphia, under[145] the goading provocations of Buchanan’s administration, the frequent exhibition of the horns and hoofs of Slavery, and the unwearied agitation in congress, and in every state, county, and town of the North, the East, and the West, had made a sturdy, constant, determined growth, a development of back-bone, and a kindling of nerve that imparted courage and sent joy to the heart.

It brought into the life of Mr. Blaine, more than ever, the life and grandeur, the power and greatness of the party to which he had wedded his destiny, giving his hand and his heart. He was in complete sympathy with every principle and every measure. No man living more fully, and clearly, and strongly, represents the ideas and purposes of the men then at the front,—the leading men to whom was entrusted the guidance and responsibility, for he himself was then at the front,—than does he.

He is, and has been, right through, the defender and conservator of all that was dear, and precious, and grand, then. Few men did more to help elect Mr. Lincoln, or to make his administration a power in the North. He was under fire constantly, but then he was firing constantly himself, and doing execution that told every hour for the 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 the side of Slavery that could command all the forces. It had come to be in fact a house divided against itself. Their convention at Charleston was broken up, and Mr. Douglas nominated at Baltimore, and two other candidates, Breckenridge and Bell, elsewhere. The serpent seemed stinging itself to death. But in the great party of the North there is a solid front, no waver along the entire line. They simply fight their great political battle after the true American style of the Fathers, in a most just and righteous manner, and for a cause most just and righteous.

Mr. Blaine was on the stump, as he had been the year before, making speeches that the people loved to hear. The campaign usually closed in Maine in September, when the state officers were elected, and as the convention in Chicago was held in May, they had but three months to do the work that other states did in five months. Owing to the illness of his old friend and business partner, he edited the Kennebec Journal for five or six months during the summer and autumn of 1860, so that he was back upon his old ground during the great campaign, sitting at the same 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 go farther, do more, and get back quicker than any other man, and seemingly remember everybody.

Ex-Gov. Anson P. Morrill, his old political friend and neighbor says, “I would go out and address perhaps an acre of people, and be introduced to a lot of them, and like enough, in six months or a year, along would come a man and say, ‘How are you? Don’t you know me?’ and I would say ‘No,’ and then the man would turn and go off; but Blaine would know him as soon as he saw him coming, and say, ‘Hello,’ and call him by name right off.

“There,” he said, and he laid his gold-bowed spectacles on the table, and continued, “a little better than a year ago he was in here, and we sat at this table, and the spectacles laid there, and he took them up and said, as he looked at them closely, ‘If those are not the very same gold-bowed spectacles you bought in Philadelphia in 1856.’

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

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

“And that,” said the governor, “was twenty-six years before. Now did you ever hear of anything like that? I didn’t. Why, I’d even forgotten[148] that he was there. I tell you that beat me; and I asked him ‘what made you think of it now?’

“‘O, I don’t know,’ said Mr. Blaine, ‘I just happened to see them lying there, and thought of it.’

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

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

“‘O, yes, it is, at times.’”

Gov. A. P. Morrill is a fine sample of a real down-east Yankee, of the old style; a man of sterling worth and integrity, and of the hardest of common sense, and takes a special pride in Mr. Blaine, as he was at one time of great assistance to him in a political way.

“The first time I saw Blaine,” he said, “was the night before my inauguration; he called at my hotel and wanted a copy of my address. He was simply a young man then, very pleasant in his manner. But how he has grown. Yes, that is the secret of it; he has been a growing man ever since, and so he has come right up and gone right along.”

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

It is interesting to note the position of parties or presidential candidates at this time. Mr. Lincoln would prohibit by law the extension of slavery. This was exactly the position of the candidate with him for vice-president, the Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, a strong friend of Mr. Blaine.

Mr. Hamlin had originally been a Democrat of the Andrew Jackson type, but when the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited the extension of slavery, was repealed, he entered the Republican party at its formation, and as candidate for governor in Maine in 1856, was a powerful factor 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 to procure for slavery other portions of the fair domain of Liberty to despoil. This, of course made him unpopular in the South, where the demand was for more states to conquer for our “peculiar institution.” The cry of the Douglas Democrats,—and they counted their wide-awakes by the thousand, who marched with torch and[150] drum,—“The Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was.” The Bell and Everett faction were simply for saving the Union without telling how.

What a field these four great armies, each with its chosen leader, occupied, and each conducting a hot, fierce campaign, determined to win, and determined to believe they would win. Slavery was the great disturbing element. It was all a question of how to deal with this monster.

Mr. Lincoln was elected, and Blaine was again on the winning side.

But Mr. Blaine had another great interest in the political campaign of this year. A Mr. Morse, of Bath, had been in congress from another part of the third Maine district, in which Augusta is located, and it was thought time for a change, and Gov. A. P. Morrill wanted Blaine to run, but Morse was a strong man and Blaine was young, and a new man comparatively, and though he was speaker of the House of Representatives, he thought it not prudent at that time to subject himself to such a test. “Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.”

Mr. Blaine was in a good position, and growing rapidly, and so he urged the strong and sagacious governor to try it himself, and Blaine went into the campaign and helped achieve the[151] victory,—for victory it was by seven thousand majority.

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

Mr. Blaine is a man of caution and carefulness, because he is a man of great thoughtfulness and deliberation. When he has thought a subject through, and it is settled, and he feels just right, he is ready, and his courage rises, and so he moves with great power and determination. If the action seems rash to any, it is because they are not informed upon a subject upon which he is conversant.

Mr. Blaine had seen his man nominated at Chicago, and triumphantly elected over a stupendous, well-organized, and desperate opposition. He himself is returned to the legislature. His friend, Ex-Gov. A. P. Morrill, is secured for congress, and Israel Washburn, Jr., a grand Republican, elected governor over the man who felt and learned to fear the power of Mr. Blaine in the legislature[152] the year before, Ephraim K. Smart. But, notwithstanding all of these triumphs, and the prospective cleansing and regeneration of the country, the present condition is most appalling.

Secession is the chief topic throughout the South, and in every debating society in every college, and in every lyceum in every town or city, the question is being discussed with the greatest warmth, “Can a Southern state secede?” or “Can the government coerce a state?” The old doctrine of state rights and state sovereignty is the form of the topic in other quarters.

With many the question was clear on the asking of it; with others the constitutional powers of self-preservation, of self-existence, and self-perpetuation had to be presented with the arguments and the acumen of a statesman. Perhaps Mr. Blaine, as an editor, never dealt with a question in a more masterly way. It was the question of the hour continually forcing itself upon attention.

It was the constant assertion of the Southern press that they would. They believed all sorts of unkind things about the great and kindly Lincoln. The fact is, the South had never before been defeated in a contest for the presidency when slavery was involved in the issue. This was their pet and idol. They would guard it at all hazards. Fanaticism they regarded as[153] the animus of the anti-slavery movement, and an abolitionist to them was a malefactor.

A grave responsibility now was on those who “broke down the adjustments of 1820, and of 1850.” But the year was closing, and the glare of a contest more fierce than that through which we had passed, was on the nation. It seemed inevitable. They had grown so narrow, intolerant, and cruel, that the light of present political truth did not penetrate them.

“Southern statesmen of the highest rank,” said Mr. Blaine, “looked upon British emancipation in the West Indies as designedly hostile to the prosperity and safety of their own section, and as a plot for the ultimate destruction of the Republic.” They were suspicious, and filled with alarm; and it was needless, as the action of Mr. Lincoln in proclaiming emancipation was only when, in the second year of the war, it was necessary.

The era of peace seems breaking with the hand of cruel war. It was night to them, but a glorious day to us.

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

At a time when it was rumored that armed men were drilling by the thousands in Virginia and Maryland, for the invasion of Washington before February, so as to prevent the announcement[154] in congress of Lincoln’s election, in the same issue of the Kennebec Journal, was a poem by John G. Whittier, closing with these lines:—

[155]

VIII.
SPEAKER OF THE MAINE LEGISLATURE.

NO one read the signs of the times with a clearer understanding of their significance, all through the winter and spring of 1861, than the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Legislature of Maine. The great duties that devolved upon him filled his mind with every important matter, but the overshadowing interests were all national,—the present and future of the country. They had become accustomed to threats and fears; this had grown to be the normal condition of the public mind. But the short, sharp question “What is the latest from Charleston, Richmond” and other points of prominence and activity in the South, showed how squarely up to the times people of the North were living; how loyal and zealous for the nation the masses were.

It was a higher compliment, in times so great in 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 in the House.

Known and acknowledged worth could have been the only argument for an action so personal to the honor of the state and its power in the Union, and helpfulness to the nation in an emergency imminent with danger.

This man of one and thirty is lifted over the heads of old and respected citizens of soundest integrity. Is it an experiment, or do they know their man? The state has called to the helm a man who has been ten years in the congress of the United States; a man of largest experience and profoundest wisdom, nearly twice the age of the young speaker. But no mistake is made. He read in his youth books that Governor Morrill is reading to-day at the age of eighty-one; he has been a college-graduate for nearly fourteen years, and has won his present distinction upon the floor of the house where he now presides.

His duties are manifold. He must preside over the deliberations of the House, be a good parliamentarian, prompt and accurate in his decisions, as well as fair and impartial. He is dealing with freemen and citizens, and representatives of the people of the entire state. He must know every member, not by name, and[157] face, and location in the House, but in characteristics and accomplishments, all the great interests of the state, as a whole, of its different sections, and in its Federal relations, so that he may wisely appoint the twenty-one important committees. He must know the business, education, experience, residence, and political principles of every member, so that he may know just who 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 he must use them all. He must select two chairmen for each committee, and choose six or eight others to act with them, putting some of the more valuable men on several committees,—all must be treated with honor and fairness.

What did those one hundred and forty-four men see in James G. Blaine, away back in the stormy, perilous times of 1861, that led them to select him for that high and honorable position? He had not been a citizen of Maine six years, and had been in political life, officially, only two years. It was the man they saw, strong and splendid, just the man for the hour. They felt, instinctively, they could trust him; they knew him to be loyal and true, and capable, by the testimony 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 by his side, no one to say I have known him from childhood, and can recommend him as worthy of all honor, and all praise. He brought with him simply the name his mother gave him, with no prefix and no affix. He lived in no mansion, rode in no carriage, was attended by no courtiers in livery; he had no returns to make, no promises to give. The whole of him sat before them,—a refined and courteous gentleman, an elegant gentleman.

They could not mistake the powerful combination. They saw and felt its worth, and so the great party which had just come into power in the nation by electing its first president, honors itself 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 energy and despatch.

But the great war for the Union is coming. The peace convention called by Virginia amounts to nothing. Mr. Crittenden’s resolutions are futile, though most conventions adopt them in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Southern states are actually seceding.

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

While these patriotic cheers were resounding through the old halls of Independence, the traitorous secretaries of the navy and of war were sending vessels to southern ports and forts. Thirty-three officers, among whom was Albert Sidney Johnson, abandon their regiments of the regular army in Texas, and join the rebels. But Lincoln is inaugurated, and the most pacific measures employed, but all of no avail; determined, desperate men are ruling the destiny of the South.

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

[160]Mr. Blaine has shown that she had increased in ten years before the war three thousand millions of dollars, and this not from over-valuation of slaves, but from cultivation of the land by new and valuable appliances of agriculture. One state alone,—Georgia,—had increased in wealth three hundred millions of dollars. But South Carolina had commenced in October,—before Mr. Lincoln’s election even,—her correspondence upon the subject of secession. No wonder she was ready in the April following to inaugurate the war of the Rebellion.

Mr. Blaine’s life could not be put into the nation, nor the life of any strong, true man, at a time when it would be more valuable than now. Men were men in earnest. They rose to par, and some, by a mathematical process which redoubles energy and intensifies life, are cubed or squared or lifted to the hundredth power; a premium is on them; they are invaluable.

The governor issues his call for ten thousand men from Maine. Will Mr. Blaine go? Mr. Garfield is in the state senate of Ohio, and president 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 aside the dress of a major-general on Saturday to enter the national House of Representatives, a[161] congressman in citizen’s dress, the following Monday.

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

He stays, while many, like Garfield, go to return to do the statesman’s work and make available the resources of the nation, and strengthen the hands of the brave men at the front.

This was a work of vast importance in the conduct of the war. It was power that was felt by both governor and president, by army and navy. Mr. Blaine was on terms of intimacy with the governor of his state,—a firm supporter of a faithful man. Very soon he was instrumental in raising two regiments, and rallied thousands more to the standard of the Union.

He became at this time chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, and continued in this position for twenty years. He planned every campaign, selected the speakers, fixed[162] dates and places for them, and so arranged all details, that no man of his ever disappointed an audience. He knows the time of departure and arrival of every train. He must do his part to see that the legislature continues Republican, that the governor and his council are Republican, that congressmen and senators of the United States are Republican, and that the war-power of the state is not broken.

The great question for him to aid largely in settling is the worth of the state of Maine to the nation. She must have governors that are in full sympathy with the president; congressmen and senators that uphold his administration.

In North’s History of Augusta, a valuable work of nearly a thousand pages, it is recorded of Mr. Blaine that “probably no man in Maine exerted a more powerful influence on the patriotic course pursued than he. Ever active, always watchful, never faltering, he inspired confidence in the cause of the Union in its darkest days.”

At the close of the first session of the legislature over which Mr. Blaine presided, the leading Democrat in the House, a Mr. Gould, from Thomaston, arose after remarks of great pathos and tenderness, and presented this resolution:—

He bore testimony to the “marvelous despatch with which the formal parts of the business had been done, and so the session greatly shortened.”

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

This was on the 18th of March, and on the 22d of April, the war having broken out, they were assembled again in extra session, Mr. Blaine in the chair. In three days and a half provisions were made for raising troops and money for the war, and legislation pertaining to militia-laws[164] was enacted, etc. The wildest rumors filled the air. The country seemed transformed at once into a turbulent sea, but men did not lose their reckoning. Latitude and longitude were things too deeply fixed and broadly marked to be unseen or ignored. 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 reeling with the shock of war.

Never did the beauty and worth of federal states appear to better advantage than when the impoverished and plundered government called on them for aid. It was the parent’s call upon her children for defence against their own misguided sisters. Never was mechanism more finely adjusted, or power more equally balanced, than in the Republic. Very distinct and separate are head and feet and hands, eyes and ears, yet nothing is more perfect in its unity.

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

While eighty thousand of the foe are opposing thirty-five thousand of our troops at Manassas Junction, and Colonel Ellsworth is losing his life[165] at Alexandria; while Stephen A. Douglas is delivering in early June his last eloquent words, straight and heroic for the nation; while the bankers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia are casting one hundred and fifty millions of dollars into the national treasury at Washington, and the brave General Lyon with eight thousand men is routing twenty-three thousand of the enemy in Missouri, at the cost of his life,—while all the activities of that first summer of war are going on, Mr. Blaine is facing a political storm of great severity, as general-in-chief in the campaign that places Israel Washburn, Jr., again in the gubernatorial chair of the state, and keeps the reins of government in Republican hands.

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

No one thinks their patriotism less intense, or that of cabinet, or senators and members of the house, or governors and council, or members of legislatures 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 feet is all the same.

Mr. Blaine was re-elected to his accustomed place in the legislature of the state. The terrific war rages on. The demand for troops increases,—is indeed quadrupled,—and the state must be brought up to her quota by methods the wisest and best. And again and again the clarion voice of the speaker of the House rings over the state with no uncertain sound. Companies and regiments are formed, and these must be filled. The fires burning so brightly, must burn brighter. Intense love must be intensified. The news of terrible battles thrills over the state almost daily. The romance of war is over. Its gilt edge is gone. It is hard, desperate, bloody work. Their sons and brothers and fathers are falling by the score and hundred at the front. The bloody work has been done at Ball’s Bluff and Port Royal. Sons of Maine are in Libby Prison and at Belle Isle.

The hard, serious question is discussed in every home. It fills the dreams of yeomanry,—“Shall I go?” “Can I go?” All that is sacred in business and religion in home and country is the question. Men are lifted by appeals almost divine in eloquence, above any petty consideration, to the grave question of the nation’s life and destiny. Their names go down by scores[167] and hundreds. Regiments and brigades seem born in a day. They come from all ranks and conditions,—from pulpit and press, from farm and shop, from bank and office, and store and halls of state,—and are transformed in an hour from citizens to soldiers, and march away to the front. Steamer and car swarm with them.

The music dies away down the river, and they are gone,—gone perhaps forever. Good-byes are cherished in heart of hearts, and kisses from mother, father, lover, friend, are carried away like cameos of thought, the sacred things of memory.

In the autumn we find Mr. Blaine in Washington, probably for the first time, but not in official relations to the government. He must have a nearer view of the great scenes being enacted. He must know the men who are wielding the nation’s power, and put his finger on the pulse of war, and gather material for the more intense activity his work at home assumes. He must see the great-hearted Lincoln, and shake his hand, and give him cheer.

Fessenden, Hamlin, and Morrill are there, for congress is in session in a city fortified, and its streets patrolled by soldiers. Andrew Johnson is the only senator present from eleven seceded states. Breckenridge, mortified by the vote of his state, and the rebuke and the castigation the dead Douglas had given him in the early spring,[168] was present from Kentucky; and Lane and Pomeroy were in their seats from the new, free state of Kansas, as her first senators. And the two Union senators were there,—Messrs. Willy and Carlisle,—from the western portion of seceded Virginia. Only five free states had other than Republican senators. Bright, Breckenridge, and Polk were expelled.

Chase, and Cameron, and Seward had entered the cabinet, but an impressive array of talent remained in the senate, to be studied by our rising young statesman to best advantage. Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson were there from Massachusetts; Zachariah Chandler, and Bingham, of Michigan; Wilkinson of Minnesota; John P. Hale and Daniel Clark, of New Hampshire; Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman, of Ohio; Wilmot and Cowan, of Pennsylvania; James R. Doolittle and Timothy O. Hone, of Wisconsin. Jacob Collamore, formerly in General Taylor’s cabinet, a ripe, 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 where he himself was destined to have a career so famous and honorable alike to himself, his state, and the nation. There was his friend, Anson P. Morrill, who had desired him to take the nomination to congress the present session, rather than[169] himself, and Galusha A. Grow, from his native state, a member of the convention which has just nominated him for the presidency, and of the committee notifying of the same, was then in the chair to be reserved for him as speaker of that house. Thaddeus Stevens, fearless, able, of intrepid spirit and strong character, the best hater of slavery on the continent, hating even those who did not hate it, was the natural leader of the House, assuming his place by common consent. He attracted Mr. Blaine’s special attention.

John Hickman and Edward McPherson were with him from Pennsylvania; and from New York there were Reuben E. Fenton, experienced and strong 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 congress when but twenty-nine years of age, and had exhibited a readiness and elegance in debate that placed him at once in the front rank. His command of language was remarkable. In affluent and exhuberant diction Mr. Conkling was never surpassed 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 and Rollins, from the battle-field. Crittenden, who had been six times elected to the senate, in two cabinets, appointed to the supreme bench, was then in the house, seeking with Charles A. Wickliffe, to save Kentucky to the Union, against the treasonable conspiracies of Breckenridge. With Crittenden and Wickliffe strong for the Union, were Robert Mallory, James S. Jackson, and William H. Wadsworth, keeping up the almost even balance of power in their state. Gilman Marston was there from New Hampshire, soon to become conspicuous in the field. Justin S. Morrill from Vermont, Frederick A. Pike, and the brother of senator Fessenden from Maine, in company with Ex-Gov. Anson P. Morrill. Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana had strong men there also, as did Iowa and Minnesota.

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

[171]It must have been the dawn of an era of new inspirations and of fresh aspirations, to look in upon such a body of men, only a few of the leaders of whom we have mentioned.

Anson P. Morrill had written him, six months before he let anyone else into the secret, that he should not run again for congress. His business required his attention, having extensive woolen mills some twelve miles from Augusta, and he did not enjoy life at Washington, and away from home.

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

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

Second, because he had just conducted, as chairman of the State Central Committee of the Republican party, a campaign, re-electing Governor Washburn, and himself to the legislature, and thus fighting unto victory the home-battle of the Union, meanwhile pushing hard and successfully the editorial work of the Daily Advertiser at Portland.

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

An old citizen high in state office to-day, who heard him frequently, says “he won the people by the skill and comprehensiveness with which he analyzed and argued the great questions of the time.”

He also said “that his editorials in the Journal of that summer and autumn, when Mr. Stevens, his old partner, was sick, furnished all the material for the campaign.” He gathered up and 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 warmed his great heart toward him. And then it was upon that same tidal wave of influence, sweeping out from the depths of that fresh, young life, that Mr. Morrill himself was swept into his seat in congress.

The Democrats had up for governor their strong man that year, Ephraim K. Smart, who had been several terms in congress, and made the 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 with great facility”; facts, figures, faces, he knew them all, and impressed the people, even the old campaigners, with a boundlessness of political and historical knowledge that is distinctly remembered to this day.

They have gotten use to this sort of thing up in Maine, and talk like men who reached their conclusions years ago. Their minds were made up as to the man in Augusta, at least over a quarter of a century ago, away back in 1856, some of them when, fresh from the Philadelphia convention, he made his Frémont and Dayton speech, twenty-eight years ago, and he has simply been expanding, and enlarging, filling up, and growing ever since. He has been watched[174] with eager pride and rejoiced in with the devotion of brothers and friends, as wave after wave of his majestic influence has dashed across the boundary lines of the state, and broken over the nation.

It would have been something unaccountable if every round of the ladder had not been touched at last by him, and yet there is no fatality about it. He was no child of destiny, but of industry; no creature of chance, but of choice; not of luck, but of pluck; not of fortune, but of fortitude; not of circumstance, but of courage and consecrated energy.

He returned home from his first view of Washington with larger views of the nation’s greatness, and the fierceness of the contests that were testing her strength, and a holier ambition to make every power tell for Liberty’s victory, and the nation’s emancipation from wrong, and her projection upon a loftier career of service among the nations of the earth.

The state could not hold him long after the revelation of these few brief days and weeks. But he could wait his time, meanwhile reorganizing all the forces at his command for victory of a larger kind, and in a larger field than had fallen to his lot. And why not? He was fast outgrowing the places filled thus far, and others were opening to him without the asking.

[175]The plans for the new year are all laid before the old year dies. Then he shall stand nearer the seat of war; then he shall study questions and characters, plans and persons, opinions, policies, and principles, all the great states and machinery of government. His home shall be in the great city and centre of the land, where authority, wisdom, and power reside, and where no excellence but is in demand, no great, shining quality but shall shine amid a thousand reflections, and name and place shall but increase each power to serve and save the nation’s life.

[176]

IX.
SECOND TERM AS SPEAKER.

ON Jan. 1, 1862, Mr. Blaine was re-nominated by acclamation, and re-elected by an almost unanimous vote, Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. The war was enlarging the demand for legislation. All great national issues must be discussed by the state legislatures, and the demand for their adoption sprung from the people, a knowledge of whose will could be best gained in this way. Resolutions were discussed as regards confiscating the slaves, and arming them in the nation’s defence, and so the representatives in congress were instructed and encouraged, and their actions brought up as legislative measures and endorsed.

Grave suspicions existed at this time in the minds of many in the state of Maine, in view of the attitude of the British nation towards the United States, and the feeling of a portion of the British people, as developed by the Mason and Slidell affair, and the blockade-runners fitted[177] out in British ports. The exposed condition of the coast and boundary line of Maine, had caused national alarm upon this subject to center largely in the state.

“For more than four hundred miles,” said the governor, Israel Washburn, Jr., in his inaugural address of January, 1862, “this state is separated from the British Provinces of New Brunswick and Canada by a merely imaginary line. Of the deep and bitter hostility to this country of large numbers of the people, we have now, unhappily,” he goes on to say, “the most indubitable proofs.

“Upon the coast of Maine there are more deep, accessible harbors, capable of being entered by the largest ships of war, than can be found on the entire coast-line of the slave-holding states; and yet since she entered the federal Union in 1820, less than half has been expended for her coast protection and improvement than was expended within ten years for the building of a custom-house in the single city of Charleston.”

The old adage, “In time of peace prepare for war,” had not been followed, and now commissioners are sent to Washington to present the facts regarding Maine’s defenseless condition, and the engineer department was directed, by order of Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, to send a[178] competent officer to examine and report upon the subject.

This is one of the topics filling the mind of Maine statesmen of this time, and its importance is so presented and impressed, that on Jan. 17, one hundred thousand dollars was appropriated for Fort Knox on the Penobscot River, Maine, one hundred thousand dollars for the fort on Hog Island, Portland Harbor, and fifty thousand dollars each for these two forts the following year.

Seldom were there so many bills of great importance to the state and nation before the legislature, as at this and subsequent sessions. But most of the time the speaker sat quietly in his chair, exercising the functions of his office. Men seemed to be growing into greatness at a single session; speeches of great effectiveness, and eloquent with patriotic ardor, came to be a daily occurrence.

Union victories began to cheer the nation. General Thomas at Mill Springs, Ky., had fought and won a glorious day. Forts Henry and Donelson had fallen, and hordes of rebels had surrendered. Nashville was occupied by Union troops, and Andrew Johnson was appointed governor of Tennessee. Indeed, he was descending the steps of the Capitol 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 we are about to call special attention.

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

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

The resolutions were sent to the House for concurrence, and were there referred to the committee of the whole. On the 6th and 7th of March, Mr. Gould, of Thomaston, made an elaborate argument against them. At the conclusion of his remarks he was replied to by Mr. Blaine, Speaker of the House. The resolutions were subsequently adopted by the House in concurrence with the Senate, by yeas one hundred and four, nays twenty-six.

Mr. Gould had spoken for seven hours against the resolutions. The House had gone into committee of the whole, with Mr. Frye, the present United States senator, in the chair. The senate was present in a body, on one side, the governor and his council on the other, and as many as could enter, filled the galleries and[181] vacant spaces, when Mr. Blaine, then but thirty-two years of age, took up the gage of battle, and spoke for two hours, and so utterly demolished the premises and conclusions of his powerful antagonist as to carry the resolution through the House with but few dissenting voices.

Mr. Blaine had been re-elected Speaker of the House by a vote of one hundred and thirty-five out of one hundred and forty, at the present session. All eyes were turned to him as the man for the occasion.

His old paper, the Kennebec Journal, with which he had had no official connection for three years, says of the speech:—

“Never, in the legislative history of Maine, has there been such an opportunity for a forensic effort as was presented in the House of Representatives on Friday afternoon, at the close of the seven hours’ speech of Hon. A. P. Gould on the national resolutions. The expectation of the legislature was that Hon. James G. Blaine would speak in defense of the principles and the measures by which the Federal government will be able to crush the Rebellion and restore the Republic to that true and certain basis on which it was originally established. Mr. Blaine’s speech occupied two hours, and was fully equal to the anticipations of the unconditional friends of the[182] government. From beginning to close it was crowded with arguments and salient facts, interspersed with due proportion of wit, satire, invective and telling hits against the doctrines and positions of his opponent. It showed, with great clearness and strength, that the power of confiscating the slaves of rebels belongs to congress, and to no other power. It adhered firmly to the long-recognized principle that the safety of the Republic is the supreme law, before which every pecuniary interest must give way, and advancing in this broad highway, so clearly defined by the highest authorities of international law, and so luminous with the best light of history, the speaker made a complete overthrow of the sophistry and disloyalty of those who plead the defences of the constitution for the security of traitors, as against the necessities of the Republic. The speech was brilliantly eloquent, conclusive in argument, and in all essential particulars was a success which cannot fail to add to the reputation of the author.”

