“Our God is marching on.”
And so he was, in all of truth and right maintained, in all of good
performed.
Never were the good and true remembered in such hosts as when the
nation struggled with her foes. What mighty ones stepped out of the
chaos of a dismal past into splendid life with her! Their name is
legion; grand in every sphere of greatness, and great in every realm
of grandeur. They thought out the nation first; fought out and forged
it in battle-heat, and hurled it like a thing of life, upon its great
career. It never loses its power to go, to be, and conquer, bringing
ever to the birth, and upward into strong, armed life those whose great
abilities are her own; her own for defense; her own for war, living in
their lives, powerful in their strong right arms,--one with them in
destiny. Among that number now, though reckoned with a multitude, was
James G. Blaine.
He surveyed the field for but a single day after the second session
of his first congress opened,--the thirty-eighth,--and then undid the
mischief of another. It was called the “Gold bill” in the House, and
had simply been offered and referred to the committee of Ways and
Means, by a Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania.
Its substance was, that a dollar note issued by the Government,
declared lawful money and legal tender, is declared of equal value for
all purposes as gold and silver coin of like denominations. A contract
made payable in coin may be payable in legal tender, and anyone should
be imprisoned who received a greenback for less than gold coin was
worth, and fined as well.
Gold went up in Wall Street within twenty-four hours after the
bill was presented, twelve per cent. Mr. Blaine saw it and moved a
reconsideration of it, sections two, three, five, and six being the
objectional features of the bill. His speech in support of his motion
did not occupy ten minutes. The author of the bill, Mr. Stevens, said,--
“My friend from Maine (Mr. Blaine) has an intuitive way of getting
at a great national question, one that has exercised the thoughts of
statesmen of several countries for many years.” This in opening; and in
closing his speech, he said,--
“How the gentleman from Maine, by his intuitive knowledge of these
things comes to understand at once what the ablest statesmen of England
took months to mature, I cannot very well understand. It is a happy
inspiration.”
Had he a knowledge of his long years of study, that it was then
twenty-five years since he finished reciting Plutarch, and but little
less than twenty since his graduation, had he a knowledge of the
strong, determined spirit of mastery which characterized him in all his
work, could he have read over at that moment the long list of volumes
over which he had poured, had he known these things, he would not
have felt that a genius of intuition who got at things by inspiration
merely, sat before him, but one with a genius for the hardest kind
of a student’s work, with intuitions born of high intelligence and
inspiration that comes from conscious strength. No wonder he was an
enigma, a man beyond his years and place, yet master of the situation.
Mr. Stevens’ motion to table the motion of Mr. Blaine, failed,
fifty-one to sixty-eight, and then the motion of Mr. Blaine regarding
the bill of Mr. Stevens, carried, seventy-three to fifty-two. It is
interesting to notice, that though the gentleman did not call up his
bill for a solid month,--not until after the holidays,--and then came
in with an elaborate argument showing the financial course of England
in her war with France in 1793, and then in her war finally with the
whole of continental Europe, though he seemed to have made a careful
study of his subject, and of England’s financial policy, he closed with
this sentence:--
“I feel that England never had so absurd a law as to pay one part of
her war-debt in gold and another part in Bank of England notes.” He
said “I feel,” he did not know. But Mr. Blaine knew, and so he asked
him whether the bonds negotiated by England upon the continent were not
payable in gold.
“I do not know,” was the answer.
Then Mr. Blaine stated, “Every one of them negotiated upon the
continent was payable in gold, both principal and interest. Every one
negotiated at the Hague, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and elsewhere upon
the continent, was negotiated upon the gold basis exclusively.”
This was no contest to win, but simply to bring out financial
intelligence in a semi-official way, for the benefit of the country.
It was a most sensitive subject. Gold was up to two hundred and fifty,
that is, a hundred dollars in gold cost two hundred and fifty dollars
in greenbacks, and Mr. Stevens had endeavored in a wrong way, as Mr.
Brooks showed, to correct gambling in gold, but Mr. Blaine could
furnish him with deficiencies of knowledge, and manifest the acumen of
a statesman upon a subject so great.
