The future had no clouds for Mr. Blaine as he returned for the fourth
time to Washington as a member-elect to congress. He was in manhood’s
prime, backed by a splendid record of triumph on the field of political
contest, and of achievement in the arena of debate. He was thoroughly
conversant with the affairs of the House in every detail of rule or
measure, and was widely known and recognized as among the most popular
and efficient members. His knowledge, gathered from wide fields of
travel, experience, and observation, was vast; his powers thoroughly
disciplined and under the finest control; his acquaintance extensive,
and his rank high in personal and political friendships.
Schuyler Colfax, the former speaker, was vice-president now; standing
next to General Grant, the new president. Who should take his place?
This was the question that filled Mr. Blaine with high anticipations.
Granting his fitness and ability, which, perhaps, no one who knows him
at all would question, the still greater question is how to win the
prize, how to secure the position. It is purely a question of votes,
and the one thing that secures them is personal influence. It may come
of the individual’s own exertions, his power to command, the charm
of his name, the fascination of his character, the magnetism of his
person. But it is a matter of stupendous strength and of transcendent
abilities for one to lift himself so far above his fellows as to win
their suffrages in such a place as that, by his own unaided personal
attractions.
Here was the great argument, but not the active agent. There must be
some one to state the case, to manage it, to make the appeal, some one
strong friend or more, who has grit and gumption to put it through,
and see it done,--that man is Thaddeus Stevens, of his native state of
Pennsylvania. He is the one of all others to do this thing.
Of few men’s power Mr. Blaine had a loftier idea than of Mr. Thaddeus
Stevens. There was indeed a trio who attracted and held the admiration
of Mr. Blaine, and he has sketched their characters most vividly. Will
you hear him as he says:--
“The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hitherto developed
in this country, are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens.
They were all men of consummate ability, of great earnestness, of
intense personality, differing widely each from the others, and yet
with a single trait in common,--the power to command. In the give and
take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating
reluctant and refractory followers, in the skill to overcome all forms
of opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying
phases of unlooked-for assault, or unsuspected defection, it would be
difficult to rank with these a fourth name in all our congressional
history.
“But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be
impossible to find in parliamentary annals, greater power than when,
in 1841, at sixty-four years of age, he took the control of the Whig
party from the president who had received their suffrages, against the
power of Webster in the cabinet, against the eloquence of Choate in the
senate, against the herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A.
Wise in the House. In unshared leadership, in the pride and plenitude
of power, he hurled against John Tyler, with deepest scorn, the mass
of that conquering column which had swept over the land in 1840, and
drove his administration to shelter behind the lines of his political
foes.
“Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful, when, in 1854,
against the secret desires of a strong administration, against the wise
counsel of the older chiefs, against the conservative instincts and
even the moral sense of the country, he forced a reluctant congress
into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
“And now we come to Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, who, in his contests from
1865 to 1868, actually advanced his parliamentary leadership until
congress tied the hands of the president, and governed the country by
its own will, leaving only perfunctionary duties to be discharged by
the executive. With two hundred millions of patronage in his hands at
the opening of the contest, aided by the active force of Seward in the
cabinet, and the moral power of Chase on the bench, Andrew Johnson
could not command the support of one-third in either House against the
parliamentary uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens was the animating
spirit and the unquestioned leader.”
And this was the man who stood at Mr. Blaine’s right hand in this
matter of the speakership.
Mr. Blaine was on the committee of military affairs with Mr.
Stevens. He became known to him thoroughly as a man with talent for
indefatigable toil, and a genius for doing hard and difficult things
with great certainty and despatch. He was just the man to attract
the attention, and be admired, respected, and loved by a man of Mr.
Stevens’ consummate ability, and to be selected by him for promotion
and honor. And the hour had come for just that honor, the highest in
the gift of the House.
It was the third office in the nation, with a salary three thousand
dollars greater than that of United States senator, and equal to the
salary of vice-president or secretary of state. And so by virtue of
his recognized fitness, and the power of this great friend, the office
comes to him, and he comes to it.