We give some extracts from the speech of Mr. Blaine:—

The stormy and brilliant session was drawing to a close. The speaker had achieved the great triumph of the winter. Others had made grand and effective speeches. It could scarcely be otherwise. Soldiers were encamped about the city; camp-fires were burning; martial music was filling the air; Colonel Nickerson had marched his Fourteenth Regiment of Maine Volunteers through Augusta, and had come to a “parade rest” on Water Street; troops were coming and troops were going; the papers were filled with news from every quarter, containing even Jeff. Davis’ message to the rebel congress. All was life and animation. Events were hastening to the emancipation[188] of the slave. It was the demand of the hour. From soldier in the field, citizen in the home and place of business, and from resolute, far-seeing statesmen in congressional halls, came the imperative call to “free and arm the slaves!”

Will the negro fight? was a question gravely discussed over the North. Fred. Douglas, the colored orator of that time, was asked it by the president of Rochester University, and the keen-eyed man replied,

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

“Well,” said the genial and scholarly president, Martin B. Anderson, with a merry twinkle in 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 with all possible promptness,” the legislature adjourned. “During the past two years,” the record says, “with the same presiding officers in the senate and 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 single appeal from their decisions.”

It is also said that the high character of the legislature of 1862 stands unrivalled in Maine, in members of legislative experience, men of practical business talent, men learned and ready in[189] debate, men wise in political action and patriotic in purpose. Surely it were an honor to stand at the head of such a body of men.

Very soon the Third Congressional Convention would be held to nominate the successor to A. P. Morrill. The three counties embraced in the district,—Kennebec, Somerset, and Lincoln,—sent to the legislature six senators and twenty-eight representatives.

The district is an extensive one, embracing seventy-five towns, and extending from the Atlantic to the Canada line, inhabited by an intelligent and influential body of freemen, deeply interested in the welfare of the country, and devoted to the principles and purposes of the administration of Abraham Lincoln. The unqualified and emphatic declination of Mr. Morrill to be a candidate for re-election, rendered it necessary to take a new man for the position.

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

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

[190]This is the simple record, and Mr. Blaine was declared nominated, and “the result was made unanimous with enthusiasm and mutual congratulations.” He was brought in, and with something of sober diction, evidently feeling the greatness of the honor and the responsibility upon him, he only pledged his best intentions and most earnest efforts to serve the constituency of the district to the best of his ability, should he be elected.

“If so, I shall go with a determination to stand heartily and unreservedly by the administration of Abraham Lincoln. In the success of that administration, in the good providence of God, rests, I solemnly believe, the fate of the Union.

“Perish all things else,” he exclaims, “the nation’s life must be saved. If slavery or any other institution stands in the way, it must be removed. I think the loyal masses are rapidly adopting the idea that to smite the rebellion, its malignant cause must be smitten. Perhaps we are slow in coming to it, and it may be even now we are receiving our severe chastisement for not more readily accepting the teachings of Providence.

“It was the tenth plague which softened the heart of Pharaoh and caused him to let the oppressed go free. That plague was the sacrificing[191] of the first-born in every household, and with the sanguinary battle-fields, whose records of death we are just reading, I ask you in the language of another, how far off are we from the day when our households will have paid that penalty to offended heaven?”

After his nomination Mr. Blaine went on a short visit to his old home in Washington, Penn. His mother was still living; many friends and relatives, 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, with a certainty of election. He had come on a visit to the old scenes of childhood, and early manhood, and could present himself to them as he soon did to the nation, covered with honor.

He returned just in time to attend a great mass-meeting in Augusta. The two calls for troops, each for three hundred thousand, were out. Senator Lot M. Morrill, a brother of the ex-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 he appeared, burning with enthusiasm, and kindled all hearts with his presence and patriotic appeals.

On Monday, Sept. 8, 1862, Mr. Blaine was first elected to congress. Although it was a[192] state campaign in which he was elected, conducted by Mr. Blaine in person, aided by able lieutenants and a governor,—five congressmen and a host of minor officials were to be elected,—the work was prosecuted with vigor.

A draft is threatened. Maine’s quota must be filled, and it was during this same month of September the Emancipation Proclamation appeared, and two months later General McClellan was relieved, and General Burnside put in command of the army of the Potomac.

The great events of national importance would of course over-shadow all state matters of minor importance, comparatively, and to which the public mind was accustomed. Beside, the mind and heart of the new congressman were full of the nation’s interest. Women were going to the front as nurses,—more than forty had gone from one town in Maine; the Mississippi was open now clear to the Gulf; General Butler was in New Orleans. Volumes of history were made in a day, much of it unwritten history, traced only in saddened faces, swollen, tearful eyes, in nights of watchings, in sobs and sighs, and long farewells, in fields billowed with mounds, and in the dark shadows that even now will not be chased away from many a heart, from many a hearth-stone. How little is ever heard or known of the dark dreamings still of a multitude[193] all silent and alone, when night is on the earth.

Mr. Blaine encountered one of the hard-headed men, yet men of harder hearts, during his campaign up in Clinton township, a hard, Democratic hold. General Logan used to call them copperheads down in southern Illinois during the war. They have mostly emigrated since then. At the close of the speech one of them arose up and said,—a fellow of grizzly beard,

“Well, young man, you’ve made a right smart speech, but if it is a sin to hold slaves, how about Gineral Washington?”

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

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

“Manu, what?”

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

“O yes,” and the man sat down.

In his stump speeches effectiveness is his chief object, and he strives with all the power in him[194] to conquer his foe, and is fully determined to do it. He ascertains his weak point, and assaults him there. He does not apply his battering-ram all over the wall, but on that particular place of weakness. He sees the strong points, and has been noted for his ability to see almost at a glance, the strong and weak points of a bill. This has served him when canvassing for large majorities. He would study the enemy thoroughly, know him without mistake, beyond the possibility of ambush or surprise, and then enlist his own forces, and enough of them without fail for certain victory, organize them for something more than simple victory, plan the battle, and then call no halt until the work was done. None can be more elegant or choice and beautiful in the use of language when occasion requires, but in the canvas the great elements of style are plainness, great plainness, and force, tremendous force.

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

When elected to congress a great work opened up before Mr. Blaine. It was the work of preparation. His old methods of thoroughness must prevail; mastery must be his watchword still. Augusta was not Washington; Kennebec county was not the District of Columbia; Maine was not the nation, nor the state legislature the congress of the nation. The resources that gave him prominence and power in one sphere, would be but a small fortune in the other. This history of congress must be deeply studied, the history of men and of measures. He must know all. There may be dark spots on the sun, but must be none in his mind. They may be necessary there, but not here. The charge of ignorance must not be his. The craving to know devours all before it. Just over there in New 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 the incentive. It is rather the habit of his life to touch bottom, and sides, and top.

This was sacred honor to him, to carry into a place or position to which he is called, what[196] will fill it, or not to enter. So now he gives the winter largely to this work. It is sacred work to him. Manliness demands it; self-respect makes it imperative. But he loves it. It is opportunity to him. And surely with all his former years of conquest, no one ever came to such task with more of fitness for the task.

And yet, though flushed with victory from other fields, the echo of the people’s cheers still ringing in his heart, and their laurels unfaded on his brow, he feels, he knows there is a lack of that strength and fulness which have ever been to him the harbingers of victory.

How many have run through congress much as they ran for congress, because they took it for granted that preparation for a law office or a stump speech was preparation for congress; just as many a deluded theorist has drifted from college out into life, dreaming that preparation for a senior examination was preparation for the competition of life.

There was ever a charm to Mr. Blaine about the study of character. Gov. Abner Coburn was Mr. Blaine’s ideal of a business man. He loved anything large and grand in human nature, and anybody good and true, and Abner Coburn,—as a man of great ability, of great wealth and liberality, giving away fifty thousand dollars at a time, and withal a noble Christian gentleman,—was[197] to him among the best and worthiest.

He loved characters if at all remarkable for hard common sense, and so he loved to meet and talk with one Miles Standish, from way up in Somerset county, at Flagstaff Plantation. Plantations abound in the state of Maine. There are twenty-five of them in Aroostook county, which is said to be as large as the state of Massachusetts. These plantations are a mild form of government, rather below the usual township organization, and yet covering a township of land six miles square.

This Mr. Standish used frequently to come to Augusta, and it was a pleasant hour for Mr. Blaine to meet him. He was human nature in crude state, or in the original package. Unspoiled by art, or science, or philosophy, and yet full of quaint, original ideas, and quainter forms of expression. He was never in a hurry when he met him, and yet it was not for sport or fun at his expense, but for the boldness of his personality, and the rocky-like substance of his character.

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

Right here is the open letter of Mr. Blaine’s career. First, he knows the strong points, and then he knows the weak points, and he has his man every time, for he certainly has a key that will unlock him, only let him know what one to use. And it is not a matter of artful, politic chicanery, and legerdemain. He simply studies the individual, and then with ease of manner and a wise, discriminating grace of diction, adapts or adjusts himself to them. Thomas Carlyle would use a hurricane, it is said, to waft a feather; Mr. Blaine would never.

And again Carlyle employed the weight of his mighty genius to emphasize the sumless worth of a man, and yet he did not have common sense sufficient to treat half who called upon him with common civility. What avails this solemn prating, impoverishing the lexicon and wearying genius to express a cynical, over-wrought view of man in his high-born greatness, if, when Ralph Waldo Emerson crosses the Atlantic and calls upon him with compliments of the highest[199] order, he receives only replies that sting, and burn, and rankle?

Exactly the reverse of Carlyle has been the method of Mr. Blaine. Men have been his glory, his study, and delight. This was his first work in Augusta, his first work in the state legislature, his first work in congress. And not their names alone, but their political history, their pedigree,—all about them. They must all be weighed and measured, sized and classified. And he must know himself as well, and how far he can reach, and how firm he can grasp, and how much he can lift. He uses only the powers of his personality, and these must all be toned and tempered anew.

He has gone to congress to stay, and not to experiment, but for the work of life. He carries with him just the power to get the power which he shall need,—the seed-corn for the large, abundant harvest. But he must work and cultivate, and this he knows right well how to do, and so he does and will. It is his purpose, and that purpose is fixed.

Right well he knows that there is no power that causes growth like contact with strong, determined personalities,—intelligent, conscientious, affectionate, purposeful. It is mind that makes mind grow, that plants the seeds and brings on the harvest by the shining of its light; and so[200] heart by getting into heart, expands it and causes growth, and conscience rouses conscience, and will awakens will, and all cause growth. He has not forgotten those lifts out of childhood almost into manhood, when the great faces of Jackson, Harrison, and Clay shone upon him, and now he is the friend and confident of the great Lincoln, and they are to be within an evening’s call, and the great men of the nation are there and will soon be etched, photographed, or painted, and hung up within the gallery of his large soul.

[201]

X.
ENTERING CONGRESS.

IT is said that life in Washington is a liberal education, social life in particular, but public life as well. The great interests of the nation center there, and all nations are represented there. Life is intense in all respects. Victors gather there from all fields of contest. They are at their best, and have multitudes to cheer them on, or cry them down, if they fail or falter. The door of prosperity to the country hinges there; defective legislation closes it, and mars the delicately balanced confidence in the business world. It is the nation’s higher school of politics, or rather university, with all its great departments. Graduates from all the state academies are there, taking observations of the nation and the world, discussing all live questions, following out great lines of thought, fixing policies, framing laws and enacting them. 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 manufactured day by day. Strong men in pride and power are in their glory there.

Society is like a myriad-sided palace, with many a gate of entrance and of exit, but all most deftly closed except to bearer of the keys,—a palace filled with light of knowledge, and resplendent with beauty; the goal of every clique and clan the nation over, where all the aristocracies of the Republic may glow and shine and shine and glow, and all the courtiers of all the nations 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 determined men were all about him. The administration had a clear working majority, but there could scarcely have been seventeen Democrats from New York to fourteen Union Republicans, had not one hundred and fifty thousand men been at the front from that state, and not permitted to vote until the presidential election. And so with Lincoln’s own state of Illinois, which just before the war gave him such a great majority, now sends nine Democrats to five Union Republicans to congress, and has over one hundred thousand men in the field.

[203]In the Pennsylvania delegation the result is similar, though the administration is endorsed by six thousand two hundred and thirty-one majority,—which would have been vastly increased if her one hundred thousand soldiers had been permitted to vote, as they were a year or two later.

Out of figures sent from the field then were shown to be five thousand two hundred and sixty-seven Republican votes in a total ballot of seven thousand one hundred and twenty-two, in over thirty organizations; but most of these were from Iowa, a state with such Republican majorities that when Mr. Blaine was urged to speak there during the campaign of 1876, replied,

“What is the use of burnishing gold?”

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

Mr. Blaine had spent a year as a quiet observer and a deep and diligent student since his election in September, 1862.

No course could have been wiser than the one adopted by Mr. Blaine. None from the state was more popular, and so none had a heavier correspondence. It related to all departments of the government, and he must at once gain influence in all. And this he did, with the greatest certainty of results. He was most obliging. It was soon found out, and all parties, without respect[204] to politics, wrote him for favors of various characters, and they never appealed in vain.

A Democrat of the deepest dye, a malignant enemy of Mr. Blaine politically, had a son in the 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. The father appealed to Mr. Blaine to use his good offices with the great-hearted president in behalf of his son’s release.

True to his instincts as a man, and his fidelity in all matters of public trust, utterly destitute of a prejudice, and without a particle of enmity to curdle the milk of human kindness by its lightning-stroke, to poison his motive or weaken his purpose to truly represent the people, he went at once to Mr. Lincoln, and so presented the facts, and plead for the life of the young man, that the pardon was granted, and he was transferred from the guard-house to his place in the regiment at the front.

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

It is a singular coincidence that Mr. Blaine and 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 service required at their hands.

Some have said that Mr. Blaine spent his first term in congress in quiet observation, without being read, seen, or heard. This would not be his nature. He would not be there if he was to be simply an onlooker. This he could be from the galleries. Such a course would be crucifixion, and an acknowledgment of inefficiency and incompetency. Within two weeks after entrance we find him participating in debate.

The secretary of war had sent a note to the Committee on Ways and Means, requesting an immediate appropriation of twenty million dollars for bounties, to encourage more rapid enlistment. The chairman had reported the item at once, and there was no delay in calling it up, and in its discussion he took part. His first resolution related to the prompt payment of prize-money to the officers and seamen of the navy, and was offered Jan. 6, 1864.

Six days after he rose to oppose the views of the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in appropriating seven hundred thousand dollars to pay a Pennsylvania claim only six months old, when claims filed eighteen months before by the state of Maine were unpaid. It was a claim for enlisting, arming, and organizing troops to guard the navy-yard and coast at[206] Kittery and Portsmouth when cruisers endangered them.

On April 21st Mr. Blaine presented his first bill, having reference to this same subject of war-claims of the state against the nation, the subject having remained in an unsettled condition. His bill is a model of excellence, providing for a commission of three, appointed by the president, to receive, examine, and endorse state claims, etc., against the general government, and order the payment of the same, after a specified time fixed in the future, so heavy were the drafts then upon the national treasury. He supported the measure with a speech of great breadth of view and comprehensiveness of statement, occupying ten columns of the Congressional Globe. Mr. Hamilton’s refunding measure, after the war of the Revolution, was used in argument, and also the adoption of similar measures after the war with England in 1812 to ’15, and also the Mexican war.

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

We find his resolutions and amendments passing; his points of order sustained. He is referred to on over fifty pages of the Congressional Globe, in remarks, resolutions, amendments, bills, etc. He has something to say on all great measures of importance that come before the House. He shows himself at home upon all the questions receiving attention, and watches the drift of proceedings with close and careful eye, and shows an abiding interest in all that is going on. The matter in hand seems ever to be just the matter in his mind. He is from the start a “working-member.” There are members who are not classed as working-members. They listen and look on; work does not agree with them; they do not like it. They have an equal chance with all the others, but they are afraid to speak out; to take a position and defend it.

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

In his eloquent eulogy of Mr. Garfield, Mr. Blaine says: “There is no test of a man’s ability in any department of public life more severe than service in the House of Representatives. There is no place where so little deference is paid to reputation previously acquired, or to eminence won outside; no place where so little consideration is shown for the feelings or failures of beginners. What a man gains in the House, he gains by sheer force of his own character, and if he loses and falls back he must expect no mercy, and will receive no sympathy. It is a field in which the survival of the strongest is the recognized rule, and where no pretense can deceive, and no glamour can mislead. The real man is discovered, his worth is impartially weighed, and his rank is irreversibly decreed.”

[209]A long and strong experience had convinced him of the deep, historic truth of this utterance. The challenge seemed constantly to be, “What are you doing here?” The waves dashed high, and the undertow was dreadful. One can easily read between the lines the battle Mr. Blaine had with himself at his first rising in the House, which was simply to read in evidence on the pending discussion a few sentences from the report of the secretary of the treasury, he was met by a slight rebuff from old General Schenk of Ohio, to the effect that the matter was irrelevant.

He was not Mr. Speaker any more, and felt the newness of his situation, but he belonged there, and he proposed to whip and win, and so he sets himself to work to draft a bill, and works, and watches his opportunity for four months, and not until December 21st is lost in April 21st does just his opportunity come; but when it came he showed by a speech of nearly two hours in length, full of hard, solid facts, arguments forged with something of the weight and power of thunderbolts, bristling with statistics, and fairly boiling with his richest and most fervid eloquence, that he knew his rights, and knowing, dared maintain them. And it was in discussing this same 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 splendid speech. He did not let it come to final passage until he had shown his power of relevancy, and convinced the General from Ohio that men were not elected speakers up in Maine until they could fairly discriminate between tweedle de and tweedle dum.

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

Nineteen of those who sat with Mr. Blaine when he first took his place in the House, have been chosen United States senators since then. Many served well as governors, and many in the foreign service of their country. “But among them all, none grew more rapidly; none more firmly,” are his words of that other one, but they are just as true of himself. His early course in congress was marked by great courage and persistency.

Two others had failed to secure the adoption of an amendment to the bill for the establishment of national banks, to the effect that interest should be uniform when not fixed by state law, and though it had been voted on and defeated before; though its form had been changed, yet seeing the wisdom of it, and having the courage of his conviction, he moved it again,[211] and made a short, ringing speech of not over fifteen minutes, and it was carried by a vote of sixty-nine to thirty-one. Such power to control legislation so soon after entering congress, clearly reveals the influence already gained.

Shortly after this, when the committee on the penitentiary in the District of Columbia reported a bill appropriating two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the purpose, he was ready to oppose. He had been one of the chairmen of the prison committee in the Maine legislature, had been on a committee or commission appointed by the governor to visit prisons elsewhere and gain full information concerning them, having, with his customary energy and thoroughness, visited seventeen, and found they were being run at great expense to the several states, and so he opposed the bill, as prisoners were being kept safely in prisons already established, and, as he said, the proposed amount would only start the work and make many hundred thousands a necessity.

Whatever the question of national or state importance that came before the House, he had made himself familiar with it. And so we find him speaking on the revenue, conscription, and currency bills; legislative appropriation and tariff bills; the Fugitive Slave Law and the civil appropriation bills, beside the bill relating to Pennsylvania[212] war-expenses. The terrible battle of Gettysburgh had been fought the summer before, and the state heavily involved, and the effort was to have her re-imbursed.

Mr. Blaine was heartily on the side of the administration and the war, supporting the various measures of prosecution and relief as against the opposition, with all the power in him. But it was not a blind support. It must be wise, intelligent, and discriminating, to put him in the fullest action, and bring on what might so soon be termed accustomed triumph.

But there came a day on the twenty-first of June, and during the first session of his first congress,—the thirty-eighth,—that a bill came into the House embodying a report from James B. Fry provost-marshal general, endorsed definitely by Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war, and concurred in by Abraham Lincoln, proclaiming the conscription act a failure. The bill had come from the committee on military affairs, through their chairman. The exact point in the bill that had proved objectionable, and which they desired expunged, was what is known as the three hundred dollar clause, enabling any drafted man by the payment of the above sum to procure a substitute, and so be relieved himself. This very feature of the bill Mr. Blaine had incorporated as his first amendment offered[213] in congress, and enforced by a vigorous speech, which carried it through, and now a repeal of it would compel any business man in the country, if drafted, to go at once, provided only he was fit for military service. This would take the best physician, with the largest practice, in the greatest city of the Union.

“Such a conscription,” said Mr. Blaine, “was never resorted to but once, even in the French Empire, under the absolutism of the First Napoleon; and for the congress of the United States to attempt its enforcement upon their constituents is to ignore the best principles of republican representative government.”

Remarkable as it may seem, and specially so in view of the fact that he had but fifteen minutes granted him to speak, his motion prevailed by a vote of one hundred to fifty. Such men as Boutwell, Brooks, Dawes, McDowell, Edward H. Rollins, Schofield, Wadsworth, and Wheeler, stood with him. Mr. Stanton’s idea was that by forcing into the field a great army of soldiers the war might be speedily terminated. But freemen cannot be dealt with as slaves. There is a vast difference between the purely military 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 of Mr. Blaine. It was Saturday afternoon, June 25,[214] 1864. Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky, was making a long speech against the feature of the bill that provided for enlisting the negro, when he observed Mr. Blaine watching him. He said,—

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

Mr. Blaine: “From a residence of five years in Kentucky, I came to the conclusion from what I saw of the negroes, that there was a good deal of fight in them.”

After a pleasant colloquy, he went on to state that during the Crimean war Egypt furnished Turkey fifteen regiments of negroes of pure blood, unmixed from the foundation of the world, and as good troops as ever marched upon European soil. And so the debate went on. One thing seems quite evident: Mr. Blaine had come to feel perfectly at home on the floor of the House. His quiet ways and quick-witted replies; the conversational character of the proceedings at times, in which he participates; his familiarity with men and their almost constant recognition of him; the fluent and undisturbed character of his sentences; the general ease and pleasure of the man, and the home-like air that seems constantly to surround him, show that he[215] is in his element. But he is always there, and very attentive, keeping up with the great debates as they are carried on day after day. Nothing seems to escape him, and every move is a cautious one. Even then he must have been the pride of his state.

He had not listened so attentively to the speech of the Kentuckian, Mr. Mallory, for naught, in which it was asserted that Mr. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in consequence of pressure brought to bear upon him by a meeting of governors of the loyal states, at Altoona, Penn., the autumn of 1862. Having armed himself with documentary proof, so that he might be doubly sure, though his memory told him he was right, he thus corners the gentleman in the neatest manner possible.

“I understood the gentleman (Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky) to assert,” said Mr. Blaine, “and to reiterate with great emphasis, that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in consequence of the pressure brought to bear upon the president by the meeting of the governors at Altoona, in the autumn of 1862.”

Mr. Mallory. “I said it was issued in consequence of the pressure brought to bear by these governors.”

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

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

Mr. Blaine. “Will the gentleman state further at what date the meeting of the governors took place at Altoona?”

Mr. Mallory. “Some days before.”

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

Mr. Mallory. “Oh, no.”

Mr. Blaine. “Yes, sir; I am correct. I had a personal recollection of the date, and I have further 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 the grave discrepancy of which he had been guilty, involving the governors of all the loyal states in an instigation of which they were guiltless as a body of men, in convention assembled. Then he tried to escape by asserting that the governors were on at Washington, laboring with the president to secure the same end. But he was assured most emphatically, that such was not 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 meeting of the governors, but pressure of duties forbade.

Mr. Blaine closed the little contest for supremacy, with the Kentucky gentleman, with this single sentence: “The anachronism into which my friend has been led, and which I have thus pointed out, is quite as conclusive in the premises as Mr. Weller hoped the alibi would prove in the celebrated Pickwickian trial.”

A pleasant thing about the episode is that Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, afterwards President Grant’s secretary of the treasury, yielded his own time upon the floor to Mr. Blaine, for the friendly tilt in the interest of the Union, and the pending war-measure.

It proved conclusively that congress is no place for a Fourth of July oration, but for clear heads, well-managed tongues, and brave hearts, such as Mr. Blaine seems never to be without.

A long session of congress was being held on into the middle of summer, and many of the old laws relating to slavery were being abolished, among them one that related to the coastwise slave trade, which was interlaced with the coastwise trade of rightful commerce. It comprised thirty-two sections, so bound up together as to make a sort of a code on the subject. It, of course, bore directly upon the shipping interests of Maine, and brought Mr.[218] Blaine to his feet more than once during the discussion. The effort was made to revise them in the interest of New York city, and so discriminate sharply against New England ports. The condition of that city, at this time, was very bad politically. It was about the time of the draft-riots, when Tilden addressed the mob, calling the rioters “My friends.” Of course Mr. Blaine was thoroughly informed, and he made a strong point against the measure of the New York member, Mr. Brooks. “To-day,” he said, “in New York city, the sentiment is anti-American, and were it submitted to voters of the city of New York now, whether they would have Jeff Davis president, or a loyal Republican Union man, North, Jeff Davis would have thirty thousand votes ahead,” and a voice said, “What of that?” And Mr. Brooks, the gentleman from New York, admitted that there were fifty thousand majority now in New York city opposed to Abraham Lincoln.

This was six months and seven days after the Proclamation of Emancipation, and showed that, though the great heart of that noble state beat true, and, as was a fact, had sent about two hundred thousand troops to the war, yet the mass in the city, left behind, were weakening largely the Union cause. It was a feature of the struggle with slavery continually felt, not[219] only in congress, but in the execution of laws for the strengthening of the cause.

In reply to “What of that?”—that is, what of it if Jeff Davis could receive thirty thousand majority in New York city—he said: “Just this: if gentlemen suppose that the whole country will contribute to the prosperity and growth of the city under such circumstances, they are under a perfect delusion,” and then he went for the man who said “What of that?” in his own princely style.

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

Nearly a month before the adjournment of congress the Union National Republican Convention met at Baltimore (June 7), to nominate a president.

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 of the Union; and Grant had been so successful in the West, he had been brought East and made lieutenant-general, having fought his way from Fort Henry to Pittsburgh Landing, to Vicksburg, and to Chattanooga. But the war had been prolonged beyond the expectation of the people. Rebels were still on the banks of the Rappahannock and the Tennessee. A few defeats, loss of men, great expenditures of money, and a rather dormant campaign during the winter, had produced some despondency and doubt.

Secretary Chase, with his powerful position in the cabinet and at the head of the treasury, was known to be seeking the presidency, and so he became the centre around which clustered various elements of discontent and opposition. He was the head, it is said, of the radical forces in the cabinet, as Mr. Seward was of the conservative forces. But though a man of great prominence, and of great power, a man with a splendid record as a political chief of the Free-soil party that had battled slavery before the war, his legislature of Ohio pronounced for Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Chase at once withdrew.

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

This was the state of affairs when Mr. Blaine went with his delegation to Baltimore, where Union troops were first fired upon less than three years before.

