GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs. C. Stephenson 
 
 

 
TIEIIE 
 
 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES G. BLAINE 
 
 WITH INCIDENTS, ANECDOTES, AND ROMANTIC EVENTS 
 CONNECTED WITH HIS EARLY LIFE ; 
 
 CONTAINING ALSO HIS SPEECHES AN?5 IMPORTANT HISTORICAL 
 DOCUMENTS RELATING TO HIS LATER YEARS. 
 
 "Dare to do right, and trust the consequences to Infinite Wisdom." 
 
 J. G. ELAINE, 1855. 
 
 BY 
 
 RUSSELL H. CONWELL, 
 M 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LIFE OF PRESIDENT HAYES," -LIFE OF PRESIDENT GAUFIELD," "How 
 
 AND WHY THE CHINESE EMIGRATE," "HISTORY OF THK GREAT FIRE IN BOSTON," 
 
 "HISTORY OF THE GREAT FIRE IN ST. JOHN," "BIOGRAPHY OF GIANOVELLO 
 
 THE WALDENSIAN HERO," "LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR," &c., &c., &c. 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 His Excellency, Frederick Bobie, Governor of Maine. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED, 
 
 AUGUSTA, MAINE : 
 E. C. ALLEN & CO. 
 

 
 COPYRIGHT, 1884. 
 
 E. C. ALLEN & CO. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 TO THE YOUNG MEN OF OUR GREAT NATION, 
 WHO NOW PRESS FORWARD WITH SUCH BOLDNESS AND VIGOR 
 
 INTO THE VACANCIES WHICH EVERY YEAR NOW 
 MAKES IN THE RANKS OF THOSE NOBLE MEN WHO 
 
 STOOD SO TRUE AND FIRM THROUGH THE 
 
 MOMENTOUS EVENTS OF THE GENERATION PASSING AWAY, 
 
 I REVERENTLY DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. 
 
 B. H. C, 
 
 ^\BRA 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 The child of 1884 has one hundred years the advantage 
 of the child of 1784. If he choose to avail himself of the 
 experience of those who have lived before him, he can catch 
 at a glance, and secure in a moment, important discoveries 
 and conclusions which cost his ancestors a lifetime to solve 
 or acquire. 
 
 Biography is the storehouse of experience. Its chief 
 value is in the helpful information it gives, making the 
 reader stronger, better, wiser, happier, and richer. Hence 
 it is a great satisfaction to an author, who really desires to 
 be of some assistance to his readers, to find a character 
 whose experience contains those helpful qualities in an un 
 usual degree. 
 
 The writer has here found such a life. 
 
 The young will profit by its examples of heroism, self- 
 sacrifice, and perseverance ; those in middle life will be en 
 couraged and inspired by its record of well-earned success, 
 after years of toil ; and the old will find in it comfort and 
 entertainment, as it accounts for their failure or explains 
 their success. 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 
 
 The thanks of the author are due to many kind friends 
 who have assisted him in collecting the facts for this 
 volume. Among them he remembers with especial grati 
 tude : Rev. James I. Brownson, D.D., of Washington, 
 Pa. ; J. A. Whitcomb, Esq., of Washington, D.C. ; Mr. 
 Howard Owen, of Augusta, Me. ; Mr. Joseph H. Manley, 
 Postmaster at Augusta, Me. ; Mr. Walker Elaine, of 
 Washington, D.C. ; Mr. W. H. Wertz, of Greenburg, 
 Pa. ; Mrs. Krepps, of Brownsville, Pa. ; Mr. Josiah S. 
 Hobbs, State Librarian, of Augusta, Me. 
 
DARE TO DO RIGHT, 
 
 AND 
 
 TRUST THE CONSEQUENCES 
 
 TO 
 
 INFINITE WISDOM, 
 
 J. G. ELAINE. 
 
OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 STATE OF MAINE, 
 EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 AUGUSTA, MAINE, July 1st, 1884. 
 
 COLONEL CONWELL ; Dear Sir : The faithful and con 
 cise biography of our distinguished statesman, Hon. James 
 G. Blaine, which you have so carefully compiled, merits 
 universal commendation and meets my hearty endorsement. 
 It will aid in a right understanding of the character and 
 official acts of one of our most illustrious men. It is by the 
 masses that the biographies of our great men are read, the 
 history of our country studied, and the destiny of the Na 
 tion intelligently considered and determined. The State of 
 Maine, more than any other Northern State, is blessed with 
 a large native population. Her sixty-four thousand rural 
 
1- IMKUI I . HON. 
 
 
 
 h"! -upied L enerally by families of early New Eng 
 
 land origin, tin- hereditary ivpre-entative> of colonial and 
 time-. The State of Maine, and the one hun 
 dred and eidity-Hx thousand of her sons and daughters 
 1 throughout the several States of this great Union, 
 Militant ially in hearty approval of the action of the 
 recent Republican National Convention in honoring our 
 by the choice of a beloved citizen as candidate for 
 idem of this LM-rat Nation. 
 
 11 my -ood fort line to he associated with Mr. Blaine, 
 in ih.- Legislature of Maine, during three of the most im 
 portant yrars in the history of our State, commencing in 
 th.- year 1859, ud I l>ear witness to the integrity, ^reat 
 tid-lity, and connuan.lin- influence which accompanied all 
 ! i* ftloris. Ilr ran.,- into public life at a time when the 
 111 " tl - of our State required a search- 
 
 rigation, and 1,,. was made chairman of a respon- 
 f irhich I was a member. This com- 
 mill.-.. >at durini: a recess of the Legislature. I recall 
 ^ " BMSterij maooer in which h,- handled the delicate 
 -"""Itohi.n. hi,s,,,,vhin- and uDoomroimab 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 efforts to save the credit of the State. The able report pre 
 pared by him which laid open and explained an unfortunate 
 misdirection of public confidence, was at once adopted ; the 
 credit of the State was saved by his labor and by the action 
 of the committee, and the integrity of the Republican party 
 upheld. I call to mind his efforts to develop the great rail 
 road interests of the State, then in their infancy but since 
 developed in consequence of methods which he advocated. 
 I recall his recommendation for State Prison reform, which 
 created a new departure in our State and resulted in an im 
 proved method of prison-work and discipline. I cannot for 
 want of space recapitulate the numerous and well-executed 
 plans for the prosperity of our State and Nation which he 
 advocated with the fervor of his youthful eloquence ; but he 
 thus early laid in our State the foundation of that respect 
 and regard to which his untiring services for education, 
 temperance, law and order, and the development of the nat 
 ural resources of the State, entitle him. 
 
 I have been associated with him for many years as a 
 member of the Republican State Committee, and he has 
 never been excelled by any one for executive ability, untir- 
 
1 1 i\n:.i>n HOW. 
 
 vd .1, Notion to the principles of the party 
 and tin- suj-rcmacy of it- power. 
 