Some think, and perhaps rightly, that his tilt with Mr. Conkling
popularized him greatly with the members of the House, who thoroughly
enjoyed it, and so prepared the way to the honor which in point of fact
was his by right of nature. But six years was a long time to wait, yet
he waited, and was rewarded. And still it was not waiting, but working,
with him, occupying the stronghold he had made for himself in the
manifold business of the House.
But now he is taken from this, and out of the arena of debate, and yet
lifted into greater prominence and power; appointing all the great
committees of the House, a task requiring the highest order of ability
in the knowledge of men; deciding all questions, and exercising a
controlling influence over legislation.
There is little power men employ in all the great work of life, but he
needs it in its rarest form. He must be a broad, a wide, a universal
man; in sympathy with all, so far as right and justice are concerned.
There are the choice, the crowned ones from every congressional
district in all the states and territories, and he is the choice, the
crowned one among them,--their chosen chief.
Tennyson’s words press for utterance right here, as we see him step
from the floor to the speaker’s chair:--
“Divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began,
And on a simple village green.
“Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blow of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star.
“Who makes by force his merit known,
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state’s decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne.
“And moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope
The pillar of a people’s hope,
The centre of a world’s desire.”
It was only by the proof of character, the most solid and reliable,
he could possibly have secured the friendship of Mr. Stevens. And not
his alone, but the friendship of Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois,
who nominated Mr. Blaine as candidate for speaker, and who, as senior
member, swore him in.
It was a proud day for Mr. Washburne, the staunch friend of General
Grant, to witness his inaugural, and then, as the true friend of Mr.
Blaine, aid so largely in putting him into the speaker’s chair the same
day.
Mr. Stevens was not there to enjoy the triumph of his friend, but his
endorsement was good as a letter of credit.
When the ballot was concluded it read:--Whole number of votes cast,
one hundred and ninety-two; necessary for a choice, ninety-seven;
Mr. Blaine received one hundred and thirty-five; Mr. Kerr received
fifty-seven.
Mr. Dawes and Mr. Kerr conducted him to the chair, when he addressed
the House as follows:--
“GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
“I thank you profoundly for the great honor which your votes have
just conferred upon me. The gratification which this signal mark
of your confidence brings to me, finds its only drawback in the
diffidence with which I assume the weighty duties devolving upon me.
Succeeding to a chair made illustrious by such eminent statesmen,
and skilled parliamentarians as Clay, and Stevenson, and Polk, and
Winthrop, and Banks, and Grow, and Colfax, I may well distrust my
ability to meet the just expectations of those who have shown me such
marked partiality. But relying, gentlemen, upon my honest purpose
to perform all my duties faithfully and fearlessly, and trusting in
a large measure to the indulgence which I am sure you will always
extend to me, I shall hope to retain, as I have secured, your
confidence, your kindly regard, and your generous support.
“The forty-first congress assembles at an auspicious period in the
history of our government. The splendid and impressive ceremonial
which we have just witnessed in another part of the capitol [Grant’s
inauguration], appropriately symbolizes the triumphs of the past,
and the hopes of the future, a great chieftain, whose sword at the
head of gallant and victorious armies, saved the Republic from
dismemberment and ruin, has been fitly called to the highest civic
honor which a grateful people can bestow. Sustained by a congress
which so ably represents the loyalty, the patriotism, and the
personal worth of the nation, the president this day inaugurated will
assure to the country an administration of purity, fidelity, and
prosperity; an era of liberty regulated by law, and of law thoroughly
inspired with liberty.
“Congratulating you, gentlemen, on the happy auguries of the day, and
invoking the gracious blessings of Almighty God on the arduous and
responsible labors before you, I am now ready to take the oath of
office, and enter upon the discharge of the duties to which you have
called me.”
It is a curious coincidence that General Schenck, of Ohio, who startled
Mr. Blaine with the charge of irrelevancy at his first utterance on the
floor, but was so utterly discomfited afterwards, is now the first one
to address him as “Mr. Speaker,” and Mr. Kerr, his competitor, soon
follows.