It seems exceeding strange as we look back upon it now, that anyone could be found in all the North, and especially among his party, men who could oppose a man so great and worthy as Abraham Lincoln, and even attack the wisdom of his 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 magnificence of his character.

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

This convention, in which Mr. Blaine bore so signal a part, was full of interest, not only for the sake of Mr. Lincoln, but also of Vice-president Hannibal Hamlin, of his own state.

Many eminent men were included in its roll of delegates. Not less than five of the leading war-governors were chosen to participate in its councils. Vermont sent Solomon Foote, who had stood faithful in the senate during the struggle before the war. Massachusetts had commissioned her eloquent governor, John A. Andrew. Henry J. Raymond, Daniel S. Dickinson, and Lyman Tremaine were there from New York. New Jersey and Ohio each sent two ex-governors,—Marcus L. Ward and William A. Newell from the former, and William Dennison and David Tod from the latter. Simon Cameron, Thaddeus Stevens, and Ex-Speaker Grow, of Pennsylvania; Governor Blair 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. Breckenridge was chosen temporary chairman, who, on taking the chair, delivered the great speech of the convention, as Mr. Blaine thinks. It impressed him deeply, and he refers to it with emotions of admiration to-day.

He was a tall, sturdy man, of Scotch extraction and advanced in years, which, with his history, inspired reverence. His speech was “sharp, sinewy, and defiant.” He had been reared amidst Slavery, but was for the Union. “The nation shall not be destroyed,” he said. “We shall change the Constitution if it suits us to do so. The only enduring, the only imperishable cement of all free institutions, has been the blood of traitors,” he said with thrilling effect; and added regarding Slavery, “Use all power to exterminate and extinguish it.”

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

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

Gen. George B. McClellan, who had been the idol of the army for two years and a half, was nominated by the Democrats. Mr. Blaine denominates it “a canvass of extraordinary interest and critical importance.” And such indeed it was, coming as it did right in the midst of the great war, when over a million men were in arms on the continent, and the great summer and fall campaigns were to be fought. It was, indeed, a critical time for heated discussions, the grinding of opposition, the friction of parties, constant irritation, not only at home, throughout every city, village, and hamlet of the North, but throughout the army, in every camp and hospital, on the march, at picket, post, and bivouac,—for the soldiers were to vote.

It was, indeed, a perilous time. No tongue can tell, no mind can even dream, the results that would have followed Mr. Lincoln’s defeat; what reversals of history; what undoing of mighty deeds; what paralysis of moral power in the nation; what defeat of principle; what compromise with wrong; what stagnation, downfall, death. But it was not to be; it could not be. High heaven’s decree was otherwise. Incompetence was not to be rewarded. The great North, when it spoke out for all the world to[225] hear, had no premium to place upon supposed disloyalty. The old ship of state was not to change captains in mid-ocean; he who had brought her by island, and rock, and reef, through storm and tempest, through cyclone and hurricane, safely thus far, was no Jonah, to be cast overboard now. Few people in all the world can know more clearly, feel more deeply, and act more strongly when things thoroughly arouse, than the American people, and none have more to rouse them at times. Indeed, we have the cream of all the nations, and so strike high above the average. We heard of “thinking bayonets” back there, and fife, and drum, and horn that spoke the thoughts and love of men. The triumph was complete.

There were but twenty-one votes in the electoral college, when autumn came, for McClellan, and two hundred and twelve for Mr. Lincoln. The decree of a holy Providence had been recorded with an emphasis as unmistakable as doubtless would have been the case had the Great Emancipator of Israel been subjected to a test-vote in the wilderness.

It is probable that no period of the nation’s history is so bright with victories, both civil and military, as the sixty days succeeding the convention at Chicago, Aug. 29, 1864, which nominated General McClellan for the presidency,—a[226] period in which the labors of Mr. Blaine were indefatigable for the Union cause, and to which he referred with the emphasis of a life-time interest.

The Democrats voted the war a failure, and then placed its leading general up to within less than a year before, upon their platform. And yet, while they were declaring the war a failure, the news came that Fort Morgan was captured, and Sherman took Atlanta the day after they adjourned, and speedily came the successes of Admiral Farragut in Mobile Bay.

A proclamation of thanksgiving was issued by President Lincoln for the great Union victories within two days after they had proposed, practically, to surrender to traitors; and Secretary Seward said in a public speech, “Sherman and Farragut have knocked the planks out of the Chicago platform.”

Meanwhile Grant held Lee in a vise at Petersburgh, and Sheridan, within three weeks of Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, had dashed down the Shenandoah valley and won three brilliant victories in the battles of Winchester, Fisher’s Hill, and Cedar Creek.

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

[227]And then came the civil victories,—Maine and Vermont in September (and Mr. Blaine was still chairman of the Republican State Central Committee in Maine, and had to plan the entire campaign, secure speakers, etc., etc.); then in October, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, wheeled into line, and “registered in advance the edict of the people in regard to the presidency.”

Mr. Blaine had usually to remain in his own state each summer after the adjournment of congress, until after the election, and they had one each year, which occurred the second Monday in September, and as this would come from the eighth to the twelfth of the month it gave him from fifty to sixty days for campaign-work in other states, which, during presidential years, was fully and heartily improved. He was greatly sought for, and would draw immense audiences, and kindle an enthusiasm which would blaze and burn, and smoulder, and then blaze forth again. His offer of a thousand dollars a line for anything that he has written the past year, expressing in any way a desire for the nomination, is proof that his nomination is but the result of the old smouldering fires of almost boundless and unquenchable enthusiasm blazing forth anew. These fires that are burning now have been kindled for ten or twenty years, and they have been chiefly lighted during these fifty or sixty[228] days intervening between September elections in Maine and the October and November elections in other states. While others might go to the mountains or sea-shore to rest and rust, he would breathe for two or three days, and respond to some of the numerous calls for help where the brunt of battle was heaviest, or the enemy seemed strong and desperate.

He was always a hard hitter, and never played at politics. It was business with him, and war. He would wring the neck of a political heresy with all the gusto an old Scotch Covenanter would experience in hounding to the death a religious heresy. There is such a thing as political truth and political virtue to him. It is not fancy and foible, chimera and dream, phantasm and fable, but granite truth, and principle rock-like and firm as adamant.

Something was fought for in the war, and that something has been worth preserving, and is to-day.

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

And so Mr. Blaine has done his great, best work, not simply in the light of glowing idols,[229] but in the glow of great victories achieved, and the substance of great realities enjoyed, in a mental and moral realization; and a country broad, 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 fair inheritance of a people free,—for we inherit one another too, in all that constitutes society, community, city, and country.

We said he hit hard, struck out to win. It is true. Each man before him must squirm or cheer. There were no lookers on; he had no idle issues, but live ones; personal, and things of destiny.

When in Ohio once with Congressman Bingham,—and he did not go that far from home for nothing,—he got up a little political hail-storm for the special benefit of the Democrats present. Such a storm is usually produced by two dark clouds coming together, heavily charged with the double extract of electricity and other substances. He brought one of those clouds with him and manufactured the other one on the spot out of materials in the audience.

The result was a good many were hit, and hail 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,”—an Irishman,—who had in him what is rare in Maine,—whiskey,—so after the speaking he made for Mr. Blaine, determined to try his shillalah upon the cranium of the honorable gentleman, but just as he came up, Bookwalter, who ran for governor, seized him, and gave him the direction of the comet which did not know how it came there, or where it was going. At all events, he did not get the whirl, and twist, and buzz out of him in time to find out where he was, or Mr. Blaine either, or to reform his purpose and execute it.

It is said Henry Clay’s speeches had the most effect at the time they were delivered, and that Daniel Webster’s speeches had more effect a week afterwards, when people had had time to think them over, than at the time they were delivered.

You must combine these views to get at the truth regarding Mr. Blaine’s speeches. They have tremendous effect when delivered, and great power afterward. His illustrations, taken right out of daily life, would catch and hold the thought, and illuminate the mind, and make themselves remembered. They would not let go; like some of the things that have clung to us through life, we don’t hold on to them, they hold on themselves.

[231]A speech we heard from him years ago will never leave us. It was on the currency question, which was discussed for years, and, like Banco’s ghost, would not down.

His first sentence will never be forgotten. It was characteristic of the man, and expressed a great principle of his political philosophy. This was it: “A thing is never settled until it is settled right.”

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

In that same speech,—and it moved and swayed thousands then, and clings to them yet like an influence of magic power, moving and swaying them still, in it was a little simple reference to experience he had in California, and it was before specie payments had been resumed, but they were on a gold basis out on the Pacific coast. He had gone into a bank to get a check of three hundred dollars cashed, and he said, “Give me gold,” and they gave him gold, and he divided[232] it up and put it in all his pockets to balance the load, and he went about the city calling here and there, going up long stairways, and over great establishments, and all the while that gold was getting heavier. He would change it about and carry some in his hand. It was such a luxury to have gold and not pay any premium on it. But finally it was too much for him, and in a sort of desperation he went back to the bank, and asked them if they would not give him greenbacks for that gold, and the man said “Yes,” and he took the little roll of greenbacks and put it in his vest-pocket, and was not bothered any more. He acted out the scene with dramatic effect. The incident gave all a new love for the greenback, and less thirst for gold.

It was his delight all through that speech to get questions from the audience, and so settle their difficulties by giving them just the information desired.

His power with an audience lay largely in this method of questioning. He drew near to them, or rather drew them near to him, was helpful and kindly; he would stop in his speech and talk with anyone in the audience that had sensible questions to ask, and so was down to earth all the time, and not up among the clouds “careering on 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 have one along.

Some grocer or laboring man in the crowd asked a question about the revenue on sugar, which Mr. Blaine did not get at first, and an aristocrat on the platform said, “O, never mind him, go on with your speech,” but he had said “What,” and was eagerly listening to get the man’s thought, and said quickly to the honorable gentleman, “Keep still,” and waved his hand back at him to keep quiet, and he heard the laboring man’s question fairly, and answered it, too.

It made all respect him the more, and beside, that was his speech. It was his way of getting error out of the mind and truth in. It does not do much good to shoot off a quantity of powder out doors. It will make a big flash and smoke and noise, but what of that; put it in a cannon behind a ball and give it aim, and then touch it off, and there will be execution.

Mr. Blaine’s method of getting the light into the people was by getting the dark out; like the Dutchman who put a window into his barn to let the dark out, but the same process that let the dark out, let the light in.

He had gotten this colloquial style, it may be in congress, or in Yankee land where they “raise questions.” 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 are skilled in questioning witnesses, and it is a habit with them, carried from their practice in the courts to the halls of legislation; and it is a very convenient and serviceable habit, as the record of proceedings clearly shows.

It may be recalled that the campaign of 1864 was prosecuted so effectually that while McClellan received twenty-one electoral votes, only one of the eighteen free states voting thus honored him, namely: New Jersey,—Kentucky and Delaware joining with her.

The real triumph to Mr. Lincoln was in New York, and we close this chapter by giving it in Mr. Blaine’s own words, for it had attracted his special attention. Horatio Seymour and Reuben E. Fenton were respectively the Democratic and Republican candidates for Governor of New York:—

“Governor Seymour’s speech in the Democratic convention at Chicago, Aug. 29, 1864, had been an indictment of the most malignant type against the administration. The president felt that he was himself wholly wrong, or Governor Seymour was wholly wrong, and the people of New York were to decide which. They rendered their verdict[235] in the election of Reuben E. Fenton to the governorship by a majority of thousands over Mr. Seymour. Without that result Mr. Lincoln’s triumph would have been incomplete. The victory in the nation,” he adds, “was the most complete ever achieved in an election that was seriously contested.”

[236]

XI.
SECOND TERM IN CONGRESS.

MR. BLAINE reached home weary in body, but fresh in spirit, from the great political war in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, just in time to cast his ballot the last time for Abraham Lincoln. He had stumped his own state from “Kittery to Houlton,” which are the extreme points in Maine, and had put in about fifty speeches in the other states,—between one and two hundred in all. He had confidence in the result, for he had been near the people and got their temper and knew the purpose of their sovereign will in the matter, and so it came, but with it the reflection that they were only about five years off from the Dred Scott decision, and every free state but one voting solid in the electoral college for the great abolition president, 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 purposes of slavery, and all the political paltroonery and truckling of honored public men, the trimmers and time-servers!

But what ruin strewed the pathway to such triumph! There was not a slave in all the land now, according to the proclamation, emphatically endorsed, and the rebellion well-nigh crushed. The effort had been, it is thought, for the South to hold out until after the presidential election, and hope for the defeat of Mr. Lincoln. The war was over six months after his re-election.

In less than a month after election day, Mr. Blaine was in his seat in congress (December 5th), and there, also, with a knowledge of the fact that not only had Mr. Lincoln been re-elected president, but he himself, also, had been re-elected to congress, for the election took place a year before each term expired. How could he be otherwise than happy regarding the political outlook of either himself or the nation. He need have little thought for himself; he had surely caught at the flood that tide which leads on to greatness. He was not a coming man, but one who had already come. His record of the former session had made him more widely known, and known in a larger sense. Indeed, he was every way a larger man; beloved at home, respected and admired abroad in other[238] states, and where his great life-work had so auspiciously begun—in congress.

The principle of evolution was at work upon him in its only true sense, just as it operates in tree and flower, where heaven and earth in all their vital forces are made tributary to Nature’s laws of unfolding in the deep processes of growth upward to perfection.

There had been a wondrous involution from centuries of great history, according to subtle, silent laws of hereditary inheritance, in very blood and life, of tone, and quality, and temper, and now there is evolved, evoked, just that of power which tells of kinship with those who have gone before.

It should not cause surprise that Nature keeps her treasures, or that the right, the good, the true, live to confront the wrong, the false, the bad, with just those elements of a nobler life that no power can resist.

The people everywhere were singing,—

“Our God is marching on.”

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

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

He surveyed the field for but a single day after the second session of his first congress opened,—the thirty-eighth,—and then undid the mischief of another. It was called the “Gold bill” in the House, and had simply been offered and referred to the committee of Ways and Means, by a Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania.

Its substance was, that a dollar note issued by the Government, declared lawful money and legal tender, is declared of equal value for all purposes as gold and silver coin of like denominations. A contract made payable in coin may be payable in legal tender, and anyone should be imprisoned who received a greenback for less than gold coin was worth, and fined as well.

Gold went up in Wall Street within twenty-four[240] hours after the bill was presented, twelve per cent. Mr. Blaine saw it and moved a reconsideration of it, sections two, three, five, and six being the objectional features of the bill. His speech in support of his motion did not occupy ten minutes. The author of the bill, Mr. Stevens, said,—

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

“How the gentleman from Maine, by his intuitive knowledge of these things comes to understand at once what the ablest statesmen of England took months to mature, I cannot very well 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 finished reciting Plutarch, and but little less than twenty since his graduation, had he a knowledge of the strong, determined spirit of mastery which characterized him in all his work, could he have read over at that moment the long list of volumes over which he had poured, had he known these things, he would not have felt that a genius of intuition who got at things by inspiration merely, sat before him, but one with a genius for the hardest kind of a student’s work,[241] with intuitions born of high intelligence and inspiration that comes from conscious strength. No wonder he was an enigma, a man beyond his years and place, yet master of the situation.

Mr. Stevens’ motion to table the motion of Mr. Blaine, failed, fifty-one to sixty-eight, and then the motion of Mr. Blaine regarding the bill of Mr. Stevens, carried, seventy-three to fifty-two. It is interesting to notice, that though the gentleman did not call up his bill for a solid month,—not until after the holidays,—and then came in with an elaborate argument showing the financial course of England in her war with France in 1793, and then in her war finally with the whole of continental Europe, though he seemed to have made a careful study of his subject, and of England’s financial policy, he closed with this sentence:—

“I feel that England never had so absurd a law as to pay one part of her war-debt in gold and another part in Bank of England notes.” He said “I feel,” he did not know. But Mr. Blaine knew, and so he asked him whether the bonds negotiated by England upon the continent were not payable in gold.

“I do not know,” was the answer.

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

This was no contest to win, but simply to bring out financial intelligence in a semi-official way, for the benefit of the country. It was a most sensitive subject. Gold was up to two hundred and fifty, that is, a hundred dollars in gold cost two hundred and fifty dollars in greenbacks, and Mr. Stevens had endeavored in a wrong way, as Mr. Brooks showed, to correct gambling in gold, but Mr. Blaine could furnish him with deficiencies of knowledge, and manifest the acumen of a statesman upon a subject so great.

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

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

It was his power of quick, thrilling action; of feeling strongly, and making others feel as he did; of casting upon them the glow of his own brilliancy; of charming them with the rhapsody of his own genius; of piercing them with the energy of his own thinking, and so shutting them up to his conclusions by the force of his[243] own arguments; it was thus by methods the fairest and most honorable to his abilities, that he carried all before him. And one can but see in his repeated control of the House, the power of his friendships.

Cox, Pendleton, Brooks, and others of the opposition would show him the greatest courtesies in debate. Randall, even, in his first session, gave him time out of his own hour for an entire speech, and Cox encouraged him in the midst of his Gold bill speech, by saying he was with him on it.

When the Naval Academy bill was before the House, he moved to repeal a section relating to cadets “found deficient.” If they had a hundred demerit marks in six months they would be expelled. Mr. Blaine had visited the academy in 1861, as a member of the “Board of Visitors,” and while there a young man was dismissed, not for any fault of scholarship, for he was among the brightest and best in his class.

Becoming deeply interested in the cause of the young man, he went to Washington and successfully interceded with the secretary of war, and he was restored. He subsequently graduated very high in class-rank, and since his entrance upon active service has distinguished himself as an officer of great merit, serving with efficiency and distinction as ordnance-officer on General[244] Sheridan’s staff in that splendid, victorious campaign in the valley of the Shenandoah.

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

Mr. Blaine insisted that to the secretary of war and the president be restored the power that was taken from them at the last session,—to pardon any cadet discharged for any of these offences.

General Schenck joined him, and the amendment was adopted.

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

“Many of the cadets, sir, who have been very precise and decorous in their conduct in matters of petty discipline at the academy, and manage to pass through smoothly, often graduating with high rank obtained by very strict attention to ‘folding beds by 10 A. M.,’ and ‘drawing curtains by at precisely 6.45 A. M.’ (academy rules), are unfortunately never heard from afterwards. Their[245] names do not always figure in the record of our bloody battles, and they have achieved no distinction in this war, with all its thousand opportunities, while on the other hand not a few of the graduates at the academy who at the Point had the ‘odor of tobacco in their rooms,’ and whose ‘floors were out of order near the wash-stand,’ have blazoned their names high on the roll of fame for conduct as gallant and skill as great as ever graced the battle-fields of any age country.”

Efficiency has ever been the test with him in his own work, and this he applies to others; as one has said, “We measure others in our own half-bushel; of course we do, we have no other.”

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

It was not only a proof of his knowledge, but also of his ability to use it on demand, and he showed himself equal to the exigency, and showed that he was generally found away on the lead in his discussion of constitutional measures 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-ground of a brigade of soldiers, by a multitude of debaters; ground which has been surveyed, and staked out, and pre-empted, and owned for a century or more, and concerning which, as concerning the constitution there is no question. Such speeches as these wearied the progressive spirit of advanced ones, and made them restless when the fate of great interests hung on the decision of a few hours’ discussion. No one watched more closely the utterances of men upon the floor, or held them to a stricter account.

In presenting a minority report on amendment of rules for the government of the House, Mr. Morrill had placed some undue restriction upon the powers of congress, and courteously waiting until he had finished a long speech of ten or eleven columns, Mr. Blaine asked him whether the power of impeachment would not extend to cabinet officers, and so their attendance upon the sittings of the House be compelled, a point Mr. Morrill had denied.

There had been little demand for this power slumbering in the constitution,—power which was used upon a president shortly afterward,—but brought prominently to the attention of the House, 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 of the highest legal type, he was ready as well if there was hint of an assailant in manner or tone, to thrust out a sharp, rising question which would almost take the breath of the man who might be after him. When General Schenck asked him 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 member of the cabinet of course he was a civil officer, as much so as the president himself, who was by virtue of his office “Commander-in-chief of the armies of the Union.”

But Mr. Blaine had great respect for age and learning, and allowed no opportunity to show it to pass by unimproved. His early intercourse with his Grandfather Gillespie had developed largely veneration both for gray hairs and scholarly attainments, a veneration which had matured by associations with his teachers and great men of the nation whom he had met in his youthful days, and those whom he had since come to know and honor.

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

Mr. Pike had just taken him to task for this last statement, when the “hammer fell,” and Mr. Davis, showing his appreciation of the courtesies of Mr. Blaine, arose and said, “I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Maine may be permitted to proceed.” This was indeed a consideration which young members seldom received from the veterans of the House, and especially from one with a national reputation for scholarly attainments. But as “the debate in Committee of the Whole was closed by order of the House,” the Chair could not grant the request, and just here Mr. Blaine’s shrewdness and intimate knowledge of parliamentary rules showed itself. “I move,” he said, “to amend the amendment, by striking out the first line; that will entitle me to the floor for a few minutes longer.”

Then he went on to give an official fact, as he called it, and he knew well the value of such things; there was nothing “fine-spun” about them, but strong and stubborn, and full of power to convince. “Out of ninety British steamers,” he said, “caught within a given period in attempting[249] to run the blockade, only twelve were caught by vessels built by the present administration of the navy department; while seventy-eight were caught either by purchased vessels, or vessels inherited from the old navy. I submit, sir, that this fact bears with crushing force on the practical question of the speed and efficiency of vessels of the new navy.” It is bad enough to swindle the government at any time, and in any thing, but in times of war to swindle her in the construction of iron-clad vessels that will not float, yet needed at once for active service, and produce twenty of them at half a million dollars apiece, was enough to arouse the indignation 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 wholly upon his own resources, and placing him where he must put forth all the power in him, or utterly fail.

“When the Jeannette went down, crushed and sunken by the ice,” writes Lieutenant Danenhouser, “we started with our boats southward, dragging them over the ice, broken and piled in every conceivable shape. We accomplished seven miles the first week, only to find, by taking observations, that the ice-floe had drifted us back to the northward twenty-seven miles, and[250] so placing us twenty miles to the rear of the spot where we had started, and our ship had sunk.” They had intrepid spirits, but no firm ground; he had both the intrepid spirit and the firm ground on which to stand, and his victory was swift and certain.

Mr. Blaine never lost an opportunity to do a favor, or make a friend. Doing duty was his delight; getting hold of strong, plain, practical facts, and presenting them in a way that showed a constant, abiding interest in his constituency, that he was living and toiling for them, and had their best interest, and those of the entire state of Maine, and the whole country at heart.

Here is one of his plain, practical statements, showing his loyalty to home interests, as well as the business interests of the country. A vessel from his district had been chartered to government to carry a cargo of four hundred and fifty tons of coal from Philadelphia to New Orleans, for six thousand dollars. Upon her return her disbursements had been six thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight dollars and five cents. She received six thousand dollars in certificates of indebtedness from the government, then selling them at ninety-four, which made but five thousand six hundred and forty dollars in cash, showing a net cash loss of five hundred and ninety-eight dollars and five cents, besides the[251] interest on advance, about two hundred dollars more.

“And now, sir,” said Mr. Blaine, “after this melancholy experience the tax-collector came forward and demanded of the owner of the vessel, two and one-half per cent. on the six thousand dollars which the government paid, as above, and on top of all losses already incurred actually compelled him to pay one hundred and fifty dollars under that section of the internal-revenue law, which we are seeking to amend.

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

He further plead that “as commercial men of the country, who do so much to sustain our finances and our honor, they should be relieved from its oppressive exactions.”

There were no mists or fogs about him to conceal him or his methods, and what he said stood out in the clear light of day. In this case he was able to catch up from memory, a better argument for the repeal of the oppressive section of the law than had come to the House in a lengthy written memorial from a company doing business on the Schuylkill Canal in Pennsylvania, and who could make sitings net them four hundred and ten dollars, while in the case[252] cited by Mr. Blaine, one trip was made at a loss of nine hundred and forty-eight dollars and five cents.

Seldom did he cite his own opinion. It was the bludgeon of hard, solid facts with which he did his best execution. Others might theorize, and imagine, and conceive, and spin web after web of sophistry, like the spider, out of themselves, to be full as flimsy when the storm of debate beat upon it, but not he. He evidently kept up a living acquaintance with those to whom he was responsible, and this, with an ever vigilant correspondence, enabled him to know, and not simply think and feel, but actually to know their adverse experiences where the operations of the machinery of government affected them, and with reasonable and apparent facts in hand he could easily procure the remedy. This lively interest, so practical and so potent as well, was with him a constant element of power.

He lost no opportunity to familiarize himself with business enterprises, great and small, and get the best authority on all questions of finance and trade, and as a result he could speak with pertinency, and from a mind prolific of the freshest data on the practical questions as they were constantly coming before the House, and especially in the old war-days, when the vexed questions[253] of internal revenue, with all its myriad details regarding the nature and value of taxable articles, were being adjusted.

At one time when he first entered congress, nearly every article that entered into the construction of a ship was taxed, and then upon her tonnage, and then, beside, upon the gross receipts for carrying the cargo. He saw to it at once that those matters were attended to.

But a fresh call was out for troops, and it was a final call. They were getting ready for the great opening of the spring campaign which was to speedily end in crushing the Rebellion, and annihilating the Confederacy. There was a flaw in the enrollment law passed the last session, which Mr. Blaine had discovered, and sought to remedy. It permitted recruiting in the rebel states, and credits for previous naval enlistments. “From these two sources have arisen the gigantic and wide-spread evil of filling quotas of towns without adding troops to the army.” He had offered an amendment which was designed to bring back recruiting to “an honest, meritorious, and patriotic effort to fill the ranks of our gallant army with men, and not with shadowy fictions which pass under the name of ‘paper credits.’” The quotas of entire cities, districts, and possibly states, had been thus 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 the law that it could not be perpetuated.”

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

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

“In conclusion,” and his words reveal a genuine patriotism and zeal of affection for the soldier, “nothing so discourages the brave men at the front as the belief that proper measures are not adopted at home for re-enforcing and sustaining them.

“After four years of such patriotic and heroic effort for national unity as the world has never witnessed before, we cannot now afford to have the great cause injured, or its fair fame darkened by a single unworthy incident connected with it. The improper practices of individuals cannot disgrace and degrade the nation, but after these practices are brought to the attention of congress, we shall assuredly be disgraced and 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, and our country; above all, to our country, whose existence has been in such peril in the past, but whose future of greatness and glory seems now so assured, and so radiant.”

Few utterances of those long, dark years, breathed a spirit of more devoted loyalty than is found even in these few sentences, and they were uttered when they would do the most good, and secure just those re-enforcements that would gladden the hearts of veterans, and hasten the end of the struggle.

Mr. Blaine had a keen eye for fraud, and made it his business to detect it; and he was just fearless enough to hold it up to the light of day. Wherever he unearthed it he would point out the individual, and point his finger at him and say, with a boldness known only to invective 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, rightly judging that no course is safer, or accords with fuller satisfaction, than the right course. With him, character was the citadel of strength and influence; and so we find him knowing and trusting himself, reaching for wrong in all of its strongholds.