Mr. Blaine had his magnetic power then, and Mr. Stevens refers to it,
and his great power over the House in securing so promptly the passage
of his motion. He said,
“The House, partaking of the magnetic manner of my friend from Maine,
became alarmed, and immediately laid the bill on the table.”
It was his power of quick, thrilling action; of feeling strongly, and
making others feel as he did; of casting upon them the glow of his own
brilliancy; of charming them with the rhapsody of his own genius; of
piercing them with the energy of his own thinking, and so shutting them
up to his conclusions by the force of his own arguments; it was thus
by methods the fairest and most honorable to his abilities, that he
carried all before him. And one can but see in his repeated control of
the House, the power of his friendships.
Cox, Pendleton, Brooks, and others of the opposition would show him the
greatest courtesies in debate. Randall, even, in his first session,
gave him time out of his own hour for an entire speech, and Cox
encouraged him in the midst of his Gold bill speech, by saying he was
with him on it.
When the Naval Academy bill was before the House, he moved to repeal
a section relating to cadets “found deficient.” If they had a hundred
demerit marks in six months they would be expelled. Mr. Blaine had
visited the academy in 1861, as a member of the “Board of Visitors,”
and while there a young man was dismissed, not for any fault of
scholarship, for he was among the brightest and best in his class.
Becoming deeply interested in the cause of the young man, he went to
Washington and successfully interceded with the secretary of war, and
he was restored. He subsequently graduated very high in class-rank,
and since his entrance upon active service has distinguished himself
as an officer of great merit, serving with efficiency and distinction
as ordnance-officer on General Sheridan’s staff in that splendid,
victorious campaign in the valley of the Shenandoah.
The demerits were given for singularly small offences, as: “floor out
of order near wash-stand, four demerits,” etc., etc.
Mr. Blaine insisted that to the secretary of war and the president be
restored the power that was taken from them at the last session,--to
pardon any cadet discharged for any of these offences.
General Schenck joined him, and the amendment was adopted.
There is a little section of his speech on the Military Academy bill
which shows his admiration for the telling power of manhood, and his
utter scorn of sacrificing great ability, for which the nation was so
loudly calling then, to little, simple things, good in themselves, but
not of first importance, that we cannot forbear to give it. Here it is,
verbatim, as he delivered it in congress:--
“Many of the cadets, sir, who have been very precise and decorous in
their conduct in matters of petty discipline at the academy, and manage
to pass through smoothly, often graduating with high rank obtained
by very strict attention to ‘folding beds by 10 A. M.,’ and ‘drawing
curtains by at precisely 6.45 A. M.’ (academy rules), are unfortunately
never heard from afterwards. Their names do not always figure in the
record of our bloody battles, and they have achieved no distinction
in this war, with all its thousand opportunities, while on the other
hand not a few of the graduates at the academy who at the Point had
the ‘odor of tobacco in their rooms,’ and whose ‘floors were out of
order near the wash-stand,’ have blazoned their names high on the roll
of fame for conduct as gallant and skill as great as ever graced the
battle-fields of any age country.”
Efficiency has ever been the test with him in his own work, and this
he applies to others; as one has said, “We measure others in our own
half-bushel; of course we do, we have no other.”
Early in the session he had a running debate which tried his metal,
with Thayer, of Pennsylvania; Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont; James
S. Wilson, of Iowa; General Schenck, of Ohio, and S. S. Cox, of Ohio
yielding the floor for the purpose.
It was not only a proof of his knowledge, but also of his ability to
use it on demand, and he showed himself equal to the exigency, and
showed that he was generally found away on the lead in his discussion
of constitutional measures and application of principles.
It is possible for a man to go over, in a long-winded speech, a vast
amount of ground, which has been tramped as bare as the camp-ground of
a brigade of soldiers, by a multitude of debaters; ground which has
been surveyed, and staked out, and pre-empted, and owned for a century
or more, and concerning which, as concerning the constitution there is
no question. Such speeches as these wearied the progressive spirit of
advanced ones, and made them restless when the fate of great interests
hung on the decision of a few hours’ discussion. No one watched more
closely the utterances of men upon the floor, or held them to a
stricter account.