It was at this session that new members from reconstructed states
appeared, and many were the objections made to this new member and
that, because of disloyalty. It was to present a charge of this kind
that Mr. Schenck arose.
The noticeable feature of Mr. Blaine’s speakership is the expeditious
manner in which business is conducted, and the consequent brevity of
sessions.
It may be observed right here that Mr. Blaine’s friend, E. B.
Washburne, chose rather to go as minister to Paris, and Hamilton Fish
became secretary of state.
For two successive congresses Mr. Blaine was re-elected speaker by the
large Republican majorities serving through the reconstruction period
of the rebel states, and through most of General Grant’s two terms of
the presidency. It was during this period his reputation became truly
national.
He might have occupied the chair all the time, and taken things easy;
but this was not his nature. It was his privilege to go upon the floor,
and take up the gauntlet of debate. It was expected that things would
become lively at once when he did so. There was a resolution one day
for a committee to investigate the outrages in the South. Mr. Blaine
had written the resolution, which was presented by his colleague, and
asked for its passage; and, lest the _claquers_ should say he put only
“weak-kneed Republicans” on the committee, he made Benj. F. Butler
chairman, which in some almost unaccountable way greatly enraged Mr.
Butler, who might have then contemplated accompanying Gen. John M.
Palmer and others into the Democratic party, and so he telegraphed
to newspapers and issued a circular which appeared on the desks of
members, denouncing what he was pleased to call a trick, and used other
vigorous language on the floor of the House. Of course the speaker
could not sit quietly in the chair and be thus tempestuously assailed,
so calling a future vice-president to the chair (Wheeler), he said, “I
wish to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts whether he denies me the
right to have drawn that resolution” (it was presented in the caucus
first which had just re-nominated Mr. Blaine for speaker).
Mr. Butler replied, “I have made no assertion on that subject, one way
or other.”
Mr. Blaine: “Did not the gentleman know distinctly that I drew it?”
“No, sir!” was the reply.
“Did I not take it to the gentleman and read it to him?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Butler.
“Did I not show him the manuscript?”
“Yes, sir,” was the reply.
“And at his suggestion,” continued Mr. Blaine, “I added these words,
‘and the expenses of said committee shall be paid from the contingent
fund of the House of Representatives’ (applause), and the fact that
ways and means were wanted to pay the expenses was the only objection
he made to it.”
It appears that the resolution was considered as a test of the
Republicanism of members. General Butler had been asked to take the
chairmanship, but refused, and said he would have nothing to do with
the resolution; but Mr. Blaine put him on the committee, and when
asked why, replied, “Because I knew very well that if I omitted the
appointment of the gentleman it would be heralded throughout the
length and breadth of the country by the _claquers_, who have so
industriously distributed this letter this morning, that the speaker
had packed the committee, as the gentleman said he would, with
‘weak-kneed Republicans,’ who would not go into an investigation
vigorously, as he would. That was the reason (applause), so that
the chair laid the responsibility upon the gentleman of declining
the appointment, and now the gentleman from Massachusetts is on his
responsibility before the country,” and there we leave him.
It can but be with peculiar interest that we read the strong words of
the oath taken so repeatedly by Mr. Blaine, and administered the second
time by Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, after he had received one hundred
and twenty-six votes, to ninety-two for Gen. George W. Morgan, of Ohio.
It kept a large committee busy to pass upon the character of
members-elect and the legality of their election. Such was the broken
condition of state governments in the South, so battered by war, and
distracted by schism and contending factions. All of these perplexities
adhered to applicants for membership in congress, presenting
credentials of membership various in value as greenbacks and gold, and
these same perplexities affected the staple of congressional measures.
Congress was increasing rapidly in the number of its members, so
that while one hundred and ninety-two votes were cast at Mr. Blaine’s
first election to the speakership in 1869, there were two hundred and
sixty-nine votes cast at his election to the same office in 1873, of
which number he received one hundred and eighty-nine, and Mr. Ferdinand
Wood received seventy-six.