[256]And there was much to encourage now Sherman had reached the sea; Columbia, S. C., was captured; Charleston was evacuated; the old 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-quarters of the United States, in honor of the event.” This twenty-second day of February was a long, busy day in congress. It was a quarter past five before the House adjourned. Mr. Blaine was in his seat all day long, voting steadily for the right and against the wrong. The conquered states, cut off from the Rebellion and rescued to liberty and lawful authority, were left without government, and must be provided, as Tennessee had been in the person of Andrew Johnson, now vice-president, with provisional governors. Much legislation was requisite. Every man in congress who had ever had any pro-slavery proclivities, was in his place contesting every step of progress with men who had never breathed aught but the air of freedom and known only loyal heart-beats.

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

Right royal work, this, for such a man to 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 all the great bills before the House that day. It came up in the bill to encourage enlistments, and the worth and dignity of being an American citizen was held up before the negro as a prize for him to win; as something in store for him in the future; and so as giving to the colored troops, and all who united with them, this personal interest in relation to the government. But it takes time to get such thoughts adjusted to minds struggling with the fact of Emancipation, and so little is done but give the bills a hearing and pass them to another reading. Coming events had cast their shadows before them. It was, however, but the shadow of a passing cloud, and told of a great, bright sun shining in the heavens yonder, which would soon dissipate all clouds and shadows, and the long night of bondage ended, give a glorious day, in which the world might see in the poorest black man of the South an American citizen, possessed of certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

To the happy consummation of a task so grand, whose inspiration comes from that free and holy place where “all are one,” Mr. Blaine had set his hand, only to remove it when the[258] chaplet of America’s proudest, noblest glory was on the black man’s brow.

That life is most divine which is most in line with Providence, and has the most of uplifting power in it, which stands the highest up, and can reach the farthest down, is many-handed in its helpfulness, and strong-handed as well, to unshackle humanity in body, in soul, and in spirit, and tell the fallen or sunken ones how to get upward toward God and heaven.

Opening the gates of heaven means unlocking the gates of earth, and to this latter task the statesmen of the nation stood pledged from that day, since numbered among the nation’s holidays. A close student of Mr. Blaine’s congressional career will be impressed with the fact that it seems planned and determined before-hand. There are no surprises in it. He seems to have determined upon his course before entering it, and gives his strength to certain measures, and does not fritter it away upon every resolve, or amendment, or motion, that happens to be before the House, affecting some far away interest of a day-dreamer.

He recognizes the fact fully that he is one of a great body of men, each one of whom is charged with interests of an important character to their state or district, and many heavily weighted with special and peculiar measures of[259] national importance. These must all have their opportunity. Less than ninety working-days usually comprise the session, and there are but four of these in a congress,—from March to adjournment, and from December to March, and then repeated, constitutes a congressional term, with eight of them in a presidential term, or two a year for the four years. Beside, it takes so long a time to get measures through congress that the successful man finds it necessary to devote himself with great carefulness to the few measures of importance he would have adopted, and become law organic or otherwise.

Very soon after Mr. Blaine entered congress he presented a resolution instructing the Committee on Judiciary to inquire into the expediency of amending the constitution so as to allow congress to levy an export tax. But the session closed, and it is not reported, and now his second session is closing, and still it is not forthcoming. Why not? He will know the reason why! And so there comes a day near the session’s close, only the day before Mr. Lincoln’s second inauguration, when he arises and states “a little grievance.” He states the resolution, its being offered at the last session, and now again at the present session. It had been to the Ways and Means Committee, to which it had been transferred. Evidently he had been ready[260] to grapple with the subject for some time, and proceeded to do so. It involved an amendment to the constitution, and one “essential to the financial success of the government, and to the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing prosperity of the country in all future time.”

It was stated that the measure would have been presented by the committee, if they had supposed time would have permitted of its consideration. It presented a subject that was discussed at length in the Convention of 1787. The “Madison Papers” give a synopsis of the constitutional debates of that convention, and show that many of the strongest men of that body, the really far-sighted ones, opposed the insertion of the clause prohibiting a tax on exports. The vote was not a very decisive one, nor did its advocacy come from the Southern or “staple states,” and opposition from Northern states.

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

A great debt of more than two billion eight hundred million was on the nation. Mr. Blaine’s amendment was looking towards its liquidation.[261] It was the wise, strong look far ahead. He saw in it several hundred millions of revenue in the export of cotton, tobacco, and naval stores, without affecting the demand for them, and also in petroleum, and numberless articles, still more of revenue. France was taxing her wines and brandies, and countries having peculiar commodities taxed them.

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

“Whoever as secretary of the treasury shall undertake and succeed in paying the debt,” he argues in closing, “must have open to him the three great avenues of taxation, namely, the tariff, the excise system, and the duties on exports, and must be empowered to use each in its appropriate place, by congressional legislation.”

And so he closed the first half of his second congressional year, with the same policy of questions with which he began, aiming still at thoroughness and mastery, still the guiding stars of his history, the moulding powers and the prominent features of his great career.

[262]

XII.
CONTINUED WORK IN CONGRESS.

IT is Inauguration Day in Washington. Not McClellan,—he is in Europe,—but Lincoln is to be inaugurated. It is a day of wondrous glory to him, and to the nation, but one so oppressed with the cares of state has but little joy in it. There is no retiring president to sign all the tardy bills of an expiring congress. He must do it all, and then go from the realizations of the past to the unknown of the new. There was no instant of rest for him between laying off the armor and putting it on anew.

Of all the many thousand eyes that looked on him that day, none were more brilliant with the look of praise, none gleamed with a soul-light more fervent, none took in the scene with deeper thoughts of the hour or the future, oppressive with interest, than Mr. Blaine.

Little did he dream of twenty years to come. He had thought to scale the centuries as they stood like silent statues in the sombre, shadowy[263] past, and read out the hieroglyphics of their history. But just as the rebellion was broken, shattered, staggering to its fall, and seemed certain, 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 vivid anticipations.

Mr. Blaine was profoundly impressed with the religious character of Abraham Lincoln, as exemplified in the tone of his public documents.

He says: “Throughout the whole period of the war he constantly directed the attention of the nation to dependence on God. It may indeed be doubted whether he omitted this in a single state paper. In every message to congress, in every proclamation to the people, he made it prominent. In July, 1863, after the battle of Gettysburgh, he called upon the people to give thanks because ‘it has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and prayers of an afflicted people, and to vouchsafe signal and effective victories to the army and navy of the United States,’ and he asked the people ‘to render homage to the Divine Majesty and to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion.’”

“On another occasion,” writes Mr. Blaine, “recounting the blessings which had come to the[264] Union, he said: ‘No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.’ Throughout his entire official career, attended at all times with exacting duty and painful responsibility, he never forgot his own dependence unto the same authority, or the dependence of the people upon a Higher Power.” And then he quotes those words of the great man, uttered reverently to the people assembled in crowds to congratulate him upon the return of peace: “In the midst of your joyous expressions, He from whom all blessings flow must first be remembered.”

His last inaugural, delivered but a little while before this final utterance, was in keeping with it. It was a deeply religious document, referring to no political measure or material interest, and in six days after the people crowd about him, full of joy at the close of the war, the bullet of the assassin is in his brain! What a week was that in which the war closed, and the great Lincoln was murdered! And what a summer was that, when the broken armies came marching home, halting in Washington for the great review!

But a campaign is on Mr. Blaine, and he hurries[265] home. For the third time Samuel Coney is elected governor, and Mr. Blaine has again done his work well. Autumn passes, and he is in his place at the opening of the thirty-ninth congress. With his usual unforgetfulness, he resumes connection with a bill presented by him in the early part of the previous congress, for reimbursing the loyal states for war-expenses in response to the president’s call for troops. His bill is very explicit, and shows that during the long delay he had perfected it in its details. No flaw is found in it, no amendment is made to it, but it is at once referred, upon his motion, to a select committee of seven, and upon his motion he demands the previous question, so that the matter shall be attended to at once. The bill was read a first and second time, and so referred.

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. What a work to examine and pass upon all the war-debts of the loyal states! A grave question soon makes its appearance in congress. In undoing the legislation of years, enacted in the interests of slavery, they have come to the basis of 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 before the war, when, though slaves were expressly recognized as chattels, and according to the Dred Scott decision, “a black man had no rights a white man was bound to respect,” yet, according to slavery law five of them gave their master three extra votes.

But the ratio of voters to population varied from nineteen to fifty-eight per cent. in different states, as, for example, California had two hundred and seven thousand voters out of a population of three hundred and fifty-eight thousand one hundred and ten, while Vermont had but eighty-seven thousand voters out of a population of three hundred and fourteen thousand three hundred and sixty-nine, and each had three representatives in congress; that is, eighty-seven thousand voters in Vermont sent three congressmen, while two hundred and seven thousand voters in California sent but the same number.

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

It was with such arguments as the above,—a mathematical argument, without sophistry, and that cannot be impeached,—that he opposed a constitutional amendment making suffrage and[267] not population the basis of representation, and so reserving an argument to use in framing the citizenship of the freemen.

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

He very soon has an immense report from his committee of nine, to pay the loyal states their war-claims. In it twenty-six states, five territories, and the District of Columbia have their war-claims adjusted, and they are to receive all the way from nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-five dollars, as in the case of the territory of Dakota for enlisting one hundred and eighty-one men, up to twenty million nine hundred and ninety-three thousand two hundred and eighty dollars, as in the case of New York for enlisting three hundred and eighty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-six men; and it is a peculiarity with him to know for himself, by careful computation, the exact truth of the statistics he employs.

One day it so happened that he used the calculations of a distinguished member who was chairman of a prominent committee,—that of ways and means,—and they were called in question; but soon after he was able to affirm publicly that they were correct.

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

His great love for mathematics, and the position he was in requiring it, he was led to make an extensive study of the history of finance, and in a speech of great length, by which he supported his report to pay the vast war-claims of the loyal states, he clearly shows the wide range of his acquaintance with the subject. He shows great familiarity with the policy and utterances of Alexander Hamilton, his exceeding common-sense methods, which he quotes with so great aptness as to give them the power of living arguments, as he offers them in evidence of the wisdom of his own views and the tenable nature of the positions he has taken.

It was proposed to bring all troops to a three years’ basis, and then refund at the rate of fifty-five dollars a man. Thus, Pennsylvania, with three hundred and sixty-six thousand three hundred and twenty-six men, which, reduced to a three years’ basis, gave two hundred and sixty-seven thousand five hundred and fifty-eight, which[269] at the rate proposed made the claim of that state fourteen million seven hundred and fifteen thousand six hundred and ninety dollars. The Gettysburgh battle alone had cost the state seven hundred thousand dollars, and as for that and other service she had furnished men for a much shorter period than three years, the whole number of men were reduced nearly one hundred thousand to get them all on the three years’ basis.

No question commanded a more wide-spread or deeper attention for years subsequent to the war than the question of money, and it behooved any man with the aspirations of a statesman, to make a long and thorough study of it.

“Reading,” it is said, “makes a full man, speaking a ready man.” He was both reader and speaker, and so proved the truth of the maxim, 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 valuable to him, with which he was filled, as well as that which came from historical research.

It was about this time that, as a member of the committee on military affairs, and while the conduct of the office of provost-marshal general was being investigated, that he had his lively tilt with Mr. Roscoe Conkling, and brought out all of his powers of wit and sarcasm, showing[270] him more than a match for the gentleman. It was undoubtedly the most brilliant intellectual contest of the session. Ex-Governor Morrill says, “It was a pretty lively time, but they were boys then, and probably are better friends to-day, though it is certainly evident they both did their best.”

Consistency in legislation seemed a law with Mr. Blaine, so that the House should not be found contradicting itself on the military functions of the president. Indeed the powers of government are so nicely balanced between the executive and the Senate and House, that great watchfulness is needed that there be no conflict; and new members,—and sometimes old members,—are found 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 late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for representatives in congress, and for elections for president and vice-president of the United States.” He at once raised the question of bad faith, because on July 17, 1862, they had authorized the president to grant pardon and amnesty to any person, state or part thereof, that was in rebellion.

And to this effect President Lincoln did issue a proclamation, and hundreds, and perhaps thousands[271] of pardons were granted. And in 1865 President Johnson issued his celebrated amnesty proclamation, pardoning all below the military rank of colonel, who had participated in the Rebellion, excepting certain classes.

One thing is clearly manifest in all of Mr. Blaine’s operations in congress,—he thoroughly enjoys it all; he is at home, and feels so constantly. He can trust himself; there is no striving for effect. He never gets lost in depths, nor aground upon shallows. He can fish in deep water, or seine near shore. It is quite noticeable how he will go with the passage of a motion from some minor detail of internal revenue to the gravest questions of constitutional law. It was said once by a great preacher who was pastor of a large church, editor of a large paper, and engaged in writing a book, that he had to live in those three great spheres, transporting himself daily from one to another, as he worked in each. But here were not less than a dozen great departments with which one must be as familiar as with the rooms of his dwelling, and have in possession, living, present, trenchant facts; the latest phases of new, fresh life, and the old and musty as well. For it will not do to blunder in congress; it is blundering before the nation, and before the world. The folks at home will find it out right off, and[272] worst of all you will find it out, and a man will feel so terribly small, and ashamed, and mean, and it will be such desperate hard work to own up, and sit down with all-hands looking straight at you.

It is one of the first matters of congressional courtesy, to let anyone ask you a question. And this is all done so blandly, and in such elegant diction, one is almost charmed by the tones so as scarcely to get hold of the question itself; but that question is like the bee, so bright and beautiful, and musical withal, and yet it has a sting.

What is denominated “brass,” in modern parlance, will not serve one’s purpose. It is at once detected by its sound, and then confusion comes,—it will come, it must come, and brass cannot prevent it.

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

And then, after adjournment, comes the great campaign, in which the thirteenth amendment is submitted to the suffrage of the people. Two-thirds of the states must endorse it to make it organic law, and this they do right heartily, and congress resumes its session the first Monday in December. It is the second session of the thirty-ninth congress, and the second of Mr. Blaine’s second term.

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

The first day of the session Mr. Blaine made a move for the repeal of the three cents per pound tax on raw cotton, which was finally carried. This was a move which affected every home, and especially the laboring classes; for older ones do not forget how enormously high cotton goods were in war times and subsequently, and so have little difficulty in understanding the importance of such a move. It was contended that it was a wrong principle to tax the raw production of the soil, and in conflict with the long-established policy of the nation.

Mr. Blaine’s resolves at this time came thick and fast, like resolutions at New Year’s, but with more purpose in them. Indeed his purpose[274] is a noticeable feature of every move, and he could 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 legal forms do not always make it at once apparent. He gives his reasons for the measure. For instance, volunteer officers could not be breveted in the regular army for meritorious service in the volunteer service. This he saw was wrong, and drew up a bill in regular form to right the matter, and then states what he means about it, and the facts that have moved him, generally move the rest. Almost nine-tenths of the new regular army was to be made up of the old volunteers, and he would have the old regular army laws changed so as not to discriminate against them and in favor of West Pointers.

There was no red-tape about him. He did not believe in it. It took too much time, and was too unjust. He believed in solid worth, and in rewarding it. He is a straight and constant American, and loves all who love America, and will not have them dealt unfairly with if it is in his power to prevent. Fair play is a term he 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 insisted for himself. He evidently had seen the old definition of freeman, “Who knows his rights and knowing dare maintain.”

And yet this genius of fair play which possessed him, kept him from being a bigot. His sense of justice would rebel against an outrage inflicted upon anyone. But it is getting to be a hot place in congress. Andrew Johnson has disappointed the hopes of the nation. He is not filling the place of the dead Lincoln, but rather dishonoring it, and articles of impeachment are originating in the House, summoning him before the bar of the senate because of “the crimes and high misdemeanors of which he is manifestly and notoriously guilty, and which render it unsafe longer to permit him to exercise the functions he has unlawfully assumed.” The air was filled with this matter of impeachment during the summer campaign, but on in the dead of winter there is no disposition to rush madly or blindly into it. It is but one of many things demanding attention.

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

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

It seemed to be a time of political apostasy in the nation. Many are betraying their trusts, and a large number fall, politically, to rise no more. Many of the old war Democrats, like Andrew Johnson, were simply Democrats when the war was over. It seemed to be a sort of political reaction after the high pressure of the war. They were not prepared to accept all the results of the war. It was more than they had anticipated, and the result was an unwillingness to proceed, and so many called a halt; but Thaddeus Stevens in the House, and Charles Sumner in the senate, kept the work planned and the forces in motion. Mr. Stevens formed a strong friendship for Mr. Blaine, and as they were on the military committee together, he learned to respect his talents and prize his ability.

[277]

XIII.
CONGRESSIONAL CAREER CONTINUED.

THE 4th of March comes, and with it the fortieth congress, with Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, still in the speaker’s chair; Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and James G. Blaine are in the House. They were on their way up to the nation’s honors, and had seats near each other. The House, rather than the senate, is the place to look for presidents. There seems to be no special reason for it, unless it is that senatorial dignity and greatness are less approachable, not so easily grasped by the public mind, and farther away from the great masses of the people.

Mr. Blaine comes to the fortieth congress with the same soldierly spirit of fearlessness, the same scholarly spirit of intelligence, the same genial spirit of friendship, that have borne him through two former terms in Washington. He is now 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 for adoption. He is fairly in training now for the speakership, but before that can come he must be re-elected, and he has already been elected twice by way of compliment, as it is termed in Maine. But he is no dreamer, and so devotes himself to business, with enough to do, and no idle hours. He is quite methodical, and is heard frequently insisting upon the regular order of business, and that business on the speaker’s stand be attended to, and also that members attend the evening sessions for business. It worries him to see business of importance drag, and bills accumulate, and so the House get behind in its work. He uses every parliamentary method to prevent delays, and seldom is his way hedged up effectually when he has determined upon his course, and feels that fidelity to his trust requires expedition. He usually gets through without much opposition, for good nature in him begets it in others, and so when all are thus made willing, as by an opposite disposition they are made unwilling, it is an easy matter. But when the measure is at all political, as are some of the great measures which crystalize the war-victories into constitutional enactments, he is put upon his resources for ways and means, and is found usually to be as fertile as the occasion demands.

[279]He is down in the Record as an editor, and this places him in relations of sympathy and friendship with journalists at the capital. He is known, and knows them, and shows by the favor of various acts of kindness that his editorial heart is still beating warm for the drivers of the quill. There are but three other editors besides himself in the House,—James Brooks, of New York city; Lawrence J. Getz, of Reading; and Adam J. Glassbremer, of York, Penn.

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

It is certainly a matter of peculiar interest to look in upon these men and see them at their work, all unconscious of the great future that lies before them; some of the time doing what seems like little things, as when Mr. Blaine moves “to exempt wrapping paper made from wood from internal tax,” and Mr. Garfield rises and says, “I ask the gentleman from Maine to allow an amendment by inserting the word ‘corn-stalks,’ which,” he added, “was a very important manufacture.” But all of these little things were 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 a history in the House, and a reference to them brings out one fact very conclusively,—that Mr. Blaine was not hot-headed in the sense of rashness. Many were at this time,—about a year before the impeachment trial,—filled with alarm, excited, aroused, and bent upon the work at once; but Mr. Blaine was cool, attentive, collected, and studious of the great subject, and he saw that as yet the country did not demand it, and so he moved, the senate concurring, “That when the House adjourn, on Tuesday next, it be to meet on Monday, November 11, at twelve o’clock, M.” Some six months would intervene, and many objected. General Butler was there, and offered a vigorous protest. He was for war, vigorous, uncompromising, and merciless. But Mr. Blaine replied, “I would ask the gentleman from Massachusetts, through what convention of the people, through what organism of public opinion, through what channel of general information anywhere throughout the length and breadth of the land, this demand is made upon congress? [It was then March 23, 1867.] Sir, I maintain that out of the seventeen or eighteen hundred newspapers that represent the loyal Union party of this country,—and these are[281] the best indices of public opinion which a party has,—the gentleman cannot find twenty-five which regard the impeachment movement as one seriously to be undertaken on the part of congress at this time.”

It is exceedingly difficult for us now to go back to a year before the extraordinary spectacle of an impeachment trial of the President of the United States, and recall all the circumstances and the state of the country at that particular time. The best minds in the House seemed to be with Mr. Blaine in his feeling, that there was no immediate demand or warrant for the impeachment of the president. His acts were public, and known to the people, and from them to their representatives in congress must come the demand. Moreover, the resolutions of impeachment had been in the hands of a special committee for some months, but they, agreeing with Mr. Blaine, saw no cause for impetuous action.

It was evidently designed to be a matter of wholesome restraint, that this preliminary step had been taken. A great many speeches were made under the resolution to adjourn, upon the impeachment question.

Mr. Garfield said, “The gentleman said I desired congress to remain in session for two reasons; first, to compel the appointment of certain[282] persons to office [there were several hundred postmasters to be appointed and confirmed], and second, for the purpose of impeaching the president. I call his attention to the fact, that I made no allusion whatever to the question of impeachment; I have nothing to say in that direction until I hear from the committee. I expressed it as my opinion merely that the President of the United States would be very glad to have the fortieth congress adjourn, and this I understood from the friends of the president.”

Mr. Boutwell, taking part, said, “The great and substantial reason is that whether this House shall proceed to impeach the president or not, 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 based upon facts of his character, or measures of his public policy, or upon suspicion or prejudice merely, I do not propose now to inquire. The great fact is, the people of the country everywhere have lost confidence in the wisdom, if not in the honesty, of his administration.”

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

[283]“No, Sir.”

Mr. Blaine held the floor under a certain rule of congress, and gave his time to others as they desired to discuss the question, but at the end was 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 of a personal character, and that he could not be gainsaid, and was never metaphysical, a priori, or theorizing in his discussions, so nothing but facts or figures, something tangible and real, influenced him. The sailing of an eagle might be very beautiful, and elicit feelings of admiration and sublimity, but it did not influence his judgment.

Only the kind of arguments he used to influence other minds would influence his,—and when his mind was made up, it was from just these 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 have I spoken”; so with him, he believed, and therefore spoke. No surface-current, only the deep under-current, moved him.

Mr. Blaine has great accuracy in the use of language, and although off-hand and often under peculiarly distracting circumstances, one who followed[284] him quite closely through his various utterances, did not discover a grammatical mistake until near the end of the fortieth congress, and that was possibly a mistake of the printer, and very slight in itself, using “to” for “at” in the phrase “strike at the senate committee clerks more than it does to ours.”

Congress adjourned on the 30th of March until the 21st of November, unless a quorum was present the 3d of July, and if so a session would be held. A brief session of two weeks was held, but Mr. Blaine was not there. He and Elihu B. Washburne and another congressman were in Europe. It was Mr. Blaine’s first trip. Liverpool was visited, and commercial interests were studied. Imagination seldom furnishes right impressions. No one about whom we have heard ever looks as we expected he was going to. It always gets great men too large on the outside, and enormous cities either too large or too small, as the case may be. Liverpool was immense; it has to be so. Almost limitless is England’s foreign trade. What men they must have been to make their island so important as to compel the commerce of the world to visit them! It was wonderful; the ships and cargoes for all of India, for Egypt, for all of Europe, for Australia, for America, and the Indies, for Mexico, China and Japan.

[285]It was indeed a study for him whose mind must find the merits of every subject. It was not simply a matter of landing safely and boarding a train for London. The war was but two years over. The Alabama was not forgotten, nor all of England’s mischief. Ships and shipping in all their construction and competition had been the study of years to him, and to take in those busy scenes upon the Mersey and the Clyde, was but the reading of a new book to one familiar with the language.

They reach the great metropolis. Parliament is their objective point. Few will have more brains than they bring with them, or know more about their affairs of state; but the study is to be long and careful, and they are to know more fully the inner life and character of those who have made laws for half the world. Day after day, week after week, the great Head Centre in all its ramifications is studied at shortest possible range.

But Scotland and Ireland must be visited, for they are the home of his ancestors. He breathes the air, he sees the sky, he presses the sod, he touches the heather. He is really, truly there. The dream of boyhood days, when he stood by grandfather’s knee, and heard of the old clans, the blowing of the horn, and the echoes down the valleys, of the cows and sheep, and the tinkling[286] of the bells, the clash of arms and the battles won; and now he is there, thrilled with the memories and the ancient scenes. The old castles, quaint, and moss-covered, and grand, and the people with their fresh look and fiery eye, vigilant ever to the end of time. What valleys and mountains and peoples are there; what rivers and lakes and loud-sounding sea! Surely nothing short of an affair of the Stuarts would compel them to quit their strongholds and their homes, their native heather, and flee to other lands, so far, so very far away as it was then, back in that olden time.

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

As Mr. Garfield had “during his only visit to England busied himself in searching out every trace of his forefathers in parish-registries and ancient army-rolls,” so his inheritor of the nation’s honors traced back the stock from which he sprang to mountain, glen, and castle, which had rung with the name he bore. He too might[287] say, sitting with a friend in the gallery of the House of Commons, “that when patriots of English blood had struck sturdy blows for constitutional government and human liberty, his family had been represented.”

But they continue their journey, and cross the English channel from Dover to Calais, and soon are in the capital of the French Empire. Napoleon III is there in his glory. Two years later his traveling companion, Hon. E. B. Washburne, is to be United States minister at his court, and not long after a prisoner in Paris during its siege in the Franco-Prussian war.

Mr. Blaine’s knowledge of French serves him, and enables him to secure all the general information he desired. He was not among free institutions now, and felt the keen chill in the very atmosphere. But in visiting the French Assembly there was a show of liberty, like an eagle in a cage. It was a noisy, tumultuous scene, with a jargon indescribable and largely unintelligible. Few things are wilder, except the ocean in a storm, than the deliberative assembly of the French nation when measures of special importance are pending. But the great city, with its multitudes of people, is full of attractions.

The Tuilleries is visited, and the Champs Elysées, the great armies so soon to reel in the shock of war, and learn a lesson of sobriety[288] and contented home-life that shall give to the French of the future a greatness that has in it more of the element of stability and permanency, and so tone down their mercurial and volatile nature. The Rhine is visited, and Florence.

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

History is all about him; the nations of Europe are within his reach; their capitals are visited, and they are studied from life. Impressions deep, and strong, and lasting are made. Plutarch’s old method of comparisons and contrasts still serves him, and he gets his knowledge in classified, compact forms. The people and 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 giant mountains, the beautiful villages, valleys, and lakes, and all that is picturesque in nature. Switzerland is a charm; Italy a delight, and the whole journey a joy. He returns a broader, deeper, wiser man, to live a stronger, richer life in a larger world.

He was in his seat at the beginning of congress[289] in November. Eight men are there from Tennessee, 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, calling upon the general commanding the armies to communicate to the House any and all correspondence addressed by him to the president upon the removal of Secretary Stanton and General Sheridan, and General Sickles as well; and also with reference to the proposed mission of the general of the army to Mexico in 1866.

But his great friend, Senator Fessenden, is now secretary of the treasury, and this gives the financial question a new interest, and he comes to the front in a most vigorous manner as vindicator and defender of the secretary’s financial policy, in one of his great speeches on the currency.

