This is a grand year--a year filled with recollections of the
Revolution; filled with the proud and tender memories of the past; with
the sacred legends of liberty; a year in which the sons of freedom will
drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call
for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon
the field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the
throat of treason the tongue of slander--for the man who has snatched
the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for this man
who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and
challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat. Like
an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the
halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and
fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the
maligners of her honor. For the Republican party to desert this gallant
leader now is as though an army should desert their General upon the
field of battle. James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the
bearer of the sacred standard of the Republican party.