“GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
“You will accept my most grateful acknowledgments for the very
cordial manner in which you have signified your approbation of my
course as your presiding officer. I beg in return to witness to the
dignity, the diligence, and the ability with which you have severally
discharged your representative trusts. We met, many of us, as
strangers; may I not hope that we all part as friends, and parting,
may we bear to our homes the recollection of duties faithfully
performed, and the consciousness of having done something to promote
the prosperity and welfare of our honored state. I bid you farewell.”
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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.
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 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, 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 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.
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.
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