In presenting a minority report on amendment of rules for the
government of the House, Mr. Morrill had placed some undue restriction
upon the powers of congress, and courteously waiting until he had
finished a long speech of ten or eleven columns, Mr. Blaine asked him
whether the power of impeachment would not extend to cabinet officers,
and so their attendance upon the sittings of the House be compelled, a
point Mr. Morrill had denied.
There had been little demand for this power slumbering in the
constitution,--power which was used upon a president shortly
afterward,--but brought prominently to the attention of the House,
and much light thrown on it by the answers tersely given to near a
score of questions, members were pleased to ask Mr. Blaine, and while
he was ready with abundant answers; clear and strong, and packed with
knowledge of the highest legal type, he was ready as well if there was
hint of an assailant in manner or tone, to thrust out a sharp, rising
question which would almost take the breath of the man who might be
after him. When General Schenck asked him if the secretary of war was
a civil officer, his quick reply was, “I do not think that a ‘civil’
question.” Neither was it, for as member of the cabinet of course he
was a civil officer, as much so as the president himself, who was by
virtue of his office “Commander-in-chief of the armies of the Union.”
But Mr. Blaine had great respect for age and learning, and allowed no
opportunity to show it to pass by unimproved. His early intercourse
with his Grandfather Gillespie had developed largely veneration both
for gray hairs and scholarly attainments, a veneration which had
matured by associations with his teachers and great men of the nation
whom he had met in his youthful days, and those whom he had since come
to know and honor.
When Mr. Henry Winter Davis came on with his great naval speech,
Mr. Blaine heard him with special pleasure, and had some very
complimentary things to say of “the caustic, scathing, truthful, and
deserved criticism of the naval department in building,” as Mr. Blaine
said, “twenty iron-clad vessels, at a cost of ten millions of dollars,
that will not stay on top of water.”
Mr. Pike had just taken him to task for this last statement, when
the “hammer fell,” and Mr. Davis, showing his appreciation of the
courtesies of Mr. Blaine, arose and said, “I ask unanimous consent that
the gentleman from Maine may be permitted to proceed.” This was indeed
a consideration which young members seldom received from the veterans
of the House, and especially from one with a national reputation for
scholarly attainments. But as “the debate in Committee of the Whole
was closed by order of the House,” the Chair could not grant the
request, and just here Mr. Blaine’s shrewdness and intimate knowledge
of parliamentary rules showed itself. “I move,” he said, “to amend the
amendment, by striking out the first line; that will entitle me to the
floor for a few minutes longer.”
Then he went on to give an official fact, as he called it, and he knew
well the value of such things; there was nothing “fine-spun” about
them, but strong and stubborn, and full of power to convince. “Out of
ninety British steamers,” he said, “caught within a given period in
attempting to run the blockade, only twelve were caught by vessels
built by the present administration of the navy department; while
seventy-eight were caught either by purchased vessels, or vessels
inherited from the old navy. I submit, sir, that this fact bears with
crushing force on the practical question of the speed and efficiency of
vessels of the new navy.” It is bad enough to swindle the government at
any time, and in any thing, but in times of war to swindle her in the
construction of iron-clad vessels that will not float, yet needed at
once for active service, and produce twenty of them at half a million
dollars apiece, was enough to arouse the indignation not only of the
older member, Mr. Davis, but also of the younger man, Mr. Blaine.
And this now gave him a new, fresh start, untrammeled by crutch or
cane, casting him wholly upon his own resources, and placing him where
he must put forth all the power in him, or utterly fail.
“When the Jeannette went down, crushed and sunken by the ice,” writes
Lieutenant Danenhouser, “we started with our boats southward, dragging
them over the ice, broken and piled in every conceivable shape. We
accomplished seven miles the first week, only to find, by taking
observations, that the ice-floe had drifted us back to the northward
twenty-seven miles, and so placing us twenty miles to the rear of the
spot where we had started, and our ship had sunk.” They had intrepid
spirits, but no firm ground; he had both the intrepid spirit and the
firm ground on which to stand, and his victory was swift and certain.