 Tin- K- publican partv in our State, as a unit, has rejoiced 
 at hi- -uh> pu-iit elevation from time to time to a broader 
 and more elevated puhlic sen-ice, where he has been given 
 an opportunity to exert a powerful influence for good, which 
 has been and will continue to be felt and recognized through 
 out tin* ci\ ili/.fd world. 
 
 are some of the many causes which have con 
 tributed to create and increase the warm feeling of attach- 
 in- v State pridi- of this people for our distinguished 
 citi />:!. which has grown into a profound veneration among 
 tin Republican masses. His character for purity and truth- 
 fulnr.-vs stands unimpoached at home. 
 
 W.- wait for tli> final verdict of the people of this Nation, 
 
 whose pot.-nt roiee wa- li.-ard at the nominating Convention 
 
 : -publican party at Chicago, and by the same decree, 
 
 under tin- din <-tj,,n ot a Supreme power, we confidently ex- 
 
 vii iis victory. 
 
 t fully yours, 
 
 FliKDKKK K liOBIE. 
 
OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF WASHINGTON COUNTY. THE VIEWS FROM 
 "KREPPS S KNOB." THE BEAUTY OF THE LANDSCAPE. 
 MONONGAHELA RlVER. THE VILLAGE OF WEST BROWNS 
 VILLE. DESCRIPTION OF BRIDGEPORT AND BROWNSVILLE. 
 THE MEDIEVAL APPEARANCE. THE OLD DWELLINGS. THE 
 OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH. ROMANTIC IMPRESSIONS MADE BY 
 THE ANCIENT STRUCTURE. THE CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE. 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HISTORIC EVENTS IN WASHINGTON COUNTY. THE EARLY 
 TRADERS. WAR BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 
 GENERAL WASHINGTON ON THE MONONGAHELA. BATTLES OF 
 THE REVOLUTION. INDIAN WARS. THE WHISKY INSURREC 
 TION. WAR OF 1812. WAR WITH MEXICO. --GROWTH OF 
 THE COUNTRY. _.._.. - - 31 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BLAINE FAMILY. WARRIORS IN SCOTLAND. COMMISSARY 
 GENERAL UNDER WASHINGTON IMPORTANT POST. EPIIUAIM 
 
1C, COM! NTS 
 
 BLAIVB. JAMBfl BLAWB, KI-IIKUM I- BI..MNK. EMIGRA- 
 
 , us-% mi. Tin. QnXMPIl FAMILY.- Ni \L 
 
 , vi 1,11 i i SPII . .h: M \KIA Cu.i i -TIE. MAR- 
 
 l;lA .i. "1 M VKIA AM. Fl IIK \IM L Till IK 11<>M1.. - 37 
 
 ( HAiTKR IV. 
 -< mi I ln.oi.. His BIRTH AT WEST BROWNSVILLE. His 
 
 9KR, HIS MOTHBB. IIl-I lxK His CHILDISH SlIKM\ 1- 
 
 [ii . \IU.M..\NVI. \i mi CATHOUO CHURCH. THE 
 mi. UATHOI.H PRIES1 TO His FATHER. His 
 45 
 
 CHA1T1-R V. 
 
 LLVOI I.!i \T LITTLE WASHINGTON. 
 
 MB a V.H-MI. Hi- Si \ M.I \.. . TREATMENT BY COLLEGE 
 
 Mv, Ol II:- < I LSI I.M M.U >MIOM HIM AT THE 
 
 < IN. :\MV Hi- L \ M. NT TALENT. GRADUA- 
 
 H..N IN : lli- OWN SUPPORT. 
 
 56 
 
 CII.MTKII VI. 
 
 Ill- : I>|- \MI.- DBCIDBfl I I<> KENTUCKY. TlIE 
 
 INMMI II.- I oll I.VHITY WITH THE BOYS. 
 
 MK.KI - M i-- Si \\\- D. M - TO Pirn. MM i- 
 
 CHBR Ol i III. Ul.lM>. III MOTKfl TO 
 
 r 1864. 66 
 
 vn. 
 
 Hi- I .i iToKivL CAREER. 
 
 Hi- 01 KN M ..- 
 
 IKO TH in \ i ION (,i M::. Ki.rrn- 
 
 i \\ i i;_i. -\\ i-i BATH 
 
 - =~ m -72 
 
CONTENTS. 17 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SALE OP THE KENNEBEC JOURNAL. THE PORTLAND ADVERTISER. 
 His NEIGHBOR S STORY OF HIS FIRST CANDIDACY. His 
 FIRST SPEECHES. DEFENDS AUGUSTA. DOMESTIC NATURE. 
 -His MANNER OF CONVERSATION. His GENEROUS DONA 
 TIONS. JOINS THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. MISSION 
 
 WORK AMONG THE LOWLY. TllE OLD STANWOOD Ho.M IN 
 STEAD. SAVING THE FALLING. HABITS AS AN EDITOR. 
 DEALINGS WITH HIS ENEMIES. WORKMAN S STORY. - 84 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BEGINNING OF POLITIC \ T ,T.TT^ TT TC "FTKRT 
 
 SPEECH. ELECTION TO THE LEGISLATURE. His GREAT DIF- 
 
 riDKxrK. COMPELLED TO SPEAK. DEVELOPMENT OK Gi:.\ir;s. 
 His jG_REAT_ SPEECH ox CO.VPISCATION i.v 12^2- OPENING 
 FAME IT A J^TIrioNAL MAN. - - - ST2 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ELECTION TO CONGRESS. THE CONDITION OF THE NATION. 
 ELAINE S COLLEAGUES. COMMITTEE WORK. STUDIES TO BE 
 
 QUIET, AND TO DO HIS OWN BUSINESS. TlIE MEASURES HE 
 
 ADVOCATED. VIEWS ON PROTECTION. ON NEGRO SOLDIERS. 
 DEBATES. RETURN OF SLAVES. .... 133 
 
 CHAPTER. XI. 
 
 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. ELAINE S RENOMINATION. His 
 LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. His POSITION IN THE HOUSE OF 
 REPRESENTATIVES. His INFLUENCE THROUGH THE COUNTRY. 
 ADVOCATES PAYING THE WAR DEBTS OF THE STATES. 
 SPEECHES ON CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. THE GOLD 
 BILL. BASIS OF REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS. BUYING 
 SHIPS ABROAD. 146 
 
18 CONTENTS. 
 
 CIIA1TKR XII. 
 
 BLAIM - Hi NOMINATION FOR CONGRESS. POPULARITY WITH BOTH 
 RAM-IB*. Hi- JKKAT WORK IN THE 40rn CONGRESS. 
 
 1 I , , MI, gpl VKI K OF TIIK HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 Mi si I,,M i. i ..: V< VM>IDATE FOR PRESIDENT. His SPEECH 
 n Gk>LD I .M.L. WRITER FOR MAGAZINES. His VIEWS 
 
 QJ \ i , VOB. **!. * - I 95 
 
 CHAFFER XIII. 
 BLAINI .\..\iv IN m- Si \ i His ACKNOWLEDGED LEADERSHIP. 
 
