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 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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.”
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 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, 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
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 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,
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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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.”
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 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, 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. 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.
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 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. 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 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 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.”
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