Mr. Blaine refers to it in his address to the “Gentlemen of the House
of Representatives,” the last time he was elected speaker. “To be
chosen,” he says, “speaker of the House of Representatives is always
an honorable distinction; to be chosen a third time enhances the honor
more than three fold; to be chosen _by the largest body that ever
assembled in the Capitol_ imposes a burden of responsibility which only
your indulgent kindness could embolden me to assume. The first occupant
of this chair presided over a House of sixty-five members, representing
a population far below the present aggregate of the state of New York.
At that time there were not, in the whole United States, fifty thousand
civilized inhabitants to be found one hundred miles distant from the
flow of the Atlantic tide. To-day, gentlemen, a large majority of you
come from beyond that limit, and represent districts peopled then only
by the Indian and the adventurous frontiersman.
“The national government is not yet as old as many of its citizens,
but in this brief span of time,--less than one lengthened life,--it
has, under God’s good providence, extended its power until a continent
is the field of its empire, and attests the majesty of its law.
“With the growth of new states and the resulting changes in the centres
of population, new interests are developed, rival to the old, but by no
means hostile; diverse, but not antagonistic. Nay, rather are all these
interests in harmony, and _the true science of just government is to
give to each its full and fair play, oppressing none by undue exaction,
favoring none by undue privilege_.
“It is this great lesson which our daily experience is teaching,
binding us together more closely, making our mutual dependence more
manifest, and causing us to feel that, whether we live in the North
or in the South, in the East or in the West, we have indeed but ‘one
country, one constitution, one destiny.’”
Few addresses so brief breathe a spirit of broader statesmanship,
or loftier ideal of civil government. Two years before this, in
1871, he had been charged by General Butler with having presidential
aspirations, and surely he was able to manifest the true conception of
a just and righteous government, “oppressing none by undue exaction,
favoring none by undue privilege,” which is apparently the exact
outcome--a sort of paraphrase of Lincoln’s words, “With malice toward
none, with charity toward all.”
Many who had participated in the Rebellion, having had their political
disabilities removed by the vote of two-thirds of each House of
congress, came forward and took the special oath provided for them by
act of July 11, 1868.
Mr. Blaine seldom, if ever, leaves the chair to participate in debate
when questions of a political nature are pending, so that he may hold
himself aloof for fair ruling in all of his decisions.
The position of speaker is, in many respects, a thankless one. When
party spirit runs high, as it does at times, like the tide of battle,
in the great debates, men are swept on by their sympathies, as
barks are tossed in ocean-storms, and under the influence of their
most powerful prejudices they are driven to rash and unwarrantable
conclusions regarding the justice of any ruling, to conjectures the
most unfair and wanton regarding motive, and as in the case of Mr.
Blaine, to the most stupendous efforts at political assassination.
But it was not until the days of his speakership were over, and the
people at home had expressed their confidence in him and their love and
admiration for him, by electing him to congress for the seventh time
consecutively, that the storm struck him. It had been gathering long.
Its animus was enmity, its bulk was hate, its dark, frowning exterior
was streaked with the lurid lightnings of a baleful jealousy; muttering
thunders like the deep growlings of exasperation were heard oft, but
feared not.
The solid South had marched its rebel brigadiers by the score into the
arena of national questioning and discussion, where for twelve years
he had stood intrepid as the founders of the Republic. No man was more
at home upon that field than he,--none more familiar with the men, the
methods, and the measures that had triumphed there,--and few have been
more victorious in the great ends for which he strove, few readier to
challenge the coming of any man, to know his rights, his mission, and
his weight. He was, of all men, the most unconquerable by those who
plead for measures subversive of any great or minor end for which the
war was fought.
He had gained the credit of the fourteenth amendment, and had been
identified with all. He was simply bent upon resistance, the most
powerful he could command, against all encroachments of the bad and
false, and to show no favor toward any feature for which rebellion
fought. Fair, honorable, just,--none could be more so.