It is quite early in the session, only five days after congress convened. His friend, Mr. Washburne, had taken the initiatory step by moving they go into committee of the whole on the state of the Union.

Mr. Dawes was in the chair, and the question related to the reduction of the currency. Erroneous and 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 candidate for vice-president, and General Butler, of Massachusetts, had assumed the position that “the principal and the interest of United States bonds, known as the five-twenties, may be fairly and legally paid in paper currency by the government, after the expiration of five years from the date of the issue.”

And just here we get a view of Mr. Blaine’s power of analysis; the ability of his mind to grasp a subject in its great features and fundamental principles; to bring to the surface its underlying points or elements of strength and weakness, so classified and arranged as to state them in logical and convincing propositions, and all of them most practical in their character.

1. “The position contravenes the honor and good faith of the national government.” And this was the final view adhered to by the best statesmen of the Republican party.

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

3. “It contemptuously ignores the common understanding between borrower and lender at the time the loan was negotiated (which was by Jay Cooke & Co. in 1863, to the extent of five hundred million dollars), a large proportion of[291] which was purchased by foreign capitalists, and was very successful. Nothing was said about payment in gold, but payment in gold, both of principal and interest, had been the invariable rule from the foundation of the government.”

“Our government,” said Nathaniel Mason, “is a hard-money government, founded by hard-money men, and its debts are hard-money debts.”

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

4. “It would prove disastrous to the financial interests of the government, and the general prosperity of the country,” by, of course, reducing the par value of the bonds and blockading their sale as they floated through the markets of the world.

It should be with some pride and glory now, after the honorable history of the national debt thus far, and which has given to the nation the credit of the world, that Mr. Blaine remembers that so early in the discussion, when the ideas of the many were crude, and only those of the few were clear, that he closed his speech with these splendid words,—words which embody the steady policy of the government from that time to the present:—

[292]“I am sure,” said Mr. Blaine, “that in the peace which our arms have conquered, we shall not dishonor ourselves by withholding from any public creditor a dollar that we promised to pay him; nor seek by cunning construction and clever afterthought to evade or escape the full responsibility of our national indebtedness. It will doubtless cost us a vast sum to pay that indebtedness, but it will cost us incalculably more not to pay it.”

It took Gen. Benj. F. Butler two days to reply to this speech of Mr. Blaine’s, in which he bloomed forth as a greenbacker of fullest flower and strongest fragrance. This led Mr. Blaine to say:—

“We have a loan distinctly defined, well known to the people, that has a specific rate of interest, a certain time to run, and express condition on which it is to be paid; but the gentleman from Massachusetts is for brushing this all aside and placing before the country a species of legal-tender notes which have no fixed time to run, bear no interest, have no standard of value, and which the government is under no obligation to pay at any particular time, and which may indeed never be called in for redemption.”

And all of this reminded Mr. Blaine of a story:—

“I think the gentleman must have borrowed[293] his notions of finance from a man who failed a few years since in one of the eastern cities of Maine, and who wrote over his store-door, ‘Payment suspended for thirty days.’ A neighbor passing by said to him, ‘You have neglected to date your notice.’ ‘Why, no,’ said he, ‘I did not intend to date it; it would run out if I did.’ And so the gentleman was to issue a government legal tender that never runs out.”

The sitting of congress during the winter of 1867 and 1868, was long and tedious, extending from November on into July. Mr. Blaine was on the committee on appropriations, and had charge of the army-appropriation bill on its passage through the House. The army had been reduced to sixty regiments, and thirty-two million dollars asked to pay them, while before the war twenty-five million dollars for the army, consisting of only nineteen, or as Mr. Blaine put it, “a regiment under the Democratic administration preceding the war cost more than double in gold what it costs now under General Grant in paper, or in other words, that it cost on an average over a million of dollars in gold to a regiment then, and when General Grant was in charge, about half a million to a regiment.”

It required great patience, courage, and intelligence to stand by such a bill for two or three days, answer all questions, meet all objections[294] and opposition, and keep sweet all through; for it was made a political question, as nearly every measure was, and so the opposition party would sit there and resist and vote in a bunch, but usually to no purpose. The great impeachment trial had come on, and was being conducted by the senate in the presence of members of the House.

This caused their adjournment after the morning hour until three o’clock, daily. The managers of the trial, chosen by the House, were John 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 upon the great committee, and seen to it that every trust confided to him in congress was sacredly discharged, he procured an indefinite leave of absence, after being there day and night for some eight months, and not being one of the managers of the impeachment trial, and having no active part to take in its proceedings, and so he went home to conduct the summer campaign, giving himself, however, but two months for this purpose. He had been absent in Europe, the summer before, and now he had been re-nominated to congress for the fourth time, something unusual in the district, as he had been elected three times already.

[295]It would not do to fail, having been thus honored by his party. So notwithstanding his long, hard siege in congress, and which had brought him more than ever into official communication with heads of departments and the general of the army, he devotes July and August to hard campaign-work, discussing before the people the great questions of the currency, and the war-debt, etc., that had filled his mind in congress. His experience there had been just the needed preparation for this field-work, which was little more than justifying their congressional actions and explaining them.

The great question of the campaign was, “hard or soft money,” as it was called. The seeds of the greenback heresy, it will be recalled, had been sown broadcast in Mr. Garfield’s Western Reserve district in Ohio, and the convention met to renominate him had declared for soft money, when he was called in for a speech. He was a hard-money man, and nothing else, and could not stultify himself. He was begged by friends not to antagonize the convention, but his firm reply was, “I shall not violate my conscience and my principles in this matter,” and so he made it known to the convention without any compromise. It was such an exhibition of courage, integrity, and of all manly power, that they nominated him at once by acclamation.

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

One president was being impeached, and another being elected. Mr. Blaine had done what was necessary for him in the case of one, and now was doing what he could for the other. He had not taken the most advanced grounds regarding the impeachment. He was quite inclined to be conservative; and while he did not oppose, neither did he vehemently demand it at all hazards. It was serious business, and he viewed it with the broad, comprehensive mind of a statesman.

It was like “tearing up the foundation of things,” as he said. He had a deep and delicate sense of honor about it. The president was the chief man of the nation, there by the suffrages of a great people. Results seem to show that all were finally brought to Mr. Blaine’s conclusions, if not to his temper of mind upon the subject. He simply did not make any violent speeches in its favor, as so many did, but acted effectively with his party for the right. His strength was used in the campaign. He wanted a new president of the right stamp, and knew that if faithful work was done, they would have[297] one in less than a year. So to this task he addressed himself with his accustomed energies, and not without success, which had come to be almost a matter of course, though hard, hot fights were made against him.

General Grant received two hundred and fourteen votes in the electoral college, to eighty-four for Mr. Seymour, and again the Republican sky was ablaze with great and wide-spread victory.

[298]

XIV.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS.

THE future had no clouds for Mr. Blaine as he returned for the fourth time to Washington as a member-elect to congress. He was in manhood’s prime, backed by a splendid record of triumph on the field of political contest, and of achievement in the arena of debate. He was thoroughly conversant with the affairs of the House in every detail of rule or measure, and was widely known and recognized as among the most popular and efficient members. His knowledge, gathered from wide fields of travel, experience, and observation, was vast; his powers thoroughly disciplined and under the finest control; his acquaintance extensive, and his rank high in personal and political friendships.

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

Granting his fitness and ability, which, perhaps, no one who knows him at all would question, the still greater question is how to win the prize, how to secure the position. It is purely a question of votes, and the one thing that secures them is personal influence. It may come of the individual’s own exertions, his power to command, the charm of his name, the fascination of his character, the magnetism of his person. But it is a matter of stupendous strength and of transcendent abilities for one to lift himself so far above his fellows as to win their suffrages in such a place as that, by his own unaided personal attractions.

Here was the great argument, but not the active agent. There must be some one to state the case, to manage it, to make the appeal, some one strong friend or more, who has grit and gumption to put it through, and see it done,—that man is Thaddeus Stevens, of his native state of Pennsylvania. He is the one of all others to do this thing.

Of few men’s power Mr. Blaine had a loftier idea than of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. There was indeed a trio who attracted and held the admiration of Mr. Blaine, and he has sketched their[300] characters most vividly. Will you hear him as he says:—

“The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hitherto developed in this country, are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. They were all men of consummate ability, of great earnestness, of intense personality, differing widely each from the others, and yet with a single trait in common,—the power to command. In the give and take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating reluctant and refractory followers, in the skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault, or unsuspected defection, it would be difficult to rank with these a fourth name in all our congressional history.

“But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be impossible to find in parliamentary annals, greater power than when, in 1841, at sixty-four years of age, he took the control of the Whig party from the president who had received their suffrages, against the power of Webster in the cabinet, against the eloquence of Choate in the senate, against the herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise in the House. In unshared leadership, in the pride and plenitude of power, he hurled against John Tyler, with deepest scorn, the mass of that conquering[301] column which had swept over the land in 1840, and drove his administration to shelter behind the lines of his political foes.

“Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful, when, in 1854, against the secret desires of a strong administration, against the wise counsel of the older chiefs, against the conservative instincts and even the moral sense of the country, he forced a reluctant congress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

“And now we come to Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, who, in his contests from 1865 to 1868, actually advanced his parliamentary leadership until congress tied the hands of the president, and governed the country by its own will, leaving only perfunctionary duties to be discharged by the executive. With two hundred millions of patronage in 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 support of one-third in either House against the parliamentary uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens was the 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 military affairs with Mr. Stevens. He became known to[302] him thoroughly as a man with talent for indefatigable toil, and a genius for doing hard and difficult things with great certainty and despatch. He was just the man to attract the attention, and be admired, respected, and loved by a man of Mr. Stevens’ consummate ability, and to be selected by him for promotion and honor. And the hour had come for just that honor, the highest in the gift of the House.

It was the third office in the nation, with a salary three thousand dollars greater than that of United States senator, and equal to the salary of vice-president or secretary of state. And so by virtue of his recognized fitness, and the power of this great friend, the office comes to him, and he comes to it.

Some think, and perhaps rightly, that his tilt with Mr. Conkling popularized him greatly with the members of the House, who thoroughly enjoyed it, and so prepared the way to the honor which 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 it was not waiting, but working, with him, occupying the stronghold he had made for himself in the manifold business of the House.

But now he is taken from this, and out of the arena of debate, and yet lifted into greater prominence and power; appointing all the great[303] committees of the House, a task requiring the highest order of ability in the knowledge of men; deciding all questions, and exercising a controlling influence over legislation.

There is little power men employ in all the great work of life, but he needs it in its rarest form. He must be a broad, a wide, a universal man; in sympathy with all, so far as right and justice are concerned. There are the choice, the crowned ones from every congressional district in all the states and territories, and he is the choice, the crowned one among them,—their chosen chief.

Tennyson’s words press for utterance right here, as we see him step from the floor to the speaker’s chair:—

[304]It was only by the proof of character, the most solid and reliable, he could possibly have secured the friendship of Mr. Stevens. And not his alone, but the friendship of Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, who nominated Mr. Blaine as candidate for speaker, and who, as senior member, swore him in.

It was a proud day for Mr. Washburne, the staunch friend of General Grant, to witness his inaugural, and then, as the true friend of Mr. Blaine, aid so largely in putting him into the speaker’s chair the same day.

Mr. Stevens was not there to enjoy the triumph of his friend, but his endorsement was good as a letter of credit.

When the ballot was concluded it read:—Whole number of votes cast, one hundred and ninety-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 to the chair, when he addressed the House as follows:—

It is a curious coincidence that General Schenck, of Ohio, who startled Mr. Blaine with the charge of irrelevancy at his first utterance on the floor, but was so utterly discomfited afterwards, is now the first one to address him as “Mr. Speaker,” and Mr. Kerr, his competitor, soon follows.

It was at this session that new members from reconstructed states appeared, and many were the objections made to this new member and that, because of disloyalty. It was to present a charge of this kind that Mr. Schenck arose.

The noticeable feature of Mr. Blaine’s speakership is the expeditious manner in which business is conducted, and the consequent brevity of sessions.

It may be observed right here that Mr. Blaine’s friend, E. B. Washburne, chose rather to go as minister to Paris, and Hamilton Fish became secretary of state.

For two successive congresses Mr. Blaine was re-elected speaker by the large Republican majorities serving through the reconstruction period of the rebel states, and through most of General Grant’s two terms of the presidency. It[307] was during this period his reputation became truly national.

He might have occupied the chair all the time, and taken things easy; but this was not his nature. It was his privilege to go upon the floor, and take up the gauntlet of debate. It was expected that things would become lively at once when he did so. There was a resolution one day for a committee to investigate the outrages in the South. Mr. Blaine had written the resolution, which was presented by his colleague, and asked for its passage; and, lest the claquers should say he put only “weak-kneed Republicans” on the committee, he made Benj. F. Butler chairman, which in some almost unaccountable way greatly enraged Mr. Butler, who might have then contemplated accompanying Gen. John M. Palmer and others into the Democratic party, and so he telegraphed to newspapers and issued a circular which appeared on the desks of members, denouncing what he was pleased to call a trick, and used other vigorous language on the floor of the House. Of course the speaker could not sit quietly in the chair and be thus tempestuously assailed, so calling a future vice-president to the chair (Wheeler), he said, “I wish to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts whether he denies me the right to have drawn that resolution” (it was presented[308] in the caucus first which had just re-nominated Mr. Blaine for speaker).

Mr. Butler replied, “I have made no assertion on that subject, one way or other.”

Mr. Blaine: “Did not the gentleman know distinctly that I drew it?”

“No, sir!” was the reply.

“Did I not take it to the gentleman and read 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 of said committee shall be paid from the contingent fund of the House of Representatives’ (applause), and the fact that ways and means were wanted to pay the expenses was the only objection he made to it.”

It appears that the resolution was considered as a test of the Republicanism of members. General Butler had been asked to take the chairmanship, but refused, and said he would have nothing to do with the resolution; but Mr. Blaine put him on the committee, and when asked why, replied, “Because I knew very well that if I omitted the appointment of the gentleman it would be heralded throughout the length and breadth of the country by the[309] claquers, who have so industriously distributed this letter this morning, that the speaker had packed the committee, as the gentleman said he would, with ‘weak-kneed Republicans,’ who would not go into an investigation vigorously, as he would. That was the reason (applause), so that the chair laid the responsibility upon the gentleman of declining the appointment, and now the gentleman from Massachusetts is on his responsibility before the country,” and there we leave him.

It can but be with peculiar interest that we read the strong words of the oath taken so repeatedly by Mr. Blaine, and administered the second time by Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, after he had received one hundred and twenty-six votes, to ninety-two for Gen. George W. Morgan, of Ohio.

It kept a large committee busy to pass upon the character of members-elect and the legality of their election. Such was the broken condition of state governments in the South, so battered by war, and distracted by schism and contending factions. All of these perplexities adhered to applicants for membership in congress, presenting credentials of membership various in value as greenbacks and gold, and these same perplexities affected the staple of congressional measures.

Congress was increasing rapidly in the number[310] of its members, so that while one hundred and ninety-two votes were cast at Mr. Blaine’s first election to the speakership in 1869, there were two hundred and sixty-nine votes cast at his election to the same office in 1873, of which number 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 be chosen,” he says, “speaker of the House of Representatives is always an honorable distinction; to be chosen a third time enhances the honor more than three fold; to be chosen by the largest body that ever assembled in the Capitol imposes a burden of responsibility which only your indulgent kindness could embolden me to assume. The first occupant of this chair presided over a House of sixty-five members, representing a population far below the present aggregate of the state of New York. At that time there were not, in the whole United States, fifty thousand civilized inhabitants to be found one hundred miles distant from the flow of the Atlantic tide. To-day, gentlemen, a large majority of you come from beyond that limit, and represent districts peopled then only by the Indian and the adventurous frontiersman.

“The national government is not yet as old[311] as many of its citizens, but in this brief span of time,—less than one lengthened life,—it has, under God’s good providence, extended its power until a continent is the field of its empire, and attests the majesty of its law.

“With the growth of new states and the resulting changes in the centres of population, new interests are developed, rival to the old, but by no means hostile; diverse, but not antagonistic. Nay, rather are all these interests in harmony, and the true science of just government is to give to each its full and fair play, oppressing none by undue exaction, favoring none by undue privilege.

“It is this great lesson which our daily experience is teaching, binding us together more closely, making our mutual dependence more manifest, and causing us to feel that, whether we live in the North or in the South, in the East or in the West, we have indeed but ‘one country, one constitution, one destiny.’”

Few addresses so brief breathe a spirit of broader statesmanship, or loftier ideal of civil government. Two years before this, in 1871, he had been charged by General Butler with having presidential aspirations, and surely he was able to manifest the true conception of a just and righteous government, “oppressing none by undue exaction, favoring none by undue privilege,”[312] which is apparently the exact outcome—a sort of paraphrase of Lincoln’s words, “With malice toward none, with charity toward all.”

Many who had participated in the Rebellion, having had their political disabilities removed by the vote of two-thirds of each House of congress, came forward and took the special oath provided for them by act of July 11, 1868.

Mr. Blaine seldom, if ever, leaves the chair to participate in debate when questions of a political nature are pending, so that he may hold himself aloof for fair ruling in all of his decisions.

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, in the great debates, men are swept on by their sympathies, as barks are tossed in ocean-storms, and under the influence of their most powerful prejudices they are driven to rash and unwarrantable conclusions regarding the justice of any ruling, to conjectures the most unfair and wanton regarding motive, and as in the case of Mr. Blaine, to the most stupendous efforts at political assassination.

But it was not until the days of his speakership were over, and the people at home had expressed their confidence in him and their love and admiration for him, by electing him to congress[313] for the seventh time consecutively, that the storm struck him. It had been gathering long. Its animus was enmity, its bulk was hate, its dark, frowning exterior was streaked with the lurid lightnings of a baleful jealousy; muttering thunders like the deep growlings of exasperation were heard oft, but feared not.

The solid South had marched its rebel brigadiers by the score into the arena of national questioning and discussion, where for twelve years he had stood intrepid as the founders of the Republic. No man was more at home upon that field than he,—none more familiar with the men, the methods, and the measures that had triumphed there,—and few have been more victorious in the great ends for which he strove, few readier to challenge the coming of any man, to know his rights, his mission, and his weight. He was, of all men, the most unconquerable by those who plead for measures subversive of any great or minor end for which the war was fought.

He had gained the credit of the fourteenth amendment, and had been identified with all. He was simply bent upon resistance, the most powerful he could command, against all encroachments of the bad and false, and to show no favor toward any feature for which rebellion fought. Fair, honorable, just,—none could be more so.

[314]When speaker of the House, he was informed one day that a prominent correspondent of a leading paper, who had maligned and vilified him shockingly, was on the floor, and at once he said, “Invite him up here,” and he gave him a seat by his side, within the speaker’s desk, and placed at the disposal of the man the information of public importance at his command. The fellow was amazed, and went away and wrote how kindly he had been treated by the great-hearted man of noble impulses, after he had so roundly abused him.

There is nothing vindictive about him, nothing despicable. He is severe, herculean, desperate for the right, and will win in every battle that commands the forces of his being, if victory be achievable. But he honors strong, square men, who have convictions and dare proclaim them; but petty, mean, ignoble souls are first despised, then pitied.

But the day of his betrayal came, the day of rebel wrath; and he met the stroke before the nation’s gaze, and was vindicated before the world.

A business correspondence, it had been said he had burned. He said, “No, there it is, and I will read it to the House,” and he read it. What business firm, it has been asked, would like to have their correspondence regarding any[315] great business interest, read to those who are filled with all manner of suspicions, and so have it misjudged, misinterpreted, and misapplied? And then, to show the temper of those with whom he dealt, a cablegram from Europe vindicating him, was for two days suppressed by the chairman of the congressional committee, before whom he stood, and who failed to convict him by any document at their command. The scene at that time, and their discomfiture, is thus described by an eye-witness:—

“His management of his own case when the Mulligan letters came out was worthy of any general who ever set a squadron in the field. For nearly fifteen years I have looked down from the galleries of the House and Senate, and I never saw, and never expect to see, and never have read of such a scene, where the grandeur of human effort was better illustrated, than when this great orator rushed down the aisle, and, in the very face of Proctor Knott, charged him with suppressing a telegram favorable to Blaine. The whole floor and all the galleries were wild with excitement. Men yelled and cheered, women waved their handkerchiefs and went off into hysterics, and the floor was little less than a mob.”

About this time, Hon. Lot M. Morrill, of his state, was transferred from the senate to the[316] cabinet of President Grant, and as a partial justification, General Connor, the governor of Maine at this time, appointed him to represent Maine in the United States senate in place of Mr. Morrill. The official note was as follows:—

When the legislature of his state met, he came before them and placed himself under a thorough investigation at their hands. And as Ex-Gov. A. P. Morrill says, “They made thorough work of it.” A man to come forth from such an ordeal unscathed, and without the smell of fire on his garments, must be right and not wrong,—or else he is the veriest scoundrel, guilty, deeply so, and competent for bribes, and they, the legislature of Maine, who virtually tried him, hopelessly corrupt. But, no! this cannot be; and so he was vindicated, and triumphantly elected by them to the highest trust within their gift, to wear the honors of a Morrill and a Fessenden.

[317]

And yet again do they elect him for a full term of years. And then the royal Garfield, the nation’s loved and honored president, knowing all, and knowing him most intimately for seventeen years or more, takes him into his cabinet, trustingly, and for the nation’s good.

Can victory be grander, or triumph more complete, endorsement more honorable, or vindication more just, or a verdict be more patient, thorough, or exhaustive of evidence! What man in all the land, traduced and vilified just as Washington, Lincoln, and Garfield were, wears prouder badges of endorsement from congress, governor, legislature, senate, and conventions by the score! What man that bears credentials of his character as trophies of higher worth, from judges of sounder mind, and lives more unimpeachable? Answer, ye who can!

[318]

XV.
UNITED STATES SENATOR.

IT was generally understood in Maine that the Hon. Lot M. Morrill was serving his last term in the United States senate, and that Mr. Blaine was to be his successor; so that when Mr. Morrill was advanced to the secretaryship of the treasury in General Grant’s cabinet, it occasioned no surprise that Governor Connor appointed Mr. Blaine to the senate in his stead. He was just recovering from the partial sunstroke which felled him to the pavement while on his way to church, on a Sabbath morning, with Miss Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), just prior to the Cincinnati Convention, and soon after his victory over Proctor Knott, during his persecution in the House. Next to the nomination at Cincinnati, nothing of a political nature could have been more grateful to him than this high honor from the governor of his state, in accordance, as the governor himself says, with the expectation of the people. Coming, as it did, at an ill[319] and weary time, it must have greatly refreshed and revived his spirits, to have new and larger evidence of the esteem and endorsement of those to whose interests his life was devoted.

On July 12, 1876, he took his seat as the colleague of Hannibal Hamlin in the senate. He is placed at once as chairman on the committee on rules, and on the committee on appropriations, and on naval affairs, besides on a select committee “on the levees on the Mississippi River.” This, for a senatorial start, was quite honorable to his judgment and ability.

There are many old traditions and customs, which amount to laws, so far as assigning positions of responsibility to new members is concerned, but there is no law which prevents a new member from taking the most advanced position possible by virtue of his wisdom and knowledge, and his ability in debate.

He could not well become entangled in the meshes of an intricate network of rules and regulations, which Butler, in acknowledging Mr. Blaine’s superior knowledge of in the House, had said he knew nothing about,—Blaine knew it all. His position made it necessary that he should, and now he was made chief in this department in the new branch of legislation to which he had succeeded. So he could not be held or hampered by any difficulty of this kind.[320] Moreover, his acquaintance was well-nigh universal among the members, and some of them knew him a little better than they could have wished. He was also familiar with the methods and measures of the senate, having frequently been on joint committees with them during his early terms of service in the lower House, and then the general subjects of appropriations, naval, military, judiciary, manufactures, commerce, foreign affairs, finance, pension affairs, etc., these were the subjects with which he was accustomed to deal during all of his years in congress.

He was at home, and coming into the senate on the wave of popular excitement, which was of the same broad and sweeping character that surrounded Henry Clay, and which came so near giving him the nomination for the presidency then, he was not only at home in all his feelings of political association and public duty, but exceedingly prominent as well,—the one man of worth above all others, though the last to enter there.

He had no need to take front rank; he was there already, and gave himself to his work, not as a defeated man,—they had played but one inning then,—but as a victor, enjoying his promotion well, from the lower to the upper house 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 to enjoy them. It was a good place to be; grand enough to command the lives, in all their richness and 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. Great lights 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 adaptability and service. He had not come in to rest, be shelved, or fossilized. His old habit of thoroughness was on him still; he was not the man to change at six and forty years of age. He must still touch top, bottom, and sides of every question with which he dealt, and so he did.

He loved the truths of history, and took them whole, entire, lacking nothing, and not in a garbled form. This of course caused facts and figures to strike with telling power upon many a man’s coat of mail, or cause the shield to tremble with the power of his stroke. But he was there without apology, to do the strong, decisive work which marked the history of his life. He loved the state of his adoption, and the time had come when the pride of her glory should appear.

[322]The old House of Representatives had been devoted, as a gallery of art, to portraits and statues of the great men of the nation. Two were to be selected by each state from the record of their leading men.

The statue of William King, the first governor of Maine, in 1820 and 1821, was presented with speeches in the senate by both Mr. Hamlin and Mr. Blaine. In reciting briefly the history of Mr. King, Mr. Blaine relied wholly upon Massachusetts authority, and he added, “To have given anything like a sketch of Governor King’s life without giving his conflict with Massachusetts, touching the separation of Maine and her erection into an independent state, would have been like writing the life of Abraham Lincoln without mentioning the great Rebellion, which, as president of the United States, he was so largely instrumental in suppressing.”

These words he uttered in vindication of himself from certain restrictions placed upon him, and he closed by saying “that he notified the senators from Massachusetts that he should feel compelled to narrate those portions of Mr. King’s history that brought him in conflict with the parent state.”

In less than a month after the statue of Governor King was placed in the national gallery, by a unanimous vote of the senate, Mr.[323] Blaine was before that body with a speech of his usual force and energy, upon the absorbing question of hard money. The subject had been discussed in the House, and their action sent to the senate, and Mr. Blaine had offered a substitute for their bill, which contained three very simple provisions, as he said, viz.:—

1. “That the dollar shall contain four hundred and twenty-five grains of standard silver, shall have unlimited coinage, and be an unlimited legal tender.

2. “That all the profits of coinage shall go to the government, and not to the operator in silver bullion.

3. “That silver dollars or silver bullion, assayed and mint-stamped, may be deposited with the assistant treasurer at New York, for which coin-certificates may be issued, the same in denomination as United States notes, not below ten dollars, and that these shall be redeemable on demand in coin or bullion, thus furnishing a paper-circulation based on an actual deposit of precious metal, giving us notes as valuable as those of the Bank of England and doing away at once with the dreaded inconvenience of silver on account of bulk and weight.”

