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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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.”
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.
[Illustration: Residence of JAMES G. BLAINE, Augusta, Maine.]
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. 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 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 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.
“SLAVE TRADE--It is said that the business of fitting out slavers
is carried on extensively in New York. The _Commercial Advertiser_
believes the practice to be ‘alarmingly and disgracefully prevalent,’
and the _Tribune_ states, on good authority, that thirty vessels are
annually fitted out there, for the purpose of procuring slaves upon
the west coast of Africa.
“This is no more than following out the political creed of the
more advanced wing of the progressive pro-slavery Democracy. The
Charleston papers, which support President Pierce’s administration,
boldly advocate the re-opening of the African Slave Trade, with the
view of making ‘niggers’ cheaper. The ‘party’ in New England are not
as yet up to the work, but another Presidential election will _fetch_
them. _Progress_ is the distinct feature of the age.”
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 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.
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
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”:--
“It is the settled judgment of our ablest and best statesmen, that
the present is a more momentous period than any through which the
country has passed since the Revolution. The issue is fairly before
the American people, whether Democracy or Aristocracy, Liberty or
Despotism, shall control the government of this Republic.... The
contest enlists on one side the intelligence, the conscience, the
patriotism, and the best energies of the American people. On the
other are engaged the avarice, the servility, the ignorance, and the
lust of dominion which characterize human depravity in every age and
nation.
“There are in reality but two sides to this great question. There is
no ground of neutrality. As true now is it as it was in the days of
the Great Teacher of liberty and salvation, that men cannot serve
opposite principles at the same time.... The deepening cry from
all quarters is that the White House must be cleansed, and all the
channels to and from the same thoroughly renovated. The march of
slavery must be stopped or the nation is lost. Only by the firm and
practical union of all true men in the nation can its most valuable
interests be preserved.
... “We are, then, for a common union against the National
Administration, on the basis of restoring the Missouri Prohibition
against slavery in the territories, forgetting past distinctions and
priority in the combination. Who shall be the standard-bearer of this
patriotic and conservative Opposition in the great struggle of ’56?
Whoever the right man may be,--whether he has his home in the East or
the West, in the North or the South, we care not, if he is but the
statesman to comprehend the hour, and is equal to the necessities of
the country, we hope to see him triumphantly elected. We only ask
that he be loyal to Liberty, a sworn defender of the Union on its
constitutional basis, in favor of bringing back our government to
the principles and policy of its founders, and pledged to undo the
giant wrong of 1854. To enlist in such an opposition, patriotism, the
memory of our Revolutionary sires, everything sacred in our history,
the welfare of posterity, invoke us. In such a ‘union for the sake of
the Union’ we shall all be Republicans, all Whigs, all Democrats, all
Americans.”
[Illustration]