When speaker of the House, he was informed one day that a prominent
correspondent of a leading paper, who had maligned and vilified
him shockingly, was on the floor, and at once he said, “Invite him
up here,” and he gave him a seat by his side, within the speaker’s
desk, and placed at the disposal of the man the information of public
importance at his command. The fellow was amazed, and went away and
wrote how kindly he had been treated by the great-hearted man of noble
impulses, after he had so roundly abused him.
There is nothing vindictive about him, nothing despicable. He is
severe, herculean, desperate for the right, and will win in every
battle that commands the forces of his being, if victory be achievable.
But he honors strong, square men, who have convictions and dare
proclaim them; but petty, mean, ignoble souls are first despised, then
pitied.
But the day of his betrayal came, the day of rebel wrath; and he met
the stroke before the nation’s gaze, and was vindicated before the
world.
A business correspondence, it had been said he had burned. He said,
“No, there it is, and I will read it to the House,” and he read it.
What business firm, it has been asked, would like to have their
correspondence regarding any great business interest, read to those
who are filled with all manner of suspicions, and so have it misjudged,
misinterpreted, and misapplied? And then, to show the temper of those
with whom he dealt, a cablegram from Europe vindicating him, was for
two days suppressed by the chairman of the congressional committee,
before whom he stood, and who failed to convict him by any document at
their command. The scene at that time, and their discomfiture, is thus
described by an eye-witness:--
“His management of his own case when the Mulligan letters came out
was worthy of any general who ever set a squadron in the field. For
nearly fifteen years I have looked down from the galleries of the House
and Senate, and I never saw, and never expect to see, and never have
read of such a scene, where the grandeur of human effort was better
illustrated, than when this great orator rushed down the aisle, and,
in the very face of Proctor Knott, charged him with suppressing a
telegram favorable to Blaine. The whole floor and all the galleries
were wild with excitement. Men yelled and cheered, women waved their
handkerchiefs and went off into hysterics, and the floor was little
less than a mob.”
About this time, Hon. Lot M. Morrill, of his state, was transferred
from the senate to the cabinet of President Grant, and as a partial
justification, General Connor, the governor of Maine at this time,
appointed him to represent Maine in the United States senate in place
of Mr. Morrill. The official note was as follows:--
“AUGUSTA, Maine, July 9, 1876.
“TO HON. MILTON SAYLOR, _Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Washington, D. C._:
“Having tendered to the Hon. James G. Blaine the appointment of
senator in congress, he has placed in my hands his resignation as
representative from the third district of Maine, to take effect
Monday, July 10, 1876.
“SELDON CONNOR,
“_Governor of Maine_.”
When the legislature of his state met, he came before them and placed
himself under a thorough investigation at their hands. And as Ex-Gov.
A. P. Morrill says, “They made thorough work of it.” A man to come
forth from such an ordeal unscathed, and without the smell of fire on
his garments, must be right and not wrong,--or else he is the veriest
scoundrel, guilty, deeply so, and competent for bribes, and they, the
legislature of Maine, who virtually tried him, hopelessly corrupt. But,
no! this cannot be; and so he was vindicated, and triumphantly elected
by them to the highest trust within their gift, to wear the honors of a
Morrill and a Fessenden.
And yet again do they elect him for a full term of years. And then the
royal Garfield, the nation’s loved and honored president, knowing all,
and knowing him most intimately for seventeen years or more, takes him
into his cabinet, trustingly, and for the nation’s good.
Can victory be grander, or triumph more complete, endorsement more
honorable, or vindication more just, or a verdict be more patient,
thorough, or exhaustive of evidence! What man in all the land, traduced
and vilified just as Washington, Lincoln, and Garfield were, wears
prouder badges of endorsement from congress, governor, legislature,
senate, and conventions by the score! What man that bears credentials
of his character as trophies of higher worth, from judges of sounder
mind, and lives more unimpeachable? Answer, ye who can!
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