Mr. Blaine never lost an opportunity to do a favor, or make a friend.
Doing duty was his delight; getting hold of strong, plain, practical
facts, and presenting them in a way that showed a constant, abiding
interest in his constituency, that he was living and toiling for them,
and had their best interest, and those of the entire state of Maine,
and the whole country at heart.
Here is one of his plain, practical statements, showing his loyalty to
home interests, as well as the business interests of the country. A
vessel from his district had been chartered to government to carry a
cargo of four hundred and fifty tons of coal from Philadelphia to New
Orleans, for six thousand dollars. Upon her return her disbursements
had been six thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight dollars and
five cents. She received six thousand dollars in certificates of
indebtedness from the government, then selling them at ninety-four,
which made but five thousand six hundred and forty dollars in cash,
showing a net cash loss of five hundred and ninety-eight dollars and
five cents, besides the interest on advance, about two hundred dollars
more.
“And now, sir,” said Mr. Blaine, “after this melancholy experience the
tax-collector came forward and demanded of the owner of the vessel, two
and one-half per cent. on the six thousand dollars which the government
paid, as above, and on top of all losses already incurred actually
compelled him to pay one hundred and fifty dollars under that section
of the internal-revenue law, which we are seeking to amend.
“A man’s profit in business,” he goes on to say, “affords a fair basis
of taxation, but it is a cruel mockery of one’s misfortune to assess a
tax upon losses.”
He further plead that “as commercial men of the country, who do so much
to sustain our finances and our honor, they should be relieved from its
oppressive exactions.”
There were no mists or fogs about him to conceal him or his methods,
and what he said stood out in the clear light of day. In this case he
was able to catch up from memory, a better argument for the repeal
of the oppressive section of the law than had come to the House in
a lengthy written memorial from a company doing business on the
Schuylkill Canal in Pennsylvania, and who could make sitings net them
four hundred and ten dollars, while in the case cited by Mr. Blaine,
one trip was made at a loss of nine hundred and forty-eight dollars and
five cents.
Seldom did he cite his own opinion. It was the bludgeon of hard, solid
facts with which he did his best execution. Others might theorize,
and imagine, and conceive, and spin web after web of sophistry, like
the spider, out of themselves, to be full as flimsy when the storm
of debate beat upon it, but not he. He evidently kept up a living
acquaintance with those to whom he was responsible, and this, with
an ever vigilant correspondence, enabled him to know, and not simply
think and feel, but actually to know their adverse experiences where
the operations of the machinery of government affected them, and with
reasonable and apparent facts in hand he could easily procure the
remedy. This lively interest, so practical and so potent as well, was
with him a constant element of power.
He lost no opportunity to familiarize himself with business
enterprises, great and small, and get the best authority on all
questions of finance and trade, and as a result he could speak with
pertinency, and from a mind prolific of the freshest data on the
practical questions as they were constantly coming before the House,
and especially in the old war-days, when the vexed questions of
internal revenue, with all its myriad details regarding the nature and
value of taxable articles, were being adjusted.
At one time when he first entered congress, nearly every article that
entered into the construction of a ship was taxed, and then upon her
tonnage, and then, beside, upon the gross receipts for carrying the
cargo. He saw to it at once that those matters were attended to.
But a fresh call was out for troops, and it was a final call. They
were getting ready for the great opening of the spring campaign which
was to speedily end in crushing the Rebellion, and annihilating the
Confederacy. There was a flaw in the enrollment law passed the last
session, which Mr. Blaine had discovered, and sought to remedy. It
permitted recruiting in the rebel states, and credits for previous
naval enlistments. “From these two sources have arisen the gigantic and
wide-spread evil of filling quotas of towns without adding troops to
the army.” He had offered an amendment which was designed to bring back
recruiting to “an honest, meritorious, and patriotic effort to fill the
ranks of our gallant army with men, and not with shadowy fictions which
pass under the name of ‘paper credits.’” The quotas of entire cities,
districts, and possibly states, had been thus filled “without adding a
single man or musket to the effective military force of the nation.
