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 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.
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 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 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
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
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 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.
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