 I .I im*l Si I I 1! "\ IKKI KKEMABLE CURRENCY. HlS CEL- 
 !l ,i:vlll> iMr. vi! \\ir\\ lIlLL OF GEORGIA. BLAINE AND 
 ( , \KI II I l>. I 1 ,; \IM . s Sll I i II ON JEFF DAVIS. DEMOCRATIC 
 
 11 \ i . MI. Pi.i:-iiN \i A i r u KS. SCHEMES TO PREVENT 
 
 \.IMIN\M-.N M ( IN. INN \i i .A. i USED OF SPECULATING 
 
 is Ik \Il.i:> \l> 1>< M ^.-- 1 HI. l v HIT AND THE ARKANSAS AND 
 l.lllii ]{... K KAII.K... \H. lil. AINE 8 DEFEAT OF HIS AC- 
 
 ... - - = s = = 237 
 
 CIIA1TKK XIV. 
 im Covrnmoi 01 i s 7t;. ACTIVITY OF ELAINE S 
 
 - II- i. iM-.i:- -.1 I .l.ir.l \:\ . BLAINE MEETS TlIEM IN 
 
 <n-iv BBMK>V.- in \IMS.. im Mi i I.I;AN LETTERS. MEET- 
 IN-, "i im IN..I I:-LL*S SPEECH. THE 
 I M MI i. KlTlOHT."- Tin: V>iK. BLAINE S LETTER TO 
 II \M-. im < \MI-\I. .N. Ui. VINE S APPOINTMENT TO THE 
 11 Hi- Ki. i.riniN HY THE PEOPLE. RE-ELECTION TO 
 
 III!. MN vil.. - - - - - - - 307 
 
 UIAITKK XV. 
 
 mi KN \\ vi: ( i VIMS. THE CELEBRATED NEAL 
 l*"^ CAIB. 1VK81 i .Mn.K v 1 1<>\. r,i MNK S ANSWER TO 
 \VIMIVM LLOTD OAKBISOH. I m SH\M: (ji I:STION. HE- 
 
 M"M I !/ . .! | | I 1 I VV1S. t*NI- 
 
 iii n \i i HI i "i i -. A Sii VKP DI 
 
 MM - - - - - ... . _< : 
 
CONTENTS. 19 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FOUR YEARS 1876 TO 1880. THE POPULAR DESIRE FOR ELAINE. 
 THE APPROACH OF THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1880. 
 THE CANDIDACY OF GENERAL GRANT. SENATOR CONK- 
 LING S ADVOCACY OF GRANT. THE CONVENTION SPEECH IN 
 FAVOR OF THE NOMINATION OF ELAINE. ENTHUSIASM. THE 
 LONG CONTEST. NOMINATION OF BLAIMO S NEXT FRIEND. 
 SUPPORTS GARFIELD S NOMINATION. .... 341 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 GARFIELD OFFERS THE PORTFOLIO OF SECRETARY OF STATE TO 
 ELAINE. ELAINE S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. THE POLICY 
 OF THE NEW ADMINISTRATION. ELAINE S LETTER DEFINING 
 IT. THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. MISUNDERSTANDING WITH 
 CHILI. THE PEACE CONGRESS. BRIGHT HOPES FOR THE 
 FUTURE. MISUNDERSTANDING WITH CONKLING. - 344 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF GARFIELD. THE PRESIDENT AND ELAINE 
 RIDE TO STATION. ELAINE SEES THE ASSASSIN. TRIES Too 
 LATE TO STOP THE SECOND SHOT. ASSUMES THE CARE OF 
 STATE. VIGILS AT PRESIDENT S BEDSIDE. THE PRESIDENT S 
 DEATH. PREPARATIONS FOR THE FUNERAL. ELAINE S GREAJT. 
 FUNERAL ORATION. .... ?*-=- 367 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ELAINE SELECTED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO DELIVER THE MEMO 
 RIAL ORATION AT PRESIDENT GARFIELD S FUNERAL. THE 
 PLACE. Hjs MANNER. His ESTIMATE OF GARFIELD S CHAR 
 ACTER. GARFIELD S EARLY LIFE. GARFIELD S MILITARY EX 
 PERIENCE. LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. CAREER AS PRESI 
 DENT. His DEATH. 371 
 
20 COM 
 
 ( IIA1TKR XX. 
 BLAI - ni Si M IN mi f \I:IM.T. BLAINE S LITERARY 
 
 W.I:K. 1 u i s M Vi M;-. IN ( ..\<.i:i >-. Ki -n>i \< i IN \V \-n- 
 
 WOTOir. THI CKLJ M; \ 1 1 i- < MI-XT OUT" IN MAINE. THE 
 
 Cm INII..N <.K 1884. THE ENTHUSIASM AT THE 
 
 Ifxmriov "i Hi MM.. - I m. l i. \IIORM. JUDGE WEST S 
 
 h \ INL l ,i. .MM. IN N "Mi NATION. EXCITING SCENES. 
 
 i l>I..\INE"N55rnJTTED ON THE FOURTH 
 
 BALU.T. - - -> = = -^ . . 397 
 
 ( IIAITI.R XXI. 
 
 BLAIM: AT H..MI: I^K r.ivixc. THE NEWS 
 
 Hi- lli-i: ix AIGUSTA. His MOTHER S DEATH. His 
 
 ; N - I^I:-I.N vi. Di >.. Kii iKjjj. MRS. BLAINE. His 
 ( " ii\ix. mi. (\IIKORXIA DELEGATION. (M- 
 
 i i. i vi. .\oiii i, AIK..N 01 in- N..MINATION. - - 424 
 
 ( IIATTKR I. 
 
 LOGAN- - PAmnrc. Hn EARLT YI-M:-.-THE FARM.-THE OLD 
 
 >I-HABIT m l i .. . , IVKITIKS. THE SQUIR- 
 K1 lUnOHTI 01 Mil OoLDl N C 11;i ,,...(,,,, i( ,, j ,, ,. _ 
 
 x 1! " UNITED STATES ARMT.THI WAX w m , 
 
 - . . _ 
 
CONTENTS. 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SELECTS THE LAW FOR A PROFESSION. His FIRST PUBLIC OFFICE. 
 RESIGNATION. STUDY OF LAW. LOUISVILLE UNIVERSITY. 
 His PRACTICE. PERSONAL COURAGE. ELECTED TO THE 
 STATE LEGISLATURE. DISTRICT ATTORNEY. His LEGAL 
 ABILITY. MARRIAGE WITH Miss CUNNINGHAM. RE-ELEC 
 TION TO LEGISLATURE. THE "BLACK EAGLE." - - 453 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ELECTED TO CONGRESS. A DELEGATE TO THE CHARLESTON 
 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OF 1860. VIEWS OF SLAVERY. 
 TRYING TO STEM THE TIDE OF SECESSION. His OWN AC 
 COUNT OF HIS ACTION. HASTY RETURN TO ILLINOIS. THE 
 SECESSION SENTIMENT ABOUT HIS HOME. His SPEECHES. 
 His PERSONAL INFLUENCE. RAISING TROOPS. COLONEL OF 
 THE 31sT ILLINOIS. DEPARTURE FOR THE FIELD. - 459 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LOGAN S FIRST CHARGE WITH HIS REgiMENT. HORSE SHOT UN 
 DER HIM. FORT HENRY. FORT DONELSON. DANGEROUSLY 
 WOUNDED. A BRIGADIER -GENERAL. NEW COMMAND. 
 BEFORE CORINTH. IN COMMAND AT JACKSON. His CELE 
 BRATED REPLY TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. No POLITICS, BUT 
 LOVE FOR THE UNION. THE NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI CAM 
 PAIGN. FEATS OF LOGAN AND HIS MEN. THE BATTLE OF 
 JACKSON AND CHAMPION S HILL. 463 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SIEGE OF VICKSBURG. LOGAN S DIVISION BEFORE FORT HILL. 
 THREE BLOODY ASSAULTS. THE EXPLOSION. LOGAN S DI 
 VISION THE FIRST TO ENTER THE TOWN. LOGAN MADE MILI 
 TARY GOVERNOR. A GOLD MEDAL. GENERAL LOGAN AS AN 
 ORATOR. PLACED IN COMMAND OF THE FIFTEENTH CORPS. 
 THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. BATTLES OF RESECA, DALLAS, 
 AND KENESAW MOUNTAIN. ENTERS MARIETTA. - - 469 
 