There was fraud, and he would so change the law that it could not be
perpetuated.”
There were substitute-brokers, who, in some mysterious way, would get
hold of these “credits,” as they were called, and sell them, much as
torn scrip is sold.
“We can deal just by the government,” he said, “in its struggle for
existence. It calls for men, and it is worse than madness to answer
this call with anything else than men.
“In conclusion,” and his words reveal a genuine patriotism and zeal of
affection for the soldier, “nothing so discourages the brave men at the
front as the belief that proper measures are not adopted at home for
re-enforcing and sustaining them.
“After four years of such patriotic and heroic effort for national
unity as the world has never witnessed before, we cannot now afford
to have the great cause injured, or its fair fame darkened by a
single unworthy incident connected with it. The improper practices of
individuals cannot disgrace and degrade the nation, but after these
practices are brought to the attention of congress, we shall assuredly
be disgraced and degraded if we fail to apply the remedy. Let us, then,
in this hour of the national need, do our duty here, our duty to the
troops in the field, our duty to our constituents at home, and our
country; above all, to our country, whose existence has been in such
peril in the past, but whose future of greatness and glory seems now so
assured, and so radiant.”
Few utterances of those long, dark years, breathed a spirit of more
devoted loyalty than is found even in these few sentences, and they
were uttered when they would do the most good, and secure just those
re-enforcements that would gladden the hearts of veterans, and hasten
the end of the struggle.
Mr. Blaine had a keen eye for fraud, and made it his business to detect
it; and he was just fearless enough to hold it up to the light of day.
Wherever he unearthed it he would point out the individual, and point
his finger at him and say, with a boldness known only to invective and
scorn, “Thou art the man!”
He never seemed to take care of his popularity, but of his constituents
and of his country. Enemies abounded, and evil, and wrong; and to these
he paid effective attention, rightly judging that no course is safer,
or accords with fuller satisfaction, than the right course. With him,
character was the citadel of strength and influence; and so we find
him knowing and trusting himself, reaching for wrong in all of its
strongholds.
And there was much to encourage now Sherman had reached the sea;
Columbia, S. C., was captured; Charleston was evacuated; the old flag
was again flying over Fort Sumter, and Washington’s Birthday was to
be celebrated, by order of the secretary of war, E. M. Stanton, by
a “national salute at West Point, and at every fort, arsenal, and
army head-quarters of the United States, in honor of the event.” This
twenty-second day of February was a long, busy day in congress. It
was a quarter past five before the House adjourned. Mr. Blaine was in
his seat all day long, voting steadily for the right and against the
wrong. The conquered states, cut off from the Rebellion and rescued to
liberty and lawful authority, were left without government, and must
be provided, as Tennessee had been in the person of Andrew Johnson,
now vice-president, with provisional governors. Much legislation was
requisite. Every man in congress who had ever had any pro-slavery
proclivities, was in his place contesting every step of progress with
men who had never breathed aught but the air of freedom and known only
loyal heart-beats.
One bill granted citizenship to all colored men who had served in the
army and navy.
Right royal work, this, for such a man to be doing on a day so sacred;
helping into citizenship the colored man, ever loyal, ever true.
This seemed to be the great feature of all the great bills before the
House that day. It came up in the bill to encourage enlistments, and
the worth and dignity of being an American citizen was held up before
the negro as a prize for him to win; as something in store for him in
the future; and so as giving to the colored troops, and all who united
with them, this personal interest in relation to the government. But
it takes time to get such thoughts adjusted to minds struggling with
the fact of Emancipation, and so little is done but give the bills a
hearing and pass them to another reading. Coming events had cast their
shadows before them. It was, however, but the shadow of a passing
cloud, and told of a great, bright sun shining in the heavens yonder,
which would soon dissipate all clouds and shadows, and the long night
of bondage ended, give a glorious day, in which the world might see
in the poorest black man of the South an American citizen, possessed
of certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
To the happy consummation of a task so grand, whose inspiration comes
from that free and holy place where “all are one,” Mr. Blaine had set
his hand, only to remove it when the chaplet of America’s proudest,
noblest glory was on the black man’s brow.