He cites an exclusively gold nation like England, which, while it may have some massive fortunes, shows also the most hopeless and[324] helpless poverty in the humblest walks of life. But France, a gold-and-silver nation, while it can exhibit no such fortunes as England boasts, presents “a people who, with silver savings, can pay a war indemnity that would have beggared the gold-bankers of London, and to which the peasantry of England could not have contributed a pound sterling in gold, nor a single shilling in silver.”

Mr. Blaine’s sense of justice, and national honor, and national pride were injured by making a dollar which, in effect, was not a dollar,—was not worth a hundred cents.

“Consider, further,” he says, “what injustice would be done to every holder of a legal-tender or national-bank note. That vast volume of paper-money—over seven hundred millions of dollars—is now worth between ninety-eight and ninety-nine cents on the dollar in gold coin. The holders of it, who are indeed our entire population, from the poorest to the wealthiest, have been promised, from the hour of its issue, that the paper-money would one day be as good as gold. To pay silver for the greenback is a full compliance with this promise and this obligation, provided the silver is made as it always has been hitherto, as good as gold. To make our silver coin even three per cent. less valuable than gold, inflicts at once a loss of[325] more than twenty millions of dollars on the holders of our paper-money. To make a silver dollar worth but ninety-two cents, precipitates on the same class a loss of well-nigh sixty millions of dollars. For whatever the value of the silver dollar is, the whole paper issue of the country will sink to its standard when its coinage is authorized and its circulation becomes general in the channels of trade.

“Some one in conversation with Commodore Vanderbilt during one of the many freight competitions of the trunk lines, said, ‘Why, the Canadian road has not sufficient carrying capacity to compete with your great line!’

“‘That is true,’ replied the Commodore, ‘but they can fix a rate and force us down to it.’

“Were congress to pass a law to-day, declaring that every legal-tender note and every national-bank note shall hereafter pass for only ninety-six or ninety-seven cents on the dollar, there is not a constituency in the United States that would re-elect a man that should support it, and in many districts the representative would be lucky if he escaped with merely a minority vote.”

Mr. Blaine’s sympathies in this discussion were with the people, and although he had passed out of that popular branch of congress, as it is called, 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 those who made the country strong and rich,—and so in continuing his speech he pleaded for them; and it will bring them nearer to him to-day to recall his strong and earnest words, which, even in the staid and formal senate, with its infinite courtesies and conservative venerations, has a heart to smile, and good cheer sufficient to applaud, as they did this close of his hard-money speech. These were his final utterances:—

“The effect of paying the labor of this country in silver coin of full value, as compared with irredeemable paper,—or as compared, even, with silver of inferior value,—will make itself felt in a single generation to the extent of tens of millions—perhaps hundreds of millions—in the aggregate savings which represent consolidated capital. It is the instinct of man from the savage to the scholar—developed in childhood, and remaining with age—to value the metals which in all tongues are called precious.

“Excessive paper-money leads to extravagance, to waste, and to want, as we painfully witness on all sides to-day. And in the midst of the proof 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—a total misinterpretation of the popular wish. The people do not demand cheap money. They demand an abundance of good money, which is an entirely different thing. They do not want a single gold standard that will exclude silver, and benefit those already rich. They do not want an inferior silver standard that will drive out gold, and not help those already poor. They want both metals, in full value, in equal honor, in whatever abundance the bountiful earth will yield them to the searching eye of science, and to the hard hand of labor.

“The two metals have existed side by side in harmonious, honorable companionship, as money, ever since intelligent trade was known among men. It is well-nigh forty centuries since ‘Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth—four hundred shekels of silver—current money with the merchant.’ Since that time nations have risen and fallen, races have disappeared, dialects and languages have been forgotten, arts have been lost, treasures have perished, continents have been discovered, islands have been sunk in the sea, and through all these ages, and through all these changes, silver and gold have reigned supreme as the representatives of[328] value—as the media of exchange. The dethronement of each has been attempted in turn, and sometimes the dethronement of both; but always in vain! And we are here to-day, deliberating anew over the problem which comes down to us from Abraham’s time—the weight of the silver that shall be ‘current money with the merchant.’”

As Mr. Blaine resumed his seat, it is said, in brackets, there was protracted applause; and so much was there that the vice-president, William A. Wheeler, of New York, felt compelled to say, “Order! The chair assuming that the galleries are ignorant of the laws of the senate, gives notice that if applause is repeated they will be promptly cleared.”

This cannot fail to suggest the fact beyond a doubt, that he had lost none of his old-time fervor, and that he proposed to allow no right of the people to slip from them, so long as he held place and power in their interest, and had a voice to lift in their defence.

The great business of congress is done by committees, as is well known, and their reports are discussed, amended, and acted upon, endorsed or rejected.

Mr. Blaine’s committee on appropriations was one of the most difficult. Demands are almost innumerable, and to act intelligently requires a[329] large knowledge of every department of the government; of the military, the great postal lines 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 on naval affairs, as he had gone over the whole question of ship-building and shipping while in the House.

We find him actuated by the same feelings of humanity and carefulness, as actuated him years before, but now more conspicuously, because in a larger, loftier sphere.

He presents bills for the relief of the families of those who perished on the United States dredge-boat “McAlister”; to enlarge the power and duties of the board of health in the District of Columbia; to amend the Pacific Railroad act by creating a sinking-fund. He moved to investigate charges against Senator M. C. Butler, of South Carolina.

We find Mr. Blaine showing an appreciation for that old soldier of the Republic, in the Mexican war and the war of the Rebellion, Hon. James Shields, of Missouri, by presenting a bill to make him a major-general. General Shields 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 he does not live long to enjoy it. He was a hardy, heroic, faithful man and soldier, and worthy of the repeated honors conferred upon him by his state and by the nation. It was a generous impulse of a kindly heart that prompted this honor in the senate for the aged soldier.

The bureau of engraving and printing was remembered by him in a bill to provide that department with a fire-proof building.

When the bill was before the senate to pension the soldiers of the Mexican war, Mr. Hoar offered a resolution by way of amendment: “Provided, further, that no pension shall ever be paid under this act to Jefferson Davis, the late president of the so-called Confederacy.” Twenty-two were found to vote against it. The discussion grew now almost intolerable. Nearly every rebel sympathizer from the South spoke against it; among them were Garland, Bailey, Maxey, Thurman, Gordon, Lamar, Morgan, Coke. Strong hearts were stirred against their utterances, and strong words uttered for the Union cause.

“There is no parallel to the magnanimity of our government,” said Mr. Blaine, in reply to Lamar’s charge of intolerance. “Not one single execution, not one single confiscation; at the[331] outside only fourteen thousand out of millions put under disfranchisement, and all of them released, and all of them invited to come to the common board, fraternally and patriotically, with the rest of us, and share a common destiny for weal or for woe in the future. I tell the honorable gentleman it does not become him, or any Southern man, to speak of intolerance on the part of the national government; rather, if he speak of it at all, he should allude to its magnanimity and its grandeur.”

The great boldness with which Mr. Blaine stood up against the usurpations of the solid South is a lasting honor to him. He desired to place on record, in a definite and authentic form, the frauds and outrages by which some recent elections were carried by the Democratic party in the Southern states, and to find if there be any method to prevent a repetition of those crimes against a free ballot. One hundred and six representatives had been elected recently in the South, and only four or five of them Republicans, and thirty-five of the whole number had been assigned to the South, he said, “by reason of the colored people.” In South Carolina, he speaks of “a series of skirmishes over the state, in which the polling places were regarded as forts, to be captured by 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 had seen.

This was his resolution in the senate:—

[333]The negro had become practically disfranchised; the true end of the war in his rightful liberty as a freeman, in the full sense of the term, was concerned; and the acts of government in making him a citizen, and his representation in congress according to the new allotment of thirty-five representatives for the colored population;—all these ends had been subverted, these rights abrogated, and the constitution, in its most sacred and dearly-bought amendments, violently ignored, and men were there with perjury on their lips and treason in their hearts, who had countenanced and upheld all of this.

“Let me illustrate,” Mr. Blaine says, “by comparing groups of states of the same representative strength North and South. Take the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. They send seventeen representatives to congress. Their aggregate population is composed of ten hundred and thirty-five thousand whites and twelve hundred and twenty-four thousand colored; the colored being nearly two hundred thousand in excess of the whites. Of the seventeen representatives, then, it is evident that nine were apportioned to these states by reason of their colored population, and only eight by reason of their white population; and yet in the choice of the entire seventeen representatives, the colored voters had no more voice or power than their[334] remote kindred on the shores of Senegambia or on the Gold Coast. The ten hundred and thirty-five thousand white people had the sole and absolute choice 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 two million two hundred and forty-seven thousand,—considerably more than double the entire white population of the three Southern states I have named. In Iowa and Wisconsin, therefore, it takes one hundred and thirty-two thousand white population to send a representative to congress, but in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana every sixty thousand white people send a representative. In other words, sixty thousand white people in those Southern states have precisely the same political power in the government of the country that one hundred and thirty-two thousand white people have in Iowa and Wisconsin.”

And it is because this state of things continues and has threatened every presidential election since then, that the brave deed of standing in the presence of the perpetrators of the wrong, and unmasking its hideous mien, is still all the more worthy of notice, and demands an increased interest; and so we venture to give[335] another sample of his old Plutarch method of contrast and comparison; the last few sentences of the speech, constituting as they did his peroration, and being so pointed, personal, and triumphant in tone and manner, revealing the man so clearly and forcibly, that we close our reference to the speech with them, and giving a summary of argument and powerful, homeward putting of truth, worthy of the honor of the great cause he pleaded, worthy of the dignity of the high place in which he spoke, and worthy of himself:—

“Within that entire great organization there is not one man, whose opinion is entitled to be quoted, that does not desire peace and harmony and friendship, and a patriotic and fraternal union, between the North and the South. This wish is spontaneous, instinctive, universal throughout the Northern states; and yet, among men of character and sense, there is surely no need of attempting to deceive ourselves as to the precise truth. First pure, then peaceable. Gush will not remove a grievance, and no disguise of state rights will close the eyes of our people to the necessity of correcting a great national wrong. Nor should the South make the fatal mistake of concluding that injustice to the negro is not also injustice to the white man; nor should it ever be forgotten, that[336] for the wrongs of both a remedy will assuredly be found.

“The war, with all its costly sacrifices, was fought in vain unless equal rights for all classes be 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 floor and beyond this chamber, that even if they could strip the negro of his constitutional rights, they can never permanently maintain the inequality of white men in this nation; they can never make a white man’s vote in the South doubly as powerful in the administration of the government as a white man’s vote in the North.”

[337]

XVI.
BLAINE AND GARFIELD.

THESE names will be forever linked together in American history. Not as the names of Lincoln and Seward. They had little in common except massive powers and a common work, without any special affinities or friendships other than of a public and political nature. They were, indeed, friends in a large sense, and each worthy of the other, constituting largely the nation’s head, when the greatness of statesmanship is head, and the loyalty of statesmanship is heart, was the demand of the hour. It was the cause and circumstance that brought their great lives in unison. And yet we are not told that in any sense they were like David and Jonathan,—one at heart in a personal love, as they were one in mind, devoted to the great concern of the nation’s perpetuity.

But Mr. Garfield and Mr. Blaine, when young men far from their prime, entered together the thirty-eighth congress in 1863. Those were dark[338] days, and side by side they fought out in congress halls the great battle for Liberty and Right against Slavery and Wrong. No contest commanded talent of a higher order. No men supremer in those great qualities which give to greatness the sovereign right to dictate the destiny of mighty interests, and crown, as personal achievements, those interests with a glory imperishable,—none better, braver, truer, armed to the point of triumph, ever stood up against incarnate wrong, to wage the sharp, decisive engagement to final conquest, than did these men and their noble compeers. They entered the lists when the breath of battle blew hottest, when the land was darkest with shadows of the war-cloud, when the nation was saddest from loss of noble sons by land and sea, when desperation was stamped in the face of the foe and rankled in his heart. Like Spartans, there they stood, pouring their vital energies into the current of the nation’s life, until the end of war, and all its fruits were gathered in and secured in safety within the iron chest of the constitution’s sure protection.

It was not for four years, but for thirteen, that they thus held each other company in their high service of the nation and the world. Such fellowship as this, rich with every element of honor, could but weld their hearts in unity.[339] As they grew up into those expansive lives, rare and fragrant with the choicest gifts of nature, and rich with deeds worthy of the noblest powers, so that the highest honors of the nation seemed theirs, they grew not apart, but together. Thinking and speaking, writing and contending, for the same great measures, their lives ran in the same great channels.

The friendship of soldiers who have toiled and endured together, is felt by thousands in our Republic to-day, and the feeling grows deeper and stronger as the years go by. This is general, and is common to all, but it is enduring and sincere. Yet there were special, particular friendships, more personal in their nature, that sprang up like beautiful plants, upon this larger field. These are not forgotten or destroyed. The strength of life is in them, and the growth of years is on them. The immortality of time is theirs. So in the narrower field, when the life-giving service of years, wrought into the structure of a nation redeemed, these men added to the charm and glory of the broader and more general interest, the grace of a special personal friendliness.

They were just dissimilar enough for this. They were both large, strong men in physique, and yet not large and portly in the sense of large and needless bulk of flesh; but fine and[340] strong frames, with massive heads set squarely upon broad shoulders; arms that swung with power; bodies filled with health,—not shrunken, dwarfed, or withered,—and good, stout limbs, that held them well in air, and moved with speed of the same strong will that commanded and controlled their utterance. There were ease and grace in every motion. They stood erect and bore themselves with the dignity of kings, and yet the merest child was beloved by them. If the one was deeper and more metaphysical than the other, that other was broader, richer in generalization,—marshalling his well-armed troops of knowledge from every field where Right had conquered Wrong, and moving his battalions with the speed of a swifter march. They were never left to be bitter contestants at any point; neither had ever plunged the iron into the soul of the other, or done aught to hinder the cause of the other’s promotion.

Early in their congressional career they were both stamped as future candidates for the presidency. They were so thought of and talked about. But Mr. Blaine’s prominence as a speaker of the House of Representatives had given him earliest the greater prominence in this direction, and from various quarters it was being thrust upon him. But they were friends, and had no bickerings and jealousies on this account. Garfield[341] could wait, and would. He did not put himself forward, nor seek it at the hands of friends. He would rather bide his time, and help another. But that other was not Mr. Blaine, though they were friends. It was a matter of honor, of state-pride, and of duty, that he gave his suffrage and his power to John Sherman, of his own state of Ohio, who had done such magnificent service in the treasury in paying the national debt and resuming specie payment. And his great, honest speech was so brilliant and earnest for his friend at home, that it turned the mind of the convention toward him.

When the crisis came they crowned him, and on the instant the news was flashed into the presence of Mr. Blaine, while still the cheers went up in that great assembly in Chicago; he sent his congratulations to his friend, and said, “Command my services for the great campaign.” They were friends and brothers still, each worthy of the other’s highest honor, truest devotion, and fullest praise. Political lying could not befoul the heart of either with any member of that brood of vipers which inhabit this sphere in other breasts. They knew too well the nature and the tactics of the foe. I have seen a soldier dead upon the field, so blackened with blood and powder from the fray, that three stood by and claimed him for[342] their different companies, and none perchance were right.

But no blackening powder of the enemy, no mud of march, no dust of camp, or any other creature, could so bespatter or besmear these men so they should fail to know and love each other. The battle had been long and hard, and desperate to them. Neither could be pierced or fall without the other’s notice, and full well they knew that such hard pressure of the enemy would bring them to desperate straits. But this did not cause them to fear or falter, but to rush on, through blinding and begriming powder-smoke, to victory. They could but smile at the enemies’ reports of battle, and of the skill and bearing of both general and troops, just as when a paper crossed the lines in Rebellion times the truth came not always with it. Some one must bear the wrath of those whose flag was ever in the dust, and whose broken ranks were reeling in defeat. Hard names and lies were but the sparks,—the flint flash from the clash of arms,—they but consume themselves, then die away. No man, since all the hate of treason had blackened Lincoln and our leading men with crimes imaginary, had had his name politically tarnished with darker words of calumny than the wise, the good, the sainted Garfield; and yet Mr. Blaine[343] lived so close to him, so well knew the health and the beauty of his inward life, the strength and soundness of his character, the boldness of his purpose, purity of his motive, and the cleanness of his record,—as history shall record it,—that his voice resounded as it never had done, from city to city, from state to state, in support of the man and in vindication of his cause; and the wreath was on his brow, and multitudes stood, with uncovered heads, to do him honor. His old, tried friends, who had watched, and studied, and known him for twenty years had sent him back to congress for the ninth time. The legislature of Ohio had given him their suffrage and elevated him spontaneously, without his presence or his asking, to the senatorship. The convention had nominated, and the people elected him to the presidency, and all despite the flinging of mud and the breath of slander. “He was met,” says Mr. Blaine, “with a storm of detraction at the very hour of his nomination, and it continued with increasing volume until the close of his victorious campaign:—

“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-considered word. Indeed, nothing in his whole life is more remarkable than his bearing through those five full months of vituperation. The great mass of these unjust imputations passed unnoticed, and with the general débris of the campaign fell into oblivion.”

The friendship of Mr. Blaine never waned. He was true as steel. And when the honors of the nation, who had honored him, were in Garfield’s hands, the chiefest and the best were for his first best friend, whom he called to the highest place in his cabinet,—the premier of the nation. This was no mere compliment. It was an official act. The success of his administration, which was his greatest care, depended largely upon his secretary of state. He must be clean as well as competent,—a king in skill and scholarship, as well as brother, friend. It must then have been an act of his best judgment, as well as an expression of regard. And yet it was as well respect for the millions, represented by the large and strong delegations who voted for him with such strength of purpose for five-and-thirty times.

Four months, less two days, he sat at his right 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 known him,—but he did know him through and through, and because he knew him so thoroughly and well, he placed the keeping of the nation’s wisdom, integrity, and honor before the world, and in the great world abroad, into his hands.

“The heart is wiser than the head,” and knows more deeply into life and character, than simple, abstract thought can penetrate. It receives and knows the whole man as a whole, knows him as a person in his every element of personality in reason, conscience, affections, will; knows him by the touch of moral reason, for pure intellect may act alone comparatively in abstract questions, of metaphysical thought, but the heart never. The true enlightenment is here. It is the abode of motive, purpose, plan,—out of it are the issues of life itself.

We are ignorant of those we hate, as the South was of the North before the war, and hence her braggart boasts. But those whom we know deeply, fully, truly, we love deeply, fully, truly. Love lights the path of reason, when it carries the whole reason with it, and furnishes by reciprocal acts of confidence data for its guidance. And thus we love our way into each other’s lives, while reason thus enlightened, helps us 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 full upon each other. And as they shone thus on each other’s life, there was a blending, and so a mutual life, an interlacing, twining, locking, and so a unity.

Every walk in life furnishes its friendships; and the greater the walk may be, the greater are the friendships; for the greater the affinities, the broader the sympathies, the purer, sweeter, more supreme the life; for the true life is never isolated, but unstarved in every part. The king has his queen, the Czar his Czarina. Only the small-souled men are shrunken hearted, while large, capacious spirits take in worlds.

Perhaps the country never possessed two men at the same time who had more friends of the solid and reliable sort than these men, who admired and loved to honor, and honored because they loved, and this because they lived out their splendid natures before their countrymen, hating every mean thing, loving and praising the good. They were not dark, unfathomable mysteries, enigmas, puzzles, problems, staring at you, unsolved, and daring you to the thankless task, and promising but the gloom of deeper shadows; 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 made you feel akin, and not blush out your feelings of a doomed inferiority; and this great-heartedness, beating responsive to the strong, warm touch of nature, made them friends.

Garfield did not live to draw the picture of his Blaine, but Blaine has lived to draw the picture of his Garfield.

“It is not easy,” he says, “to find his counterpart anywhere in the record of American public life. He, perhaps, more nearly resembles Mr. Seward in his supreme faith in the all-conquering power of a principle. He had the love of learning, and patient industry of investigation to which John Quincy Adams owes his prominence, and his presidency. He had some of those ponderous elements of mind which distinguished Mr. Webster, and which, indeed, in all our public life, have left the great Massachusetts senator without an intellectual peer.

“Some of his methods recall the best features in the strong, independent course of Sir Robert Peel, to whom he had striking resemblance in the type of his mind and the habit of his speech. He had all of Burke’s love for the sublime and the beautiful, with, possibly, something of his superabundance. In his faith and his magnanimity; in his power of statement and[348] subtle analysis; in his faultless logic, and his love of literature; in his wealth and mode of illustration, one is reminded of that great English statesman of to-day,—Gladstone.”

But the nation seems to commemorate most fittingly the friendship of those two men, when in the person of its representatives and senators it selects to deliver the eulogy of the dead president. Not any of his colleagues in the House from his native state, however long or well they may have known him; nor his colleague in the senate; no governor of his honored state; his loved and cultured pastor, nor any other man than Blaine,—his chosen counsellor in the great affairs of state; he who was with him when, on that quiet, happy morning in July, they rode slowly to the depot, and “his fate was on him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching out peacefully before him;—the next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave.”

And now, as the hand of Mr. Blaine draws aside the curtain, let us look in upon the final scene in the life and death of his great friend, and see, as he saw, the man so deeply, truly loved by the great nation he had just begun to rule so well.

[349]“Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world’s interest; from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible 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, hardly aware of its relinquishment; but through days of deadly languor; through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne; with clear sight and calm courage he looked into his open grave. 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 of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant nation; a great host of sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood’s day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons, just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every hour the reward of a father’s love and care; and in his 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 his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation’s[350] love; enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin’s bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the divine decree.

“As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness, and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within hearing of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt, already upon his wasted brow, the breath of the eternal morning.”

[351]

XVII.
SECRETARY OF STATE.

MR. BLAINE was a member of the cabinets of President Garfield and of President 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 emphatically a Peace Policy. It was without the motive or disposition of war in any form. It was one of dignity and uprightness, as a work of twelve hundred and fifty pages, entitled “Foreign Relations 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, both printed by the United States Government, and now before us, amply testify.

Its two objects, as distinctly stated by him, were: first, to bring about peace, and prevent future wars in North and South America; second, to cultivate such friendly commercial relations[352] with all American countries as would increase the export trade of the United States, by supplying those fabrics in which we are abundantly able to compete with the manufacturing nations of Europe.

The second depended on the first. For three years Chili, Peru, and Bolivia had been engrossed in war, and the friendly offices of the United States Government had barely averted it between Chili and the Argentine Republic, postponed it between Guatemala and Mexico; so also it might in these South American Republics. War was threatened between Brazil and Uruguay, and foreshadowed between Brazil and the Argentine states.

To induce the Spanish American states to adopt some peaceful mode of adjusting their frequently recurring contentions, was regarded by President Garfield as one of the most honorable and useful ends to which the diplomacy of the United States could contribute; and in the line of the policy indicated, is a letter from Mr. Blaine to Gen. S. A. Hurlbut, United States Minister to Peru. While it shows the spirit of the president, it shows as well the hand and heart of his secretary:—

The appointment of William Henry Trescot as Spanish envoy, with the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary to the republics of Chili, Peru, and Bolivia, was done in the same regard, not only of the nation’s honor, but also of peace and that commerce which brings prosperity and happiness.

It has long been felt, and is felt deeply to-day, that there are many kindly offices of state which this great nation may offer to weaker, feebler, and distressed peoples, for their good and for our glory; that it is not enough to be simply an example and an asylum, but to be a potent benefactor in a direct and personal way, teaching them that peace, not war, is the[355] secret of growth and greatness. This, in effect, was the object of the peace congress, which was a cherished design of the administration, and to which Mr. Blaine was fully committed.

No wonder that such a project commanded the thought and enlisted the sympathies of such men as Garfield and his great premier; and Mr. Blaine tells us that it was the intention, resolved on before the fatal shot of July 2d, to invite all the independent governments of North and South America to meet in such a congress at Washington, on March 15, 1882, and the invitations would have been issued directly after the New England tour the president was not permitted to make. But the invitations were sent out by Mr. Blaine on the 22d of November, when in Mr. Arthur’s cabinet. It met with cordial approval in South American countries, and some of them at once accepted the invitations. But in six weeks President Arthur caused the invitations to be recalled, or suspended, and referred the whole matter to congress, where it was lost in debate, just as the Panama congress was wrecked when Mr. Clay was secretary of state over fifty years ago.

It was argued that such an assemblage of representatives from those various states would not only elevate their standard of civilization, and lead to the fuller development of a continent[356] at whose wealth Humboldt was amazed, but it would also bring them nearer us and turn the drift of their European trade to our American shores. As it is, they have a coin balance of trade against us every year, of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars, and this money is shipped from our country to Europe, to pay for their immense purchases there. Their petroleum comes from us, but crosses the Atlantic twice before it gets to them, and the middle-men in Europe receive a larger profit on it than the producers of the oil in north-western Pennsylvania.

It may be both wise and prudent, in order to completeness of biography, to state two aspersions,—one of war, and the other of gain,—cast upon the policy of Mr. Blaine.

William Henry Trescot, in a published letter dated July 17, 1882, states “his knowledge of certain matters connected with Mr. Blaine’s administration as secretary of state”:—

“2. As to your designing a war, that supposition is too absurd for serious consideration. If you had any such purpose it was carefully concealed from me, and I left for South America with the impression that I would utterly fail in my mission if I did not succeed in obtaining an amicable settlement of the differences between the belligerents.

[357]“3. In regard to the Cochet and Landreau claims, it is sufficient to say that you rejected the first, absolutely. As to the second, you instructed General Hurlbut to ask, if the proper time for such request should come, that Landreau might be heard before a Peruvian tribunal in support of his claim.

“General Hurlbut, although approving the justice of Landreau’s claim in his dispatch of Sept. 14, 1881, never brought it in any way to the notice of the Peruvian government. During my mission in South America, I never referred to it, so that, in point of fact, during your secretaryship the Landreau claim was never mentioned by ministers of the United States, either to the Chilian or Peruvian government. It could not, therefore, have affected the then pending diplomatic questions in the remotest degree.”

But for these he appeared and answered, in company with Mr. Trescot, before the House committee on foreign affairs, Hon. Charles G. Williams, of Wisconsin, chairman.

“He received a vindication,” is the simple report.

“I think Mr. Blaine has rather enjoyed his opportunity, and his triumph,” writes one. “It is inspiring to have Mr. Blaine associated with public affairs again, if only as a witness before a committee. How the country rings with his[358] name, the moment he breaks silence! His familiar face, framed in rapidly whitening hair; his elastic figure, growing almost venerable, from recent associations; his paternal manner toward young Jimmie, his name-sake son, whom by some whim of fancy, he had with him during the examination,—all these were elements of interest in the picture.”

And now comes a beautiful prophecy, two years old, which shows how one may argue his way into the future by the hard and certain logic of events. It is this: “The administration will have to do something that shall appeal strongly to the popular heart; something out of the line of hospitalities within its own charmed circle; something magnetic and heroic, or else ‘Blaine, of Maine,’ will become so idolized in the minds of the people that he will be invincible in 1884.”