JL CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Tin. Si i 01 Of ATLANTA. THE BATTLE OF JONESVILLE. EVACD- 
 
 MI..N 01 .\ll\MA.-KlIlKN TO SPEAK IN PRESIDENTIAL 
 
 ( VMI \i v KMI.-KS TO SUPERSEDE GENERAL THOMAS. 
 
 JOINS HIS CORPS FOR THE CAROLINA CAMPAIGN. SURRENDER 
 
 OF LEE. FAREWELL ADDRESS TO HIS TROOPS. - - 476 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 APPOIMMI \r \s MINISTER TO MEXICO. ELECTED TO CONGRESS. 
 ONI Ol mi IMPEACHMENT PROSECUTORS. PROMOTED TO 
 mi I NI i ] \, Si \ 1 1 - Si NATE. ORIGINATED THE OBSERVANCE 
 01 DBCOKATIOV DAY. COMMANDER OF THE GRAND ARMY. 
 PROMINI NI ( \NMI.ATEFOR THE PRESIDENCY. THE SPEECH 
 i SINVI..U ( i LLOM. GENERAL LOGAN S NOMINATION FOR 
 
 Vl< I. 1 Kl MI.K.NT. - - - - 490 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. Steel. 
 
 FRONTISPIECE. 
 PORTRAIT OF GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN. Steel. 
 
 OPPOSITE TITLE PAGE, BIOGRAPHY OF GENERAL LOGAN. 
 
 PAGE. 
 BIRTHPLACE OF JAMES G. ELAINE 43 
 
 VILLAGE AND CHURCH, BROWNSVILLE, PA 49 
 
 STATE HOUSE, AUGUSTA, MAINE . . 59 
 
 KENNEBEC JOURNAL OFFICE. AUGUSTA, MAINE , 75 
 
 CAPITOL BUILDING. WASHINGTON 193 
 
 RESIDENCE OF HON. JAMES G. BLAINE, WASHINGTON, D. C. ..281 
 
 -RESIDENCE OF HON. JAMES G. ELAINE, AUGUSTA, ME 305 
 
 WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D. C 360 
 
 ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD 365 
 
 DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD 369 
 
 PRESIDENT GARFIELD LYING IN STATE 395 
 
 THE CHICAGO CONVENTION ; SCENE AFTER THE NOMINATION 
 
 OF HON. JAMES G. ELAINE FOR PRESIDENT 421 
 
 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE AT HOME UNDER THE APPLE-TREES .425 
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE PACIFIC COAST DELEGATION AT AUGUSTA 431 
 
 OCCASION OF THE VISIT OF THE PACIFIC COAST DELEGATION... 435 
 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE RECEIVING OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION 
 
 OF His NOMINATION 441 
 
LIFE AND PUBLIC SEEVICES 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES G. BLAINE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Description of Washington County. The Views from "Krepps s 
 Knob." The Beauty of the Landscape. Monongahela River. 
 The Village of West Brownsville. Description of Bridge 
 port and Brownsville. The Medieval Appearance. The Old 
 Dwellings. The old Catholic Church. Romantic Impressions 
 made by the Ancient Structure. The Customs of the People. 
 
 Washington County, Pennsylvania, in which the Elaine 
 and Gillespie estates were situated, is at the extreme 
 western part of the State, and near the Southern line, 
 being bounded on the West by the State of West Virginia, 
 on the ^orth by Beaver County, on the East by Allegheny, 
 Westmoreland and Fayette Counties, and on the South by 
 Green County, the latter being the Southwest county of 
 Pennsylvania. The boundary line between Washington 
 County, and Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties, runs 
 along the bed of the Monongahela River, which flows 
 deeply and strongly northward to its union with the Alleg 
 heny River, at Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 The county landscape is one of the most varied and beau 
 tiful to be found in the whole courtly. Hills, that rise to 
 
mi i ii I \M. rrr.i.H sr.i; VICES 
 
 tin- dignity of mountains, picturesque valleys, through 
 which glide or flow bright tributaries to the Monongahela 
 ..r Allegheny Kivers, together with tlie most picturesque 
 combinations of cultivated and wild lands, give a charming 
 varietv and a satisfying stability, which pleases the eye and 
 >n\ ..t the artist lover of natural scenery. 
 
 The celehrated Krepps s Knob, which rises like a monu 
 mental structure from the narrow valley at West Browns 
 ville, and looks down with such dignity on river, field and 
 \\ood!a:id, i- noted far beyond the boundaries of the State, 
 tor the marvelous expanse and beauty of its views. Stand 
 ing <>n its crown of greensward, the spectator looks down 
 upon the majestic river, sleeping in the sunshine, and 
 suing with a beauty which makes a description seem 
 overdrawn to any who have not stood upon that favored 
 The writer has not been so charmed with any scene of 
 many lands, unless it be the Righi of the Alps and the Mis- 
 .-ii marie.- KYtrcut, at the head of the Ganges. Away into 
 Ohio, and Wot Virginia, the checkered green plains, and 
 the .-haded windings of the streams, are seen, losing them- 
 Mhrefl i n the haze of the far-off horizon. The nearer scene 
 i- exceedingly Knglish in its squares of grass land and forest, 
 and it- Milt-division marked by green hedges, and cozy, 
 .-haded hamlets and farmhouses. Along the Monongahela, 
 both North and South, the hills and bluffs, like parallel, 
 broken \\alN. roughly thrown up by some old Titanic gods, 
 guard the ri\er on both sides, and hold it to its ancient bed. 
 1 i.puli.ii- towns can be traced in the distant scene, by the 
 .-liiinmer of 1, right roofs and spires, and clumps of trees, while 
 at hand the sister towns of Brownsville and Bridge- 
 lie below, on the opposite bank of the Monongahela, so 
 clearly defined that the streets, yards, gardens, stores, 
 churehes, and people can be observed and studied with an 
 amu-ing di-tinctiu--.- and detail. The packets, gracefully 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 27 
 
 steaming by, the small boats, with flashing oars, the passing 
 trains along the bank, the smoke clouds at the river locks, 
 where steamers await a passage, the waving grain, the dark, 
 green woods, the endless variety of valley, glen, bluff, 
 mountains, streams, with the mighty barrier of the Alleg- 
 heneys darkening the horizon of the East, nearly thirty 
 miles away, creates such an impression on the most unpoet- 
 ical and practical minds, that a spoken word has often 
 aroused them with a start, as if lost in an unexplainable, 
 waking dream. These words are written, well knowing 
 that the critic, who never stood there, will say they are 
 overdrawn pictures, but also knowing that none who visit 
 that "crown of the Monongahela" will ever come to such 
 an unjust conclusion. 
 