That life is most divine which is most in line with Providence, and has
the most of uplifting power in it, which stands the highest up, and
can reach the farthest down, is many-handed in its helpfulness, and
strong-handed as well, to unshackle humanity in body, in soul, and in
spirit, and tell the fallen or sunken ones how to get upward toward God
and heaven.
Opening the gates of heaven means unlocking the gates of earth, and to
this latter task the statesmen of the nation stood pledged from that
day, since numbered among the nation’s holidays. A close student of
Mr. Blaine’s congressional career will be impressed with the fact that
it seems planned and determined before-hand. There are no surprises in
it. He seems to have determined upon his course before entering it, and
gives his strength to certain measures, and does not fritter it away
upon every resolve, or amendment, or motion, that happens to be before
the House, affecting some far away interest of a day-dreamer.
He recognizes the fact fully that he is one of a great body of men,
each one of whom is charged with interests of an important character
to their state or district, and many heavily weighted with special
and peculiar measures of national importance. These must all have
their opportunity. Less than ninety working-days usually comprise the
session, and there are but four of these in a congress,--from March to
adjournment, and from December to March, and then repeated, constitutes
a congressional term, with eight of them in a presidential term, or
two a year for the four years. Beside, it takes so long a time to get
measures through congress that the successful man finds it necessary to
devote himself with great carefulness to the few measures of importance
he would have adopted, and become law organic or otherwise.
Very soon after Mr. Blaine entered congress he presented a resolution
instructing the Committee on Judiciary to inquire into the expediency
of amending the constitution so as to allow congress to levy an export
tax. But the session closed, and it is not reported, and now his second
session is closing, and still it is not forthcoming. Why not? He will
know the reason why! And so there comes a day near the session’s close,
only the day before Mr. Lincoln’s second inauguration, when he arises
and states “a little grievance.” He states the resolution, its being
offered at the last session, and now again at the present session.
It had been to the Ways and Means Committee, to which it had been
transferred. Evidently he had been ready to grapple with the subject
for some time, and proceeded to do so. It involved an amendment to
the constitution, and one “essential to the financial success of the
government, and to the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing
prosperity of the country in all future time.”
It was stated that the measure would have been presented by the
committee, if they had supposed time would have permitted of its
consideration. It presented a subject that was discussed at length in
the Convention of 1787. The “Madison Papers” give a synopsis of the
constitutional debates of that convention, and show that many of the
strongest men of that body, the really far-sighted ones, opposed the
insertion of the clause prohibiting a tax on exports. The vote was not
a very decisive one, nor did its advocacy come from the Southern or
“staple states,” and opposition from Northern states.
He proceeds to deliver what is his great speech, if not the great
speech of the session. It was probably not over an hour long, but he
had not proceeded far before it became apparent that he had thoroughly
studied the subject, and was investing it with a new interest.
A great debt of more than two billion eight hundred million was on the
nation. Mr. Blaine’s amendment was looking towards its liquidation.
It was the wise, strong look far ahead. He saw in it several hundred
millions of revenue in the export of cotton, tobacco, and naval stores,
without affecting the demand for them, and also in petroleum, and
numberless articles, still more of revenue. France was taxing her wines
and brandies, and countries having peculiar commodities taxed them.
Cotton which sold in Liverpool at eleven and three-quarters pence per
pound in December, 1861, sold for twenty-four and one-half pence per
pound in just one year from that date. The three million two hundred
thousand bales of five hundred pounds each, this country had exported,
were missed there.
“Whoever as secretary of the treasury shall undertake and succeed in
paying the debt,” he argues in closing, “must have open to him the
three great avenues of taxation, namely, the tariff, the excise system,
and the duties on exports, and must be empowered to use each in its
appropriate place, by congressional legislation.”
And so he closed the first half of his second congressional year, with
the same policy of questions with which he began, aiming still at
thoroughness and mastery, still the guiding stars of his history, the
moulding powers and the prominent features of his great career.
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