In all of his foreign correspondence there is, in one particular, a striking likeness between Mr. Blaine and President Lincoln,—the man is not lost in the statesman, but rather the man is the statesman.

As Abraham Lincoln in all his giant form appears upon the forefront of every public document that came from his hand, so James G. Blaine is photographed from life in every state-paper that bears his name. He copies no model,[359] he stands on no pedestal,—his personality is free and untrammeled in every utterance.

In his paper to Mr. Lowell, our Minister to England, of Nov. 29, 1881, we get a full view of the man at his work.

A modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of April 19, 1850, is the subject in hand. His instructions had been sent ten days before. A week afterwards the response of Lord Granville to his circular note of June 24, in relation to the neutrality of any canal across the Isthmus of Panama, had been received.

And so he proceeded to give a summary of the historical objections to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and the very decided differences of opinion between the two governments, to which its interpretation has given rise. And this he does with singular skill and aptness, which is not unusual to him, when the philosophy of history is needful as the servant of his genius.

No less than sixteen direct quotations of from two to eight lines each, are given in a letter of six large pages, taken from the discussion of the subject for thirty years, while the main body of the letter, in its various parts, shows a comprehensive grasp of details, a familiarity with utterances of the leading men of the past, and with England’s operations under the treaty, as to prove conclusively that in the highest realms[360] of statesmanship, mastery is still the one word that defines the man.

His previous letter of instructions, presenting an analysis of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, singling out the objectionable features to be abrogated, and stating his reasons, is of the same clear, strong type, compactly written, and applying the great arguments of common sense to a subject of international importance.

“The convention,” he says, “was made more than thirty years ago, under exceptional and extraordinary conditions, which have long since ceased to exist,—conditions which at best were temporary in their nature, and which can never be reproduced.

“The development of the Pacific coast places responsibility upon our government which it cannot meet, and not control the canal now building, and just as England controls the Suez canal.

“England requires and sustains an immense navy, for which we have no use, and might at any time seize the canal, and make it impossible for us to marshal a squadron in Pacific waters, without a perilous voyage ourselves around the Horn.”

Great events of permanent importance would doubtless have been the result, had the president and his secretary been permitted to continue[361] as they were for the full term of office. Already Mr. Blaine was showing himself a master in the arts of diplomacy, not with aught of cunning artifice or sly interrogation, but with straight-forward, solid utterances upon the great interests of the nation’s weal. Not only of the loved and honored president did the assassin’s bullet deprive us, but also of the services of Mr. Blaine, as well. A Providence more kind seems to be giving him back to the nation, to complete their unfinished work.

[362]

XVIII.
HOME LIFE OF MR. BLAINE.

IN his “Letters to the Joneses” J. G. Holland describes various homes as possessing all the elements of an empire, a kingdom, a monarchy, or a republic. Mr. Blaine’s home is a republic. Every member of his family seems to be on an absolute equality; and he, as one, has described him, and an intimate friend confirmed it, is more 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 the senior member of the family, the head by right of priority. He is there deeply loved, greatly respected, and highly honored. Why need he be a tyrant where a father’s wisdom and a father’s love will serve him best and win high encomiums of praise? Why not shine on when he enters there, as well as in the places of the state and nation, or in the simpler walks and haunts of men? Why put out his light when[363] among those who most admire and love? Why ring down the curtain upon all those splendid qualities of soul that make him famous in the world abroad, when in the charmed circle of those who love and share his fame and honor?

Mr. Blaine’s first home in Augusta was the eastern half of a large, brown, double house, on Green Street, nearly opposite the Methodist church. It was a simple, unpretentious, pleasant home, all through his editorial, legislative, and on into his congressional life. It was where he did the hard work of those first years, where he 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 a great 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 his table. 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 a book. He loved the people; they were a study to him; a very joy and pleasure, a real delight. Among the people he is perfectly at home, and they are made to feel that “come and see me” means just that, and all that that means. He is like a father or big brother out among them.[364] They all knew him, and knew where he lived,—in that “brown house on Green Street.” This was back in those years before he was so largely in Washington, and before he had his pleasant and more commodious house and grounds near the capitol.

The whole care of the home was upon Mrs. Blaine, who looked after everything down to the veriest minutiæ. She was thoroughly in sympathy with him, was pleased with what he enjoyed; and so was perfectly willing their home should be the rallying-place for his hosts of friends, who might come and go at will. The Maine legislature met at his house during the Garcelon trouble.

Mr. Blaine attended strictly to his work, and that meant the people,—strangers, and townspeople, one and all. He never, I am credibly informed, bought a pound of steak in his life, nor a barrel of flour; never went to a grocery store to buy anything. He has had no time or thought for things like these. He has been a student and teacher all his life; a close, deep, careful reader and thinker. He had never been in a printing-office in his life until he became editor, and had to learn the people, study them, get politics from their ways of thinking and looking at things; and it was a matter of principle with him to make the thing go. It is[365] not a half-dozen things, but “This one thing I do,” with him, and he does it. But he has always been regular at his meals, as a matter of health, and so a law of life. He was no epicurean; cared only for the more substantial things of diet, and never seemed to be particular about what he ate, except one thing, and that he liked, and always wanted them in their season, and always had them. It was baked sweet apples and milk at the close of every meal. And then he would sit and read, and read, and read, especially after supper, and Mrs. Blaine, if she wanted him to move from the table, would say, “James! James!” and again, “James!” like enough half a dozen times before he would hear, and she pleasant and careful of him all the time. She has had mind and heart to know his worth, and has needed no one to tell her that teaching school in Kentucky has paid her a handsome dividend and is full of promise for the future. He has made no move but what she has seconded the motion. Her life is in his, and not a thing independent and 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 superior culture, and a real, true mother.”

The gentleman who was Mr. Blaine’s foreman,[366] and for a year and a half made his home with them, is most enthusiastic in their praise. He tells what a real mother Mrs. Blaine was to him if he was sick, or anything the matter with him, how she would take the best of care of him. Every winter they published a tri-weekly during the session of the legislature, and this kept him at the office late every-other night, and she would be “worried about him because he had to work nights,” and Mr. Blaine would say, “Howard, you are worth a dozen boys (shiftless, good-for-nothing boys, he meant), but you must not work so hard.” The humanities of life were the amenities to them.

This same man, who has since been editor and proprietor of Mr. Blaine’s old paper, said with depth of feeling, and strong emphasis, “I wish every voter in America had had my opportunity for eighteen months, right in his own home, to see and know Mr. Blaine, they would find out then what a royal man he is.”

In less than ten days after his nomination, parties of prominence, connected with a paper favorable to his election, but located in quite a city where a leading Republican paper affects to oppose him, visited Augusta, and called upon his political enemies, and enquired into his private, social, and domestic life, and they finally confessed there was no lisp or syllable of aught[367] to tarnish his name or cause a blush. It is all pure, and sweet, and clear.

When Mr. and Mrs. Blaine first entered their Augusta home, a bright and beautiful baby boy was in the arms of Mrs. Blaine. He was the pride and joy of the home, their first-born. His name was Stanwood Blaine, taking his mother’s maiden-name. One short, bright year of sunshine, and prattle, and glee, and a dark cloud rested on that home; a deep sorrow stung the life of that father, and heavy grief oppressed the heart of the mother,—their little Stanwood was gone; he was among the jewels on high, and there he is to-day, while a lovely picture of him adorns the present home.

Since then, six children have been born to them,—John Walker, a graduate of Yale college, and a member of the Alabama Court of Claims; Robert Emmons, a graduate of Harvard college, now connected with the North-western Railroad, in Chicago; Alice, the wife of Colonel Coppinger; Margaret; James Gillespie, Jr., and Hattie, named for her mother, Harriet. Walker, the oldest, is about thirty-one years old, and unmarried. Hattie, the youngest, is fourteen years of age. All of the children have been born in Augusta, and with but two or three exceptions, 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 on hand constantly, and they serve his purpose well. There is one he has enjoyed telling to knots of friends here and there, and especially when friends have gathered at his table. The Maine law, in the interest of temperance, was a leading issue in the state during Mr. Blaine’s connection with the Journal. It fell to the lot of his partner, John L. Stevens, who had been a minister, to write the temperance articles, and he would write them long and strong. It was a custom with Mr. Blaine to go around among the workmen and chat with them, a few words of good cheer. Among them was an Irishman named John Murphy, who loved his glass. He was a witty fellow, and generally had something to say. One day while Mr. Blaine was around, Murphy had a large, long manuscript from Mr. Stevens, on temperance, which he was setting up in type. It was a hard job, and the day was hot. He was about half through, when he called out to the foreman,—

“Owen, have you a quarter?”

“Yes, sir! What do you want of it?”

All were listening, including Mr. Blaine, for they expected something bright and sharp.

“Well, sir, I thought I would have to be[369] after having something to wet me throat wid before I got through with this long, dry temperance job.”

Everybody roared at the Irishman’s quaint sally. It struck Mr. Blaine as particularly dry and ludicrous; he laughed outright, and he would tell it as a good joke on his partner.

Mr. Blaine has never talked about people behind their backs; he is no gossiper. He is a fearless man, and if he has anything to say to a man he says it squarely to his face. There is a purity of tone and richness of life in his home, that are both noticeable and remarkable. There seem to be no frictions, gratings, or harshness. One of ample opportunity has said, “I never heard him speak a cross word to his children.” He is rather indulgent than otherwise. While he may be, as case requires, the strong, central government, they are as sovereign states; no rebellion manifests itself, requiring coercion.

Mr. Blaine’s family have been accustomed to attend church, and the family pew is always full. Father and mother are both members of the Congregational Church, and have the reputation of being devoted Christians and liberal supporters of the church. Mr. Blaine tells them to put down what they want from him, and he will pay it.

[370]He has the reputation of being one of the best Bible-class teachers in the city. His long drill at college, reading the New Testament through in Greek several times, has helped him in this. A Mission Sabbath-school was started down in the lower part of Augusta, and he went down with the others and taught a large Bible-class. His old pastors, Doctor Ecob, of Albany, N. Y., and Doctor Webb, of Boston, Mass., bear the highest testimony to his Christian character and integrity. It was said of him at Cincinnati, that “he needed no certificate of 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 community than does Mr. Blaine. It is not simply cold, formal endorsement, as a matter of self-respect and state-pride, but the clear, strong words of a deep and powerful friendship, that one constantly hears who will stand in the light and let 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 was quite a large side-yard, with numerous trees, and garden in the rear. The barn and rear part of the 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 editor and politician to reside, and while it was up on the hill or low bluff from Water Street, down near the Kennebec River, where the business portion of the city was, and his office was located, still it was quite convenient for him.

His old office was burned in the big fire of 1865, which destroyed the business portion of the city, but the desk was saved at which he did much of his writing when in charge of the office of the Journal during the presidential campaign of 1860.

During this campaign there was so much to excite him, so much news to read, so many speeches to make, so many ways to go, and such a general monopoly of time and attention, that very early in the morning they would get out of “copy.” The foreman would say,—and he 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 down in his study-gown and slippers and say,—

“What, that copy given out?”

“Yes, sir, and we will have to have more right away!”

[372]“Well, what did he do, sit right down and dash it off for you?”

“Yes, sometimes, and sometimes he would take the scissors.”

This was said with a mild, significant smile.

Mr. Blaine could write anywhere, and did much of it out in the dining-room on the supper-table, with his family all about him. He would become oblivious of all surroundings, and with his power of penetration and concentration, adapt himself to his work, utterly lost to circumstances.

He had no mercy on meanness. It roused his whole nature. He would walk the floor at home, plan his articles, think out his sentences, and send everything to the printer just as he had written it first,—but when he came to correct the proof he would erase and interline until the article had passed almost beyond the power of recognition. His finishing touches were a new creation.

Of course the poor printers never said anything either solemn or wise at such times, especially when driven to the final point of desperation. But they could not get mad at him, and there was no use trying. Dan said,—

“He would just as soon shake hands with a man dressed up as I am now, with this old suit[373] of overalls on, and sit down and talk with him as with the richest man in town.”

“The men knew this, and saw and felt his power. He looked at the man, and not at the clothes?”

“Yes, that is just it.”

Mr. Blaine’s business and home-life are so blended, it is impossible to separate them. He never left his business at the office. It was all hours and every hour with him, except upon the Sabbath.

He took some time to look after the education of his children, something as his father and grandfather had dealt with him. But Mrs. Blaine, having been a teacher, took this responsibility upon herself. They all attended the public schools of the city, and were early sent away to academy, college, and seminary. The home always had an air of intelligence. Busy scenes with books were common, day and night. Materials for writing, papers, magazines, and books for general reading, and for review, seemed omnipresent. There is order and system amid all the seeming confusion.

Mrs. Blaine’s hand and touch are felt and seen everywhere. She is a large, magnificent woman, a born queen, as fit to rule America as Queen Victoria to rule England. She has a quiet, commanding air, with nothing assumed or affected[374] about her. A gentle, wholesome dignity makes her a stranger to storms, and her clear, strong mind makes her ready and at home in society. She is not a great talker, and encourages it in others by listening only when it is sensible. She is too wise and womanly to ever gush, and never encourages talk about her husband. There is nothing patronizing about her.

The fact is, the presidency, since the death of Mr. Garfield, and the terrible ordeal through which they then passed, has been very serious business to them. They have not labored for it. It has been thrust upon them,—for they are one in every sympathy and every joy.

About a year ago, while calling upon his old friend, Ex-Gov. Anson P. Morrill, Mr. Morrill said,—

“Are you going to try for the presidency again, 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 would not accept it. I am devoted to my book at present, and love it, and do not wish to be diverted from it.”

Mr. Morrill went on to say, that “eight years ago, 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 grown enough.”

“Well, how is it now?”

“O, he is all right now, well-developed, solid, and strong. The nation can’t do better than put him right in. He will make a master president, and give the country an administration they will be proud of.”

This shows the honor and honesty of the old governor, and that he loved the nation above his friend. The happy, blessed, prosperous years of home-life ended on Green Street, when Mr. Blaine was advanced to the third office in the nation, as speaker of the House of Representatives in congress,—and they removed to the larger home, with ampler grounds, on State Street, next to the capitol. Here they have since resided, except when living in Washington. Mr. Blaine loves home, and has his family with him.

There is nothing extravagant about the home on State Street, either in the house or its furnishing. It is plain, simple, and comfortable. The sitting-room and dining-room upon the right of the main hall, and the two parlors on the left are thrown into one, making two large rooms, which have always been serviceable for entertaining company, but never more so than since his nomination for the presidency. The[376] hallway extends into a large, new house, more modern 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 generally keeps a number of them. The house is of Corinthian architecture, without a trace of Gothic. Corinthian columns, two on each side, indicate the old division of the large room on the left of the hallway into the front and back parlor, but all trace of doors is removed, and they are practically one. A large bay-window, almost a conservatory, built square, in keeping with the house, looks out upon the lawn.

It is, all in all, a very convenient, home-like place, with nothing pretentious or to terrify the most plebeian who would care to enter, and they have been there by the score and hundred. Not less than a thousand friends, neighbors, and visitors were cordially invited to come in and shake hands with General Logan, when he visited Mr. Blaine soon after the convention that nominated them, and received a quiet serenade, declining any public reception.

A bright, important feature of Mr. Blaine’s home is his cousin, “Gail Hamilton,”—Miss Abigail Dodge,—the gifted authoress. She is[377] an intellectual companion, and an important factor in the social and home-life of the family, deeply interested, but with native good grace, in all that pertains to the honor and welfare of her 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 continue in their simple, democratic ways. Eating is not a chief business in that home. The children are very intelligent, and minds, rather than stomachs, have premiums on them. When Walker was a little fellow, long before he could read, less than two years old, he could turn to any picture in a large book; he knew them all. But none of them have surpassed, or equalled, their father’s work at books,—going through those great lives of Plutarch by the time he was nine years old,—and this we hear from Mrs. Blaine herself. Only the three younger are at home,—Margaret, James Gillespie, Jr., and Hattie, who, although she is the baby, wears glasses. She is a wide-awake and pleasant child, and finds so much of life as is now a daily 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 tutoring in Washington the past winter. Margaret,[378] older than Hattie or James, has achieved a national reputation by a dexterous use of the telephone at the time of her father’s nomination. She was the first to receive the intelligence. She has mature, womanly ways, and is very like her mother, though the children all resemble their father,—have his strong, marked features,—unless it may be Emmons or Alice.

Alice was the oldest daughter, and would accompany, with perhaps other members of the family, Mrs. Blaine herself, at times, back in the editorial days, upon the press-excursions. Upon those occasions Mr. Blaine was in his glory, full of facts, full of life, and full of stories. There was none of the wag or loafer about him; he was never idle or obsequious; but he knew all about the bright side of things, and never failed to find it. His own life seemed to light up all around him. The ludicrous side was as funny as the mean was despicable. He was very popular among the journalists of the state. He was an honor to the craft, and they felt it, and easily recognized him as a royal good fellow,—a sort of leader or representative man. He was called out when toasts were to be responded to or speeches to be made, and was the captivating man on all occasions. The crowd gathered about him. He never would tell a story but that any lady[379] might listen to it without a blush. They were well selected, and always first-class, and told in the shortest, sharpest manner possible. He would never spin a long yarn. It must be quickly told, and to the point, and have a special fitness for the occasion.

A story that he enjoyed hugely, and could tell with a gusto inimitable, was of a country-man elected to the legislature, and for the first time stopping at a large hotel. The waiters were busy, and while he awaited his turn he observed a dish of red peppers in front; taking one of them on his fork, he put it in his mouth, and began the work of mastication. All eyes were turned on him. The process was a brief one, and he very soon raised his fair-sized hand, and, taking that pepper from his mouth, laid it beside his plate, and said, as he drew in a long breath to cool off his blistered tongue, “You lie thar until you cool!” This was only matched by one regarding a man from the interior, at a hotel-table in St. Louis, who, observing a glass of iced-milk on the outer circle of dishes that surrounded the plate of a gentleman opposite to him, reached for it and swallowed it down. The gentleman watched him closely, and, with some expression of astonishment, said simply,—

“That’s cool!”

[380]“Ya-as,” the fellow blustered out, “of course it is; thar’s ice in it!”

Few toasts touch the heart of Mr. Blaine more deeply than the great toast of the family and of friendship, and one to which he could respond with the happiest grace and the liveliest good cheer, “Here’s to those we love, and those who love us! God bless them!”

Mr. Blaine drinks no liquors, not even the lightest kinds of wine, I am credibly informed by one who was with him on those occasions, and frequently at his table.

Mrs. Blaine, like her husband, is a great reader, and while a devoted mother and faithful wife, never neglecting her home, husband, or her children, has kept herself well informed, and is intelligent and attractive in conversation.

Old friends say, “I do love to hear Mrs. Blaine talk; she has a fine mind, is so well educated, and so well informed.”

An old school-mate testifies that she was a fine scholar when at the academy over the river from her present home, and that she also studied and finished her education at Ipswich.

She has trained her children with a skill that few mothers could command. Her children are her jewels, and are loved with a mother’s affection. They are as stars, while her husband is as the 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 they have come the first of June. Their great home has been in Washington. This, for twenty years, has been life’s centre to them. Here home-life has reached its zenith; its glories have shone the brightest; it has been at the nation’s capital, and husband and father among the first men of the nation. Wealth has been at their command, to make that home all they desired. They could fill it with the realizations of their choicest ideals, and friends, almost worshipers, have come and gone with the days and hours, from all parts of the nation. They have lived in the nation’s life. They have been in the onward drift and trend of things, ever on the foremost wave, caught in the onward rush of events. Life has been of the intensest kind, rich in all that enriches, noble in all that ennobles. They have occupied a large place in the nation, and the nation has occupied a large place in them; and yet, though at the very farthest remove from the quiet, simple life of the cottage or the farm, it has been an American home; it could be no other with such a united head, and retains much of the old simplicity. The habits of early life are still on them, and in nothing are they estranged from the people.

It has been an experience with them so long,[382] and came on so early in its beginnings, and gradually, that they have become accustomed to honor and distinction.

Another home is likely to be theirs in Washington, the crown of all the others. But in it they will be the same they are now; just as glad to see their friends, as home-like as themselves, as genuine and true. Their heads cannot be turned if they have not been, and home in the White House will be, if in reserve for them, the same dear, restful, cheerful spot, for the loved 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,—she has not had it taken. “They are not true,” she says, and she brought a half-dozen of her husband, and only one seemed good, and she admitted it. The others showed, I thought, how terrific has been the conflict of life with him. They show him when haggard and worn, and perhaps prove, by her judgment on them, how consummate 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 his house, is soothing and restful to him, and to a man of such incessant activity rest is very welcome. He was out in the hammock, as shown in the picture of his home, with his family and some[383] of his nearest neighbors about him, when the balloting was going on in Chicago. The third ballot had just been taken when his neighbor, Mr. Hewins, came on the grounds.

“Well, Charley,” he said, “you don’t see anybody badly excited about here, do you?”

“Mr. Blaine,” he said, “was the coolest one of the company.”

These lawn-scenes are a part of the home-life, a very large and pleasant part; for there are no pleasanter grounds in Augusta than those surrounding Mr. Blaine’s modest mansion.

[384]

XIX.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MR. BLAINE.

IN conversation with a leading business man in Maine, the question was asked, “What are the chief characteristics of Mr. Blaine?” The man was well situated to know, and well fitted to comprehend, although he was not the man to analyze character, except in a general way, and largely from a 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 such large intellectual power, and then he is such a social man. He knows so much, and is so interesting in conversation. He will talk to a peasant so that he will take it all in, and a prince sitting by will enjoy it.”

Captain Lincoln and his wife, New England people, but from the Sandwich Islands, where he had been for some five years in charge of a vessel, called to see him about the middle of June, to pay their congratulations; and it was[385] pleasant to observe, how, without a trace of aristocracy, but with a genuine manliness, he sat down just like a brother, and talked with them of their interests, the Island and ocean affairs, and observed, “They don’t have any more roast missionary out there now”; but this was slipped into a sentence that almost gave a history of the Islands. And as he discussed ocean problems, routes to Mexico, and different parts of America, North and South, the captain’s eyes opened with admiration. And it was not a display of knowledge, but brought out in questions, as to what do you think of such a project, and in stating a few brief reasons for it, the man’s information not only cropped out, but burst forth. He seems so full of it, that when it can find a vent it comes forth in deluge fashion, much as water does from a fire-plug.

Mr. Blaine never could be a specialist, but must be world-wide in his knowledge, as he is in his sympathies. Some men are like ponds in which trout are raised,—small and narrow, serve a single purpose, and serve it well; but he is more like the ocean,—broad, and grand, and manifold in the purposes he serves, and deep as well. Mr. Blaine is not a shallow man. His has not been the skimming surface-life of the swallow, but rather the deep-delving life of reality and substance. Deep-sea soundings, both of[386] men and things, have been a peculiar delight to him.

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 has the scent of a greyhound for evidence, however abstract, and he would track it down somehow, “with all the precision of the most deadly science,” as he did the telegram which Proctor Knott suppressed. This inborn faculty, which he has developed to a marvelous degree, has been a mighty weapon of defence to him, when combinations and conspiracies have been formed against him, and of the most cruel character, for his destruction. For, let it not be forgotten, that he has lived through that era of American life when the great effort was to kill off, politically, the great men of the Republican party. A rebel congress of Southern brigadiers did their worst, but the nation applauded as he triumphed.

The same knowledge seems greater power in him than in ordinary men, or than in almost any other man, because of his great intellectual force. Just as a dinner amounts to more in some men, because of greater power of digestion,—just as the smooth stone from the brook when in David’s sling went with greater precision and power, penetrating the forehead of Goliath. It is the man and in his combinations, manner, methods,[387] and the time, and yet all of these have little to do with it. Force and directness seem to express it all. Conventionalities are merely conveniences to Mr. Blaine, and when not such are instantly discarded. Common sense is the pilot of his every voyage. Everything is sacrificed to this. This, and this alone, has been the crowned king of his entire career, and all else merely subjects.

What he has seen in the clear, strong light of his own best judgment, enlightened by a vast and varied knowledge, he has seized and sworn to. He has never plundered others of their cast-iron rules; he had no use for them. Saul’s armor never fitted him. He has delighted in the fathers’ reverences and laws, though but seldom quotes them. He has no time or taste for such easy, common methods. He is too original. And this is one of the strongest features of the man. He is not simply unlike any other man, but has no need of resemblance. He has much of the impetuosity and fiery eloquence of Clay, but then he has more of the solid grandeur of Webster. But then he is too much like himself to be compared intelligibly with others.

There are great extremes in his nature,—not necessarily contradictions, yet opposites. He is one of the most fervid men, and yet one of the most stoical at times, perfectly cool when others[388] are hot and boiling. He never loses his head. There is never a runaway,—but great coolness and self-possession when it is needed, and ability to turn on a full head of steam, when the occasion requires. Here is the testimony of a scholar and author:—

“One element in his nature impressed itself upon my mind in a very emphatic manner, and that is his coolness and self-possession at the most exciting periods. I happened to be in his library in Washington when the balloting was going on in Cincinnati on that hot day in June, 1876. A telegraph-instrument was on his library table, and Mr. Sherman, his private secretary, a deft operator, was manipulating its key. Dispatches came from dozens of friends, giving the last votes, which only lacked a few of the nomination; and everybody predicted the success of Mr. Blaine on the next ballot. Only four persons besides Mr. Sherman were in the room. It was a moment of great excitement. The next vote was quietly ticked over the wire, and then the next announced the nomination of Mr. Hayes. Mr. Blaine was the only cool person in the apartment. It was such a reversal of all anticipations and assurances, that self-possession was out of the question except with Mr. Blaine.

“He had just left his bed after two days of unconsciousness from sunstroke, but he was as[389] self-possessed as the portraits upon the walls. He merely gave a murmur of surprise, and, before anybody had recovered from the shock, he had written, in his firm, plain, fluent hand, three dispatches, now in my possession: one to Mr. Hayes, of congratulation; one to the Maine delegates, thanking them for their devotion; and another to Eugene Hale and Mr. Frye, asking them to go personally to Columbus and present his good-will to Mr. Hayes, with promises of hearty aid in the campaign. The occasion affected him no more than the news of a servant quitting his employ would have done. Half an hour afterward he was out with Secretary Fish in an open carriage, receiving the cheers of the thousands of people who were gathered about the telegraph-bulletins.”

This power of self-control seems to be supreme. It is just the particular in which so many of our great men, and small ones too, have miserably failed. This enables him to harness all his powers and hold well the reins,—to bring all his forces into action when emergency requires, and send solid shot, shrapnel, or shell, with a cool head and determined hand.

Mr. Blaine has a great memory. Nearly all who know him will speak of this. He seems 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 an old acquaintance of the town, whom he had not seen all these years, said, “Now I am going to station myself up there by the cars, and see if he will know me. They say he has such a wonderful memory.” Several were looking on, watching the operation. Mr. Blaine had no sooner stepped off from the train than he spied him, and sang out at once, “Hello, John, how are you!” and a murmur of surprise went up from those who were in the secret.