 Washington County is one of the most fertile in soil, and 
 one of the wealthiest in wool, in the country, and is most 
 carefully and completely cultivated. Its farms are large and 
 well kept, with more of that Eastern taste and care displayed 
 in buildings and gardens than is usual with Western coun 
 ties. This is doubtless owing to the superior productive 
 ness and the consequent wealth of the farmers. The finest 
 breeds of sheep, horses, and cattle are seen in the fields, the 
 roads and turnpikes are well kept, and an impression of the 
 ease and prosperity is felt by the traveler who visits any of 
 its townships. 
 
 The village of West Brownsville stands along a narrow 
 strip of the valley, but a few hundred feet in width, between 
 the Monongahela River and the side of the foothills which 
 form the base of Krepps s Knob. It consists of a few 
 unpretentious dwellings built of wood, with here and there 
 a structure of brick. But the narrow space is so cut up by 
 ravines for the numerous brooklets, and the railroad em 
 bankments, that the village is most irregularly constructed 
 and most inconveniently situated. Yet the appearance of 
 
IIH. Ill I. \M riHLIC SERVICES 
 
 many of tin* IIOIIM-S indicate that they are the homes of in- 
 du>triou>. and often of culthated families, lint the prin 
 cipal mercantile center is on the oppo.-ite bank and bluff s 
 tit tin- rher, in the large and flourishing double town of 
 Brownsxillr and Bridie-port. These towns, although sepa 
 rated only by the river from West Brownsville, and closely 
 connected with it by a bridge, are in Fayette County. For 
 all practical purposes the three towns are one city, and a 
 universal acquaintance and business relationship exists 
 amoni: tin- pt-uj.li- of the three towns, the same as if they 
 were all included under one name and in one municipality. 
 Hence, to obtain a clear idea of the scenes surrounding the 
 suhjert of this biography in hi.- childhood days, the descrip 
 tion of Hrou n-\ illc i> as necessary as that of Washington 
 County. 
 
 Ilrou ;i>\ ille ha- siot liccn disturbed by a railroad and its 
 innovations until within three years. It looks like some 
 !e\al Khineland town brought across the Atlantic and 
 .own in the interior of the American continent. The 
 frequenter of Kuropean castle villages will scarcely overcome 
 the all-pen adiiiL r impiv.-.-ion ihat he is in some ancient vas- 
 .-al town, the -Meets of which must wind up to some ruined 
 and romantic ca>tle. Tin- river at Brownsville would be 
 taken in a picture to be the Rhine at Bingen, while a photo 
 graph of Mj.rket Si net would deceive almost any one if 
 looking for a pirjmv of the .-tr--t leadinir up to the Ileidle- 
 ber_: ( a-ile. It aNo reminds one of Sterling in Scotland, 
 and the view downward from the bluffs, or from the old 
 Catholic churchyard, SU^M-M> the thoughts of some hilUide 
 town in Italy. Tin- dclu-ion is wonderfully preserved in the 
 details of the xviie. The Rhinclike color of the river; the 
 bluffs and hills which enclose it ; the little old houses 
 which were built cl..>e to the stivrts and after the European 
 manner, and the architecture of which was directly copied 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 29 
 
 from the builder s old homes either in Scotland or Ireland ; 
 there are the old worn and broken flagstones for a side 
 walk ; the cobble-stone pavement in the winding street. 
 The moss-covered walls, the European costumes, as if the 
 peasantry and gentry of England had made the town their 
 especial resort ; the horseback riding, the mules, the carts, 
 the round hay stacks in the rear fields, the spires of the 
 churches, the Irish brogue and the broken German, all arfe 
 suggestive and in keeping. But the town is made most 
 convincingly European by the embattled towers of the Bow 
 man mansion, which like a castle of the Middle Ages stands 
 overtopping the trees on the highest bluff in the town. 
 
 To this is added the antique, stone church, near by on 
 another eminence, which has been so wrought upon by the 
 storm and sunshine of the century that it looks as if it had 
 battled with the elements for five hundred years. The stones 
 are blackened with age, the cement crumbles out of the 
 joints, the ivy creeps along its worn sides, the woodwork is 
 worm-eaten and brown. The buttresses, gothic windows and 
 doors, the flowing tracery of the church, and the graves in the 
 yard about the doors, which so powerfully suggest the aisles, 
 cloisters, and arches of castle chapels in the old country 
 make the beholder turn about to be sure he is in America. 
 The inside of this romantic old church is as quaint and an 
 tique as its exterior. The floor of stone flags disjointed 
 and worn with the tread of many feet, the rude wood benches, 
 the arches in the roof, the old altar and discolored round pul 
 pit or rostrum at one side, the sacred receptacle for holy 
 water at the door, and the indescribable antique effect of the 
 old building as a whole, completes the charming scene and 
 leaves the visitor to wander among the tombs and decipher 
 the rude letters on the worn black headstones with a be 
 wilderment strangely illusive, and indescribable. If the 
 reader has no especial interest in the story of a statesman s 
 
TIM. I. Ill: AND IM HLIC SKK VICES 
 
 lif f, and has n belief in the theory that such scenes effect 
 human character, he should visit Brownsville ibr the ro 
 mantic scenes and delightful experiences which the place it 
 self can furnish, aside from its connection with history or 
 bi":rraphy. The town is wealthy, and contains a large 
 daas of mt cultivated people, but simplicity in dress, in 
 dwellings, in manners, with an oldtime gentility, are 
 characteristic of the Brownsville population. The styles of 
 MI y ago, when the town was founded, cling with gr. at 
 pertinacity to everything made or done in these days. The 
 (Quaker inclination to keep the old in fashion, and the sweet 
 di>po.-ition which is somehow associated with a Quaker 
 bonnet, seem also to be equally natural to the natives of 
 thi> wonderfully interesting and picturesque old town. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 31 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Historic Events in "Washington County. The Early Traders, 
 War Between the French and English. General Washington 
 on the Monongahela. Battles of the Revolution. Indian 
 Wars. The Whiskey Insurrection. War of 1812. War 
 with Mexico. Growth of the Country. 
 
 The history of Washington County contains some excit 
 ing events, and is intimately connected with the history of 
 the nation. For the early pioneers who traded and fought 
 with the Indians in the expeditions, explorations and wars 
 when the English and French fought so persistently and 
 cruelly for the possession of the Monongahela and Ohio 
 Valleys, were worthy ancestors of the heroic sons who 
 fought with Washington at Valley Forge, with Jackson at 
 New Orleans, Scott at Mexico, and Logan at Peach Tree 
 Creek. 
 
 The region now included in Washington and the adja 
 cent counties was occupied by the Delaware and Shawancse 
 Indians when in 1670 the first white men penetrated to the 
 banks of the Monongahela. But it was nearly a hundred 
 years after LaSalle visited the valley on his voyage of dis 
 covery for the French government before any serious at 
 tempt was made to occupy the territory. Then it was at 
 tempted simply to hold the title to the country, which was 
 excitedly disputed between the French and English. An 
 army was sent by France, in 1753, to take possession of the 
 country about the head waters of the Ohio. It came 
 across the country from Lake Erie and began to erect forts 
 
32 TIIK i UK \M> rrr.i.ic SKKVICES 
 
 aloni: the Oliio and some of its tributaries. Then the 
 I JMi government intruded Governor Dinwiddie of Vir 
 ginia to tit out an expedition to meet and disperse the 
 h invaders. The Governor set himself about the task 
 and >ent a messenger into the disputed country to command 
 the French to e\acuate the forts they had constructed. That 
 messenger was George Washington. 
 
 IIi> commission read as follows: 
 
 Whereas, I have received information of a body of 
 French force-* being as.-embled in a hostile manner on the 
 river Oliio, intending by force of arms to erect certain forts, 
 on -aid river, within this territory, and contrary to the dig 
 nity and peace of our sovereign, the King of Great Britian ; 
 tin --C an- therefore to require and direct you, the said 
 
 _TC Washington, forthwith to repair to Logstown, on 
 the said riyer, Ohio, and, having there informed yourself 
 where the French forces have posted themselves, thereupon 
 to proceed to Midi place, and being there arrived to pre- 
 
 jroor credentials together with my letter, to the chief 
 commanding officer, and in the name of His Britannic 
 MajeMv, to demand an answer thereto. 
 
 Onyonrarriv.il at Logstown, you are to address your 
 self tn the Half King, to Monaratooeha, and the other 
 >achenis of the Si\ Nations, acquainting them with your 
 orders to vi>it and deliver mv letter to the French com 
 manding officer, and desiring the chiefs to appoint you a 
 sufficient number of their warriors to be your safeguard as 
 near the French as you may desire, and to wait your further 
 directions. * 
 
 You are diligently to inquire into the numbers and force 
 of the French <>n the Ohio ami adjacent country; how they 
 are likely to be assisted from Canada; and what are the 
 difficulties and conveniences of that communication, and the 
 time required for it. 
 
 You are to take care to be truly informed what forts the 
 
 cb have erected, and where; how they are garrisoned 
 and appointed, and what is their distance from each other, 
 and from Logstown : and from the best intelligence you can 
 
 ire. yon are to learn what gave oeea>ion to this expe- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 33 
 
 dition of the French ; how they are likely to be supported, 
 and what their pretensions are. 
 
 When the French commandant has given you the re 
 quired and necessary dispatches, you are to desire of him a 
 proper guard to protect you as far on your return as you 
 "may judge for your safety against any straggling Indians 
 or hunters that may be ignorant of your character, and 
 molest you. Wishing you good success in your negotia 
 tions, and safe and speedy return, I am, &c. 
 
 ROBERT DINWIDDIE. 
 
 Williamsburg, 30th October, 1753. 
 
 To which was added the following instructions for Wash 
 ington s personal direction : 
 
 "To GEORGE WASHINGTON, ESQUIRE, ONE OF THE ADJU 
 TANTS GENERAL OF THE TROOPS AND FORCES IN THE 
 COLONY OF VIRGINIA : 
 
 "I, reposing especial trust and confidence in the ability, 
 conduct and fidelity of you, the said George Washington, 
 have appointed you my express messenger ; and you are 
 hereby authorized and empowered to proceed hence, with all 
 convenient and possible despatch, to the part or place on the 
 Ohio where the French have lately erected a fort, or forts, 
 or where the commandant of the French forces resides, in 
 order to deliver my letter and message to him ; and after 
 waiting not exceeding one week for an answer, you are to 
 take your leave and return immediately back. 
 
 "To this commission I have set my hand, and caused the 
 great seal of this dominion to be affixed, at the city of Wil 
 liamsburg, the seat of my government, this 30th day of 
 October, in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of his 
 Majesty, George, the second, king of Great Britain, &c., 
 &c. Annoque Domini, 1753. 
 
 "ROBERT DINWIDDIE." 
 
 Then followed those wars, marches, countermarches, 
 skirmishes and alternate defeats which characterized the 
 campaigns of Washington and of Bradock against the 
 French. It seems like a dream to look on the ceaselessly 
 moving river, and think of the time when along this same 
 stream George Washington glided in a canoe on his perilous 
 
34 mi. LOT AND rnu.ic ] RV* i - 
 
 journey! This great tract of land, when- he saw only a 
 It, nr tin- wigwams of the friendly Indians, now peopled 
 with Kngli>h >|>eaking races, and proudly living under his 
 name. 
 
 Historic tit-Ids abound. The old Redstone fort still ap- 
 p,-ai> in dilapidated works. The field #f Washington s 
 defeat by tin- French is shown by enterprising farmers. 
 P,radoek > lield." where such disaster came to the proud 
 -h i-i jnlars, and compelled them to acknowledge 
 the genius and bravery of "Mr. Washington" in conducting 
 their retreat. ha> become a picnic resort. The trees still 
 Maud where Indian* were shot by the daring scouts of those 
 earlv da\>. and L r ra\es are still green where sleep the brave 
 front ier.-men. who tried to make the wilderness blossom as 
 the rose, but died in attempting to secure the right to culti- 
 it. 
 
 Traditions of adventure with Indians and French still 
 furni.-h lire-ide topics for winter conversations among tlie 
 pi ople, and manv a bov at this late day passes a wakeful 
 night alter listening to the talc of bloody encounters and 
 hairbreadth escapes of the "great grandfather who first 
 came into this county." These historic facts are given here 
 mre lccau.-e of their having been recited in the ears of 
 the youth of the county, than for their own interest to the 
 let as historic matter. 
 
 Alter \Va>hinL r ton s campaigns and the Indian wars and 
 massacres, came the War of the Revolution. In that the 
 UK "i of the country now included in Washington County 
 were singularly con>|)icii<us. They had entered the terri 
 tory \\hcn the Fivnrh were driven out from various quar 
 ter*, but the larger number were from the North of Ireland. 
 A trading ]xt was e>tabli>hed at P>n\vii>vi!le. or near that 
 point, and one >ettler after another came to clear the woods 
 and occuj.y tin- land. They were hardy, courageous lovrrs 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 35 
 
 of adventure, and ardent patriots. They were peculiarly 
 fitted for the campaigns of the Revolution, and most ardent 
 ly did they undertake them. One company dressed in Indian 
 costume, joined Washington at Philadelphia, and was nearly 
 annihilated by the various battles of the war. Many other 
 individuals enlisted in other companies, leaving the county 
 sadly defenseless for the terrible Indian raids and battles 
 which under the bribery of the English were inflicted on\ 
 the people of the western counties of Pennsylvania. Burn 
 ing at the stake, running the gauntlet, death by torture, 
 massacres of whole families with such cold-blooded cruelty 
 make the heart tremble at the narration. All these give 
 these counties a historic interest and a weird fascination, 
 and must more or less have influenced the cultivation, taste, 
 and general character of those who grew up amid such his 
 toric scenes. 
 
 But no events of the past seem to be oftener told than 
 those connected with the great "Whisky Insurrection," 
 wherein the people of the western counties arose against the 
 Government in its attempt to collect the tax on whisky, 
 which the people regarded as oppressive and unjust. Riots, 
 arson, tar, and feathers, and finally, in 1794, open rebellion, 
 only quelled by a United States army, grew out of an at 
 tempted enactment of the excise law. In it all the ques 
 tions of State Rights and individual freedom were most 
 excitedly but exhaustively discussed by the entire nation, 
 and some of the principles which inspired the promoters of 
 the abolition of slavery were declared and settled in that 
 great and bloody controversy. Kver since those terrible 
 days, local traditions constantly reiterate the story, and, 
 the boy who lives in the locality of tlLOse former conflicts, 
 becomes familiar with every phase of the great tragedy. 
 
 In the war of 1812, Washington County, with a most 
 enthusiastic patriotism, sent out a large number of volun- 
 
36 mi. I ll. \M iTlU.ir >I.K\ K I - 
 
 teen, and more tried to enlist than the Government would 
 take. In Ben Harrison s campaign, on Lake Erie, and at 
 Baltimore and \Ya.-hington, the troops of the county saw 
 acti\e ,-ervice, and returned to add tf!e stories of their pat 
 riotic deeds to tin- accumulated historic traditions of the 
 county. 
 
 .\L r ain. in \* M\, when the people were startled with the 
 news of the war between Texas and Mexico, a company 
 \\a- organi/ed and led to the defense of Texas. 
 
 Ajain, in 1846, when the United States declared war 
 again>t Mexico, a number of citizens volunteered, and en 
 tered the campaign in companies and regiments accredited 
 
 to other States 
 
 Thus.- through a discipline of a century, and inspired by 
 the heroic deeds of many a hard-fought battle, the people 
 of Washington County were educated up to that noble 
 lard, and inspired to those great and patriotic sacrifices 
 which they made on so many deadly fields in the great civil 
 war of 1ST, 1-4. 
 
 With a name less widely In-raided than Lexington, or 
 Trenton, because the events which tried tliB men of West 
 ern Pennsylvania were not such turning points in history, 
 yet their battles were far more fierce, more fatal, and were 
 so often repeated, that as tests of personal valor, or patri 
 otic sincerity, they exceed in interest those of any other 
 fields in the land. The historic records, the blood-stirring 
 traditions, and the sacred memories, together with the mon 
 uments which have risen, and others which will yet rise, 
 are a valuable heritage to the nation. They furnish a foun 
 dation on which to rear patriotic principles, and insensibly 
 and surely lead the native citi/.en to love his country and 
 enjoy any sacrifice tbr the good of our free institutions. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Elaine Family. Warriors in Scotland. Commissary General 
 under Washington. Important post. Ephraim Elaine. James 
 Elaine. Ephraim L. Elaine. Emigration to Brownsville. The 
 Gillespie family. Neal Gillespie. Neal Gillespie, Jr. Maria 
 Gillespie. Marriage of Maria and Ephraim L. Their home. 
 
 Among the brave adherents of the Scottish Prince Charlie 
 on that fatal day, of which Campbell wrote, saying : 
 
 "A field of the dead rushes red on my sight, 
 The clans of Culloden all scattered in flight," 
 
 was one humble soldier named Elaine. The derivation 
 of the name indicates that he was a Highlander, having his 
 home at or near Loch Lomond. The clan color was red 
 and black or red and blue plaid. But of his personal his 
 tory nothing can now be traced. It would not be difficult 
 to conjecture from the traditions and what few established 
 facts are at hand, the mountaineer s story by the clan to 
 which he must have belonged, and by the cause which as a 
 soldier he espoused. But it is as unsafe for a writer of 
 history to conjecture in matters of pedigree as it is to be 
 guided by political prejudices or partisan estimation. It is 
 enough for all philosophical purposes to the student of gen 
 ealogy or heredity to have four generations before him, as 
 we do in this case. 
 
 The English emigrants who first came to Pennsylvania 
 under its Quaker population were followed by a large de 
 tachment of Scotch and Scotch-Irish, who came to the colo- 
 
Till. HIT. AND ITHLIC SERVICES 
 
 Diet at:, r llu- "affairs" of 171.") ami 171. ). Knowing their 
 sterling character and their fighting qualities, the Proprie- 
 tn-v Governors, Governors of Pennsylvania, both William 
 Uichard. place them on the Western frontier to guard 
 tin- non-combatant Quakers against the incursions of the 
 Indiana. 
 
 A ni -:. L the earliest settlers in the Cumberland Valley, 
 about 17 _ _ ">, near the present town of Carlisle, was the 
 original American proprietor of the Blaine family James 
 l;lai:i. . Hi- was a member of the first Presbyterian cluiivh 
 estal.li.-hed on the western shore of the Susquehanna River, 
 ami lived long enough to assist in the building of the old 
 church which, with improvements and enlargements, 
 still stands on the public square in Carlisle. 
 
 The son of James Blaine who gave prominence to the 
 family was Kphraim Blaine, born in 1740, who took an ac- 
 ti\e part in the Revolutionary War. He was at first in 
 the Pennsylvania line, and then, for the last four years of 
 the >ti UL r L r le, Commissary General of Purchases a dignity 
 to which lie was promoted at the age of thirty-eight years 
 on the personal recommendation and request of General 
 \\ -hingto i. This officer was the great grandfather of 
 .lame-. <i. IJlaine. His own wealth and the wealth of his 
 \\ife - ivlathcs (ialbraiths was first offered through him 
 to the ( lovernment to clothe and feed the army at Valley 
 I -wards others followed his example, and the 
 
 bank* r- of Philadelphia then made up the necessary ad- 
 6 the army and the nation. 
 
 This valuable oilicer died in 1804. His son James, soon 
 after his father s death, emigrated to Fayette County), in 
 which he had previously acquired, by purchase, some landed 
 interests. In 1 *n 1 he opened a store in Brownsville, which 
 he kept for nearly ten years, acting at the same time as 
 ,In-iKe of the Peace for the county. Growing old he .-old 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 39 
 
 
 
 out the store and moved to Alleghany County and the town 
 ship of Sewickly, which is now the site of the Economites, 
 a few miles below Pittsburg, on the Ohio River. But he 
 soon removed again to Washington County, and engaged in 
 quite extensive land speculations, and made careful and 
 fortunate investments. At his death he was a man of con 
 siderable wealth in lands, and left seven children, Ephraim 
 L., Jane, Ellen, Ann, William, Robert, and Samuel. 
 
 Ephraim L. Elaine was a young man of brilliant intel 
 lect and possessed of an unusual education for that time and 
 place. But he was too conscious of his ability to use it, 
 and too proud to do much work. He was fond of dress and 
 equipage, and was aristocratic in his manner and preten 
 sions. Yet, with all, a singularly generous man. When 
 he entertained his friends, he did it with a princely hand. 
 When he gave, as he often did, to a good cause, it was in 
 no small way. He did not earn his money, and he could 
 not appreciate its full value to himself or to others. In 
 1820, when he was twenty-four years old, he first met Maria 
 Gillespie, of Washington County. He was then a gradu 
 ate of Washington College, and in the flush of manly pride 
 and beauty. 
 
 Maria was not only attractive in her personal appearance 
 but was the daughter of a long line of most excellent men 
 and women. Her grandfather, Neal Gillespie, emigrated to 
 this county from the North of Ireland in 1771. He was of 
 Scotch-Irish extraction, and is said to have been one of 
 nature s noblemen. Hon. Thomas Ewing s observation 
 concerning the Gillespie character in general was eminently 
 true of him in particular, viz : "That a strain upon it always 
 developed greater strength." He purchased the old Indian 
 Hill farm, now West Brownsville, on which Krepps s Knob 
 is situated, and which was pre-empted by an old Indian 
 named Indian Peter. The deed of this estate from Peter s 
 
40 -mi. in i AM nr.i.ir >i RVICES 
 
 \\ido\v is a curious old document and reads as follows ver- 
 < tm : 
 
 M.\i:rn. vi. ."xl, 1784. 
 
 Menu-random of a Uar^ain mead between Marey Peters 
 and William. old.->t BOD, and Nral (iillespsy, the agreement 
 i., tho> that we tin- above do bargain and seal to scad Gil- 
 K-pir tin- Tract if land which we now poses and all the 
 tenement- and boundaries of said land at forty five Shillings 
 I it ! Aki-r. tin- teann of IVanu-nts the 15th of next October 
 fewer hmidivd pounds to IK- Pa id in money or moneys worth 
 for this IVament two ton of Iron at teen pence Pr pound 
 and one nei:ro at PivaMiient of two men, one hundred 
 Pounds more to be paid at the same time of this Preasment, 
 or Kl.-i- ti draw in Trust for one year, the Remainder ol 
 t!u- Pmvhrs nuiiu-y to be Pead in two Penmcnts first in 
 In- N*-\t tin- year 1788, each of these Pea- 
 IH- uu-ad iii October loth the above bound marey 
 IVtu-rs and william 1 rttcrs asserts to meak the said Xeal 
 Cill.-pcc a ). roper Ui L r ht for said land for which for which 
 \\- ha\c .-cat our hands and iSeals. 
 
 her 
 
 .John MaCortm-y Marey XII Petters 
 
 mark 
 his 
 .John Nixon William XIX Petters 
 
 mark 
 ArkuowU-d^.Ml before Thomas Crooks, Feb. 25th, 1786. 
 
 This line c-tatc d-ivndrd to Ncal Gillespie, Jr., in 1800, 
 and the (lillc.-pic family scattered to various quarters, be- 
 romini: the aiK-c-try of a patriotic race of statesmen and 
 Mbolan. 
 
 Maiia (iillcspic was the daughter of Neal Gillespie, Jr., 
 and was counted an hciros at the time she became engaged 
 t<> Kphraim L. lilaiiu-. There are some persons still living 
 in Waahington County who remember the simplicity, the 
 niodc.-ty and freshness of the <:irl who stood at the altar, 
 ami ^ave her hand and life into the keeping of the genteel 
 and dignified youni: lilainc. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 41 
 
 The happy couple made their home at her father s house, 
 near the banks of the Monongahela, at the Redstone 
 (Krepps s) Ferry, not far from the present Brownsville 
 bridge. The house is still occupied, and is almost hourly 
 pointed out to interested visitors from distant states. 
 
 In this house was born their first son and first daughter. 
 Ephraim was not a man to be content with anything 
 but the best, so long as he had the money to obtain it, 
 whether it was for himself or for others, and he determined 
 to live in a house of brick, with pleasant grounds, and a 
 double veranda, after the style of some Southern planta 
 tions. The Gillespie estate having, partly by the inheri 
 tance of his wife, and partly by his purchase, come into his 
 possession, he selected the pleasant and convenient house of 
 his wife s grandfather on that estate, and there, with the 
 river in the foreground, and Brownsville on the farther 
 shore, with the numerous steamboats and the ferry gliding 
 back and forth before his door, with the narrow valley for 
 a garden, and the bluff and hills ascending from his back 
 yard, he established his home, with its pretentious double 
 veranda. To this house he built a spacious addition. The 
 round pillars and walls of the old portion were covered with 
 stucco, in imitation of costly brown stone, and its yard was 
 enclosed with a garden fence of neat and costly pattern, for 
 that time and place. The happy and proud family, in the 
 springtime of the year, and io the springtime of their life, 
 moved into their new home. Congratulations, calls and 
 evening parties served to dedicate the new abode, and the 
 hearty, and often expensive, welcome which the young men 
 and maidens received, made that year a bright one in the 
 annals of the youth of 1829. 
 
 But Ephraim was of an uneasy disposition, and, having 
 money to spend, traveled about, and was much from home, 
 and, when, at home, supported a costly tandem team, for 
 
1-j mi: I. n i. AM* IM T.I.K BEB1 I i> 
 
 pri\atc driving, which was the wonder and envy of the 
 whoK- neighborhood. 
 
 Tin- old per-on< about Brownsville recall many feats of 
 ratlicr dashing and extraordinary driving with that team. 
 So \\vll WM it kno,-. 11 that old settlers remember the names 
 of the two chc.-tnut sorrels IJoliver and Heaver, the first 
 s named in lionor ^\ Simon lioliver. the Soiitii Ameri 
 can Liberator, wliom Mr. lilaine greatly admired, and the 
 .d after (ieiu-ral IJeaver, who was an old friend of the 
 lilaine family. 
 
 Hi- wile. Maria, was the halancc wheel of the domestic 
 madiiiu-ry. Without her caution and economy, the estate of 
 their fathers would have been dissipated long before it was. 
 lint even her |>rr-e\ cranee and attention could not keep her 
 hu-ltand from occa.-ional extravagance of most foolish con- 
 ivptioM. He 1..M-.1 a line >liow in horses and carriages, he 
 was pa--ionately fond of nice ajipan-1. and, with all, loved 
 tiie old-fashioned dinners, and evening parties, where music 
 and \\ine wriv prominent features. His \\ite. so loving, so 
 modest, so sweet, so patient. >o careful, so religious, was 
 only brought into such gay company by her love for her 
 hu-band. All her inclinations were for a quiet, affectionate 
 home and for hidden deeds of C hristlike charity. 
 
OF T;HK 
 UNIVEBS 
 
 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Elaine s Childhood. His birth at West BroAvnsville. His father. 
 His mother. His play. His childish shrewdness. His At 