At another time he was near Wheeling,—my informant thought it was across the river from Wheeling,—in Belmont County; he met a man and called him by name. The man said, “Well, I don’t know you.” Mr. Blaine told him just where he met him, at a convention, and then the man could not remember. That night he told some of his friends about it, and they said it was a fact; they were with him, and saw him introduced to Mr. Blaine and talk with him, and not till then did the man remember him.

As General Connor, ex-governor of Maine, who appointed Mr. Blaine to the United States senate, said: “He could do a thing now as well as any other time.”

“Governor Connor was in Washington,” he[391] went on to relate, “and called upon Mr. Blaine when he was secretary of state, and he said, in his familiar way, ‘Now you talk with Mrs. Blaine awhile,’ and went into his study. In about an hour he called him, and all about his table were lying sheets of paper on which he had just written. It was his official document on the Panama canal, and which he read to the governor. It had been produced during the past hour, and appeared in print, with scarcely a change. It came out in a white heat, but it was all in there ready to be produced at any time.”

The General remarked, “This one characteristic of the man, and an element of his popularity and hold on others, is this close confidence he exercises in his friends, of which the above is an illustration.”

And this touches at once another feature, and that is his ability to read character, and so to know whom to trust. He goes right into a man’s life, when he gets at him.

While out riding, during the preparation of his volume, with his wife, two or three miles from Augusta, in Manchester township, he got out to walk, and finding a farmer in a field near by, he stopped, talked with him some time, asked him about his history, his ancestors, and found out pretty much all the man knew about[392] himself, and could have told whether it would do to leave his pocket-book with the man or no. Such a thing is a habit with him, and keeps him near the people, gives him a look into their minds, a peep into their hearts, as well as a view of their history.

Character-readers usually are persons of strong intuitions. They see not so much the flesh and blood of the individual, as the soul within. Just giving one sharp, quick, penetrating look at the man in the concrete, and the abstract question is settled; the man is rated; his value written down. It is not so much a study as a look,—thought touches thought, mind feels of mind. It is power to know clearly, quickly, strongly, and certainly, with him. He does not have to eat a whole ham to find out whether it is tainted, nor drink an entire pan of milk to find out whether it is sweet.

Mr. Blaine is very obliging, and he can usually tell an opportunity from a chance. Life is no lottery to him; he keeps his feet on the granite, and gives all “fortuitous combination of atoms” 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 and considerate firm, who are producing a sprightly daily,—when a citizen entered who had just been appointed clerk of the Probate Court, and asked[393] the gentleman to go on his bond. Mr. Blaine spoke up at once, “I will do it,” and then said it reminded him of a story, which he proceeded to tell:—

“Governor Coney lived in Penobscot, shire-town of Penobscot County, and was judge of the Probate Court. The sheriff of the County had failed, and Mr. Sewall, a citizen, met Judge Coney and said, ‘The sheriff has failed, and you 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 a witness to his signature.’ So the unlucky judge was left to contemplate the delightful privilege of paying what amounted to a rogue’s bail.”

This same clerk of the Probate Court of former years, but still a friend and neighbor, a man, however, with an unhappy physical disability, came upon the lawn when the large committee to notify him of his nomination were gathered there to perform that duty, and as the man told me, Mr. Blaine caught sight of him off some distance, and “notwithstanding all those men were there, he spoke right up in his old, familiar way, ‘How are you, ——?’”

It shows his genuineness and simplicity. There is enough to him without putting on any airs. It could not be otherwise than that a nature so highly wrought and intense, should be possessed[394] of the powers of withering scorn and just rebuke, and when the occasion required, could use them. There happened such an occasion in 1868.

General Grant had been invited to attend the opening of the European and North American Railway, at Vanceboro’, in the State of Maine. It formed a new connecting-link with the British Provinces. There was a special train of invited guests, and as General Grant was then president, and had never been in the state before, it was quite an honor to be of the company. Mr. Blaine was, of course, of the number, as were the leading citizens without respect to party. A newspaper-correspondent, without any invitation, got aboard the train, and went with the party, and on his return reported that President Grant was drunk. This cut Mr. Blaine to the quick, because of its untruthfulness, and as he was a Republican president, and politics usually ran high in Maine during the palmy days, from 1861 to 1881, when Mr. Blaine was at the helm, and also because the president was guest of the state. Not long after, he met the reporter in the office of Howard Owen, a journalist of Augusta.

“And if you ever saw a man scalped,”—I use the exact language,—“and the grave-clothes put on him, and he put in his coffin, and[395] buried, and the rubbish of the temple thrown on him forty feet deep, he was the man. I never heard anything like it in all my born days: philippics, invectives, satires, these common things were nowhere.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“What didn’t he say?” was the reply,—“‘You were not invited, you were simply tolerated; you sneaked aboard, and then came back here and lied about us,’ etc.”

But sixteen years had effaced much, and yet the impression was vivid, as the man’s very expressive manner betokened.

And a leading Washington correspondent, conversant with all the sights at the capital, says, “It would look strange to see him with the whiskey-drinking crowd at either bar in the capitol building. He does not visit them, and he does not drink.”

The great-heartedness of Mr. Blaine comes out in his book, “Twenty Years in Congress,” and shows how large are his sympathies. He devotes over fifteen pages of that great work to an historical vindication of Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone, who was the victim chosen to atone for the Ball’s Bluff disaster, in which Col. E. D. Baker, of California, a most gallant officer, lost his life. It is a deeply interesting portion of the seventeenth chapter.

[396]Mr. Blaine is a great lover of fair play. He is 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. Roscoe Conkling very handsomely, and does him the honor to quote more extensively from his speech than from Chandler, Lovejoy, Crittenden, Richardson, or Thad. Stevens, although Conkling was younger than any of them. The Republican party is like a great family to him, and he loves and cares for all, in the sense of valuing them highly for their principles’ and works’ sake, and so studies the things that make for peace,—but not peace for peace’ sake, but for the sake of principle.

He asks no quarter for himself, but will follow out the behests of his great nature in the interests of others, and the great cause through which his life has run, like a thread of purest gold. It is his great friendliness which has enabled him to take others into his very life, and live and toil for them so largely. He seems ever living outside of self,—going outside of self and entering into their cause and condition, and making their case his own. He aims to know enough about those within his reach so that he shall be interested in them, and can think and feel 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 detects and demands purity of motive.

This honor makes life a joy, a melody, a delight, and so resonant with constant notes of praise. He cannot be idle; this is against his nature; and to be vicious would give him pain. He is not mean, or low and truckling, but large and open as the day.

An old Democrat, who had known him ever since he landed in Augusta, said, when asked a point-blank question about him as a man, “He is a good neighbor and a great citizen,” and this man had had many dealings with him, but he could not escape the impressions of his work. No man, it would seem, could stand a better examination among his neighbors. If a court of inquiry were established, covering these points, right where he is best known, it would not be necessary for him to challenge a juryman, or impeach a witness.

This same old Democrat said, “A number of years ago we wanted to fix up the Baptist church, and they asked me to go and see Mr. Blaine, as they were making a general call upon the public. It was on the eve of his departure for California, but he gave his check at once for 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, and turns none empty away. As an instance of the humanity of the man, a neighbor related the following:—

“A laborer fell in a fit right out there in the road near Mr. Blaine’s house, and his sympathies were all roused for the man. He helped him what he could, and as he came out of it right away, Mr. Blaine called to his coachman, and said, ‘Fred, harness the horse, and take this man 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.” He has time for all these occasions to help and cheer a fellow-man.

And Mrs. Blaine is just like him. Since their return from Washington, and since the nomination, she was returning from a ride, and when near the gate, 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 the girl for being out in the crowd, but said, “Take her right into my parlor,” and they did, when she sent for a doctor, and had every care taken of the child. She has a mother’s heart, and a mind 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, as wealth is reckoned to-day, but whenever he has turned his great abilities to financial matters for the purpose of money-getting, he has succeeded, showing most conclusively that, had he served himself all these years instead of serving the nation, he would be worth reputed millions. As it is, he told a friend who asked him, about a year ago, if reports were true that he was worth several millions, as people were saying, and his answer was, “No, I am worth less than half a million.”

His great activity is very noticeable, especially in society. He has been compared to Mr. Burlingame in his ability to see and converse with three or four persons, while another is seeing but one. He moves rapidly at times, but with great care, especially in examining any document or letter requiring his signature.

He will sign nothing unless it be a common letter prepared by his private secretary, without reading every word. But out among men his activity is quick and constant. He is always in motion, not in an aimless, nervous way, but in a wide-awake, fully alive manner. His battery is ever charged with the freshest and purest electricity. It would be a thing incredible to find him asleep in the day-time.

He had a singular habit when editor, of folding[400] up little slips of paper and inserting them between his teeth quickly, or tearing them off from a newspaper, inserting them, and then throwing them away, so that after a few moments’ conversation, he would be surrounded with bits of paper which he had torn off and used in this way.

Long walks have been his habit, and at times he would strike off across the fields and jump the fences. “What,” I said to my informant, “jump the fences?” “Yes,” he said, and another party confirmed it. To go across lots, they say, is “the Yankee of it.”

This vigorous exercise is a part of his programme for keeping up his health. He has had a cross-bar also, for athletic sports, and made use of it, too. Life is never dull and monotonous with him, but always full to the brim.

It is this active, energetic spirit which took him to England, and for four or five months all over the continent of Europe; and in 1875 to 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 day sometimes when he was campaigning in Ohio. He did this one day, when the last one was to an immense assemblage in Columbus. And he generally spoke until he was quite satisfied that he had the people with him, and they were certain to vote about right when the time came.[401] His resources of strength, at times, seems amazing. Many who have known him for thirty years, speak of his great energy, of his decision of character, of his power with an audience.

His private secretary, who has been by his side for fifteen years, says that all the time he was speaker in congress, he was never late a single moment, that just exactly at twelve o’clock, the usual time for meeting, his gavel would fall, and the House be called to order.

It is a consciousness of responsibility, and conscientiousness in the discharge of duty, great readiness for the work, and eagerness to perform it, that have made him prompt, energetic, accurate, and determined.

He has been among the broadest of men in his thinking, reading, observation, experience, travel, sympathy, purpose, motive, and activities. Truly his life has been onward and upward, and with these as his principal characteristics he has been tested as few men are tested, and not found wanting. In ten great departments,—as student, teacher, editor, stump-speaker, legislator, speaker of the House at home, congressman, speaker of the National House of Representatives, United States senator, and secretary of state,—has he been tried, and not found wanting. Only a man of transcendent abilities could have triumphed in such a career.

[402]

XX.
NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT.

MR. BLAINE’S steady march upward in the line of promotion, was constant and irresistible, from 1856 to 1876, and even that year was crowned with a seat in the United States senate. But the presidency seemed within his grasp. It was the demand and expectation of the people that he should have it. The popular fervor was intense. He was the ideal statesman of the multitude. But the cast-iron political machinery, then running so deftly and with such precision in several states, was manipulated with a craftiness so subtle as to defeat their strongly expressed and urgent wish. They were ready, hat in hand, in every state and territory in the Union, to cheer his nomination, when the intelligence came that the “dark horse,” Rutherford B. Hayes, was the honored man. No one was more loyal to him than Mr. Blaine.

The state machinery was run by a Corliss engine in 1880,—band, pulley, and cog united[403] the complicated and ingenious device into a single and powerful combination of great effectiveness. The whirl of its great wheel, and the whir of the wheels within, were swift and precise in their momentum. There was no cessation of control, no deviation in rate of speed or execution. The result was ever the same. The steam-gauge registered three hundred and six, simply that and nothing more. They would “make or break,” and so they broke;—Garfield, grand, and splendid, and worthy, came to be the convention’s man. And the people loved him and were loyal to him,—none more so than Mr. Blaine.

For the third time the people sent their chosen men to take for them the great initiative, that they might have the long-sought privilege of endorsing him with their suffrage. It was a great day in Chicago,—that Tuesday, the third of June, 1884,—when the great convention opened in the massive exposition building, where four years before the stubborn contest was had. Fresh men were there. The old machinery was worn out, broken, and cast aside,—not a squeak of it was heard. New men were at the helm when Senator Sabin, of Minnesota, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the convention to order.

After prayer, and the reading of the call for[404] the convention, Senator Sabin addressed the convention, welcoming them to Chicago, as amongst the most cherished spots in our country, sacred to the memories of a Republican. “It was the birthplace of Republican victories. Here the fathers chose that immortal chief who first led us on to victory,—Abraham Lincoln; here they elevated to the first place in the nation that great chieftain of the conflict,—General Grant; here they nominated that honored soldier, that shining citizen, that representative American,—James A. Garfield.”

Hon. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi, a colored gentleman, well known throughout the South for his conspicuous parliamentary ability, for his courage, and for his character, was chosen temporary chairman.

The following day, after prayer, memorials and resolutions were presented in great profusion, which were referred to committees, save one, and that was, “that all are bound to support the nominee of the convention,” which, after a determined discussion, pro and con., was withdrawn.

Gen. John B. Henderson, of St. Louis, was made 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 people were shouting at the top of their voices, cheer upon cheer, and could not be restrained. Then Judge West, of Ohio, in a speech from the people’s heart, presented, amid almost continuous applause, the name of the people’s choice,—James G. Blaine. The names of Generals Hawley and John A. Logan had been presented.

When Hon. T. C. Platt, of New York, seconded the nomination of Mr. Blaine, the applause broke out anew at the mention of the magic name, more tumultuous than before. It was a nation in miniature, sending forth the sovereignty of their hearts, not to be baffled a third time, but surely 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 were waved, and every conceivable form of demonstration consistent with the hour, was indulged in.

Mr. Townsend placed President Arthur in nomination, seconded by Bingham of Pennsylvania, Lynch of Mississippi, Winston of North Carolina, and Pinchback of Louisiana.

Judge Foraker, of Ohio, presented the name of John Sherman. Judge Holt, of Kentucky, seconded Mr. Sherman’s nomination, and Ex-Governor Long, of Massachusetts, seconded by[406] George William Curtis, of New York, presented the name of Senator Edmunds, of Vermont.

Friday, June 6th, after the usual prayer and preliminary exercises, the voting began. On the first ballot Mr. Blaine had three hundred and thirty-four and one-half; Arthur, two hundred and seventy-eight; Edmunds, ninety-three; Logan, sixty-three and one-half; John Sherman, thirty; Hawley, thirteen; Lincoln, four; and W. T. Sherman, two.

The second ballot resulted in three hundred and forty-nine for Blaine; two hundred and seventy-six for Arthur; eighty-five for Edmunds; sixty-one for Logan; twenty-eight for John Sherman; thirteen for Hawley; four for Lincoln; two for W. T. Sherman.

Cheering followed the announcement of gains for Blaine. With many incidents the third ballot was taken, increasing Mr. Blaine’s ballot twenty-six votes, to three hundred and seventy-five; Arthur went down to two hundred and seventy-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 motions to adjourn, and in various ways to postpone the result, were resorted to; but Stewart, of Blaine’s[407] native state, said, “We are ready for the brunt of battle, Mr. Chairman; let it come.” And come it did, though filibustering abounded to prevent it.

In the midst of the fourth and decisive ballot, General Logan’s despatch came, to cast his strength for Blaine.

Senator Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, began the stampede by announcing thirty-four votes from Illinois for Blaine, seven for Logan, and three for Arthur.

Judge Foraker, of Ohio, followed, and withdrawing John Sherman, cast forty-six votes for James G. Blaine, amid a tremendous outburst of applause.

A whirlwind of vociferous cheering, unmanageable and unparalleled, greeted the announcement: Blaine five hundred and forty-one; Arthur still had two hundred and seven; Edmunds, forty-one; Hawley, fifteen; Logan, seven, and Lincoln, two.

But Blaine was nominated, after contesting for eight years, in three of the greatest conventions ever held, with the principal men of the nation. The nomination was made unanimous, in the midst of the wildest enthusiasm.

At the evening session, Senator Plumb of Kansas, seconded by Judge Houck of Tennessee, Thurston of Nebraska, Lee of Pennsylvania,[408] and Congressman Horr of Michigan, nominated John A. Logan for vice-president.

Gen. J. S. Robinson, in seconding the nomination of General Logan, moved to suspend the rules and nominate him by acclamation, which was carried.

Logan’s total vote was seven hundred and seventy-nine, the New York delegation having given six votes for Gresham, and one for Judge Foraker.

The voice of the people had at last been heard, and the men of their choice presented as the standard-bearers, and from East to West went up a shout of joy, which had in it the ring of a long-cherished purpose to see that the “calling and election” of their heroes should “be made sure” at the polls.

[409]

XXI.
JOHN A. LOGAN.

IT was on the 9th of February, 1826, that John A. Logan was born, at Murphysborough, Ill., a little town among the hills that hem in the Mississippi River. He was the eldest of eleven children.

His father was a physician, and came to America from Ireland three years before, while his mother, Elizabeth Jenkins, was from a family that 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, placed a premium upon all of manly energy and exertion, and infused into him, with every breath, that best of robust health which, like bank-stock drawing a high rate of interest, has met every demand made upon it for over half a century.

[410]His advantages of education in early youth were of a slender character, except as he derived instruction from the teaching of his father and at his mother’s knee; for no regular schools existed in the settlement, except at a log school-house, where an itinerant teacher presided, under whose tuition only the quickest and aptest boy or girl would make advancement.

One who knows him well says that when eighteen years old he was sent to the nearest school, called Shiloh Academy, under the jurisdiction of the Methodist Church, and graduated from it into the Mexican war. He had breathed an atmosphere of war from childhood. In his youth the stories of the war of 1812 and of the Revolution were fresh in the memories and constantly in the mouths of those about him, many of whom had been actual participants. The Seminole and Black-Hawk wars had occurred in his youth, and personal acquaintance with many who had participated in them kindled in him the glow and fervor of adventure. He enlisted in the First Illinois Regiment, and went to Mexico.

Though among the youngest of the men, he came at once into prominence by his energy and 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 he was assigned.

There was about him such an utter abandonment to the work of battle, that his strong marks of leadership were quickly recognized, and he was made lieutenant, then adjutant, and finally quartermaster, a position of grave responsibility in the enemy’s country.

After the war he studies at college, and then reads law with his uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, who was a great man in southern Illinois. He had at one time been lieutenant-governor of the state, and was a Jacksonian Democrat.

In 1849 Mr. Logan was elected clerk of Jackson County, and continued his study of law. He took a course of law-lectures at Louisville, and was admitted to the bar. He commenced practice with his uncle, and soon gained prominence. But political life, for one so active, filled with an unbounded energy, had charms for him.

Soon after his return from Louisville, he was elected prosecuting attorney for Jackson County, in 1852, and the same year to the legislature, and re-elected in 1853, 1856, and 1857. In 1854 he was elected prosecuting attorney of the third judiciary district of Illinois, and in 1856 was a presidential elector on the Buchanan and Breckenridge ticket.

[412]It was at this time he began his career as a stump-speaker, and his speeches were regarded as remarkable examples of eloquence, giving him a reputation that sent him to congress in 1858. He was an earnest Douglas man, and being re-nominated in 1860, he stumped the state with great success, and was re-elected by a large majority. This was a transition period. The great contest was coming on, and “the piping times of peace” were angry with the most dread forebodings.

At this point we will let one speak who knows him well:—

“Right here came a critical period in his career, and although there are men who still assert that his sympathy was with the secessionists, there is plenty of evidence that the South had no claim upon him,—that whatever his original sentiments may have been, his public utterances were always loyal, and that when the crisis came he was on the right side. The country 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 Jefferson Davis is contradicted by that gentleman, who says he never heard of Logan until more than a year after the war began.

“There are several witnesses to the fact that[413] in November, 1860, when Lincoln’s election was assured, and threats were freely made that he should not be inaugurated, Logan publicly declared that he would shoulder a musket and escort the ‘Rail-Splitter’ to the White House.

“While he was in Washington, attending the called session of congress in the summer of 1861, he went to the front, as many representatives did, to visit the army in Virginia, and being the guest of Colonel Richardson when the battle of Bull Run took place, he was given a musket and fought through that eventful July day as a private in the ranks.”

When congress adjourned in August, he went home, resigned his seat in congress, raised the Thirty-first Illinois Regiment, was commissioned its colonel, and led them into battle at Belmont, Missouri, ten months after they were mustered into service. One has well said, “Logan was developed by the war. The bugler of the army sounded the key-note of his character, and in an atmosphere of dust and powder he grew great.”

In that first battle at Belmont he had his horse shot under him, while leading a successful bayonet-charge. He fought with General Grant at Fort Henry, and in the siege and terrific contest at Fort Donelson he bore a brave, conspicuous part, 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 5th to General Grant for duty at Pittsburgh Landing, only about a month after the Fort Donelson engagement, and was at once made a brigadier-general.

Nashville had fallen. Tennessee was largely within the Union lines, and entrance was being effected into Georgia and Mississippi; hence the stubborn resistance of the foe at Pittsburgh Landing. But victory brought them to the siege of Corinth, Island No. 10 falling under the guns of Commodore Foote. Grant and Logan led their armies down to Vicksburg.

During the winter-campaign in Mississippi and the siege of Vicksburg, Logan’s bravery was proverbial. He was given command of a division in McPherson’s corps, and made a major-general in the army, within a year of entrance.

During the summer of 1862 he was repeatedly urged to “run for congress,” but his reply was worthy a hero: “I have entered the field to die, if need be, for this Government, and never expect to return to peaceful pursuits until the object of this war of preservation has become a fact established.”

His personal bravery and military skill were so conspicuous in Grant’s Northern Mississippi movements, where he commanded a division of the Seventeenth Army Corps, under General McPherson,[415] he was promoted to the rank of major-general Nov. 26, 1862. He was present in every fight, his daring bravery animating his men at Fort Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and Vicksburg. He was in command of McPherson’s centre, June 25th, when the assault upon Vicksburg was made. His column led the entrance into the city, and he became its first military governor.

In November, 1863, he was called to succeed General Sherman in command of his famous Fifteenth Army Corps. The following May he joined Sherman as the Georgia campaign was opening. It was Logan who led the advance of the Army of the Tennessee at Resaca, who whipped Hardee’s trained veterans at Dallas, and drove the enemy from Kenesaw Mountain.

On July 22d he was in the fierce assault before Atlanta. In this desperate attack upon Hood, Logan fought as he never fought before, and when McPherson fell he took command of the Army of the Tennessee, and with resistless fury avenged the death of the beloved commander.

After the fall of Atlanta he returned to Illinois, temporarily, to take part in the presidential campaign. It was our privilege to hear him then, and never, it would seem, did such withering scorn, such utter denunciation, such infinite contempt,[416] show themselves, as he manifested in a great speech, full of vim and fire, not for the brave, honest rebel in arms, but for the cowardly copperheads in the rear.

He was less than forty years of age, only thirty-eight, but his name and fame as a soldier were a tower of strength, and he drew together immense crowds.

Soon after Mr. Lincoln’s second election he returns to the front, and joins Sherman in his march to the sea, and continued with him until the surrender of Gen. Joseph Johnston, on April 26, 1865. After the surrender he marched his men to Alexandria, and rode at their head in the grand review in Washington. He had taken command of the Army of the Tennessee, Oct. 23, 1864, and tendered his resignation when active service was over, being unwilling to draw pay unless on duty in the field.

President Johnson tendered him the mission to Mexico, but he declined it, and returning home was elected successively to the fortieth, the forty-first, and the forty-second congresses. He was selected as one of a committee of seven to represent the House in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson.

Before he had taken his seat in the forty-second congress, the legislature of Illinois elected him 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 that state. He was again chosen for the senate, and took his seat the second time March 18, 1879. His present term expires March 3, 1885. He led the delegation of his state in the national convention of 1880, and was one of the most determined of the “three hundred and six” who followed 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 Grand Army of the Republic. He was the first national commander of that organization, and as such issued the order in 1868 for the decoration of the graves of Union soldiers.

His financial views have been the subject of criticism, but they have generally represented the sentiments of his constituency. In 1866 he took strong grounds in favor of the payment of the national debt in gold coin. In 1874 he followed the popular Western movement, and voted for the Inflation bill, which President Grant vetoed. But in the following year he favored the Sherman Resumption act.

General Logan was always a leader in securing pension legislation. He has been radical in favoring internal improvements, has always voted for liberal appropriations for rivers and harbors,[418] and has given his support to railroad land-grant measures. His property consists of a residence on Calumet Avenue in Chicago, which is worth from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand dollars, and a farm at his old home in southern Illinois.

He resides in Washington at a boarding-house on Twelfth Street, occupying two modest rooms, the same in which he has lived for twelve years.

In 1855 he married Miss Mary Cunningham, of Shawneetown, Ill., and she has proved a most valuable helpmeet, being as good, if not a better politician than himself, and a lady of great refinement as well as intellectual force. There is no woman in public life who possesses more admirable traits than Mrs. Logan, and her popularity with her own sex is quite as great as with the other. She can write a speech on finance, or dictate the action of a political caucus, with as much ease and grace as she can preside 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 the wife of Paymaster Tucker, of the army, and a son, Manning, a cadet at West Point. Both of them have been educated by her, or under her personal supervision.

As a society woman she is graceful and accomplished;[419] in charities she is always active and generous; in religion she is a devout Methodist.

During the campaign of 1866 General Logan was running for congressman-at-large. The multitudes came to hear him; a grand stand was erected in the court-house yard at Bloomington; thousands were gathered, filling the grounds and covering the roofs of buildings. He was in his glory; for three hours he spoke; the people laughed, and cried, and shouted cheer on cheer. We had heard Douglas, Lovejoy, Colfax, but never such a speech as that.

The rebel army was whipped and gone, and now the Democratic party loomed up as an enemy in the land.

In telling why he had left the party and become a staunch Republican, his sarcasm burned like caustic. He told a story in an inimitable way, to illustrate the point. It was the story of the flock of sheep the farmer gave his boys:—

“Tommy was to divide the flock, and Johnny take his choice, so Tommy put all the fine, large ones by themselves, and all the scabby, scaly, shaggy ones in another yard, and with them he put Johnny’s little pet lamb, which he had raised and cared for all summer, feeding it with fresh, warm milk, and had put a little blue ribbon,[420] with a bell on it, about its neck; and Tommy knew how he loved it, and so he put it in with the poor, old, scaly lot of sheep. When Johnny came to look at the sheep he looked for Nannie, his lamb; he heard its bell, and saw it was in bad company, with a miserable lot of bad sheep, and so he said, ‘Nannie, good-bye; I’ve loved you. I tied that blue ribbon about your neck, and put that bell on it. I’ve fed you and taken care of you all this time’ (and this description was given with the most dramatic effect); ‘but, Nannie, we must part. Johnny, I will take this lot,’ pointing to all the best sheep.”

The roar was tumultuous when they saw the point, and it was a terrific hit for the old party, in with the copperheads and rebels.

It was surely one of the happiest steps of his life, when he came out on the Republican side of the Republic’s great battle for the liberty of the enslaved and the citizenship of freemen.

Few soldiers are now living, not excepting the old commander himself, who in a political campaign will make the heart of the old veterans beat faster and warmer at the remembrance of former times, and the achievements of battles now enjoyed, than Gen. John A. Logan, United States 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 shout rings out again, and the victory of the past must at their hands be perpetuated in the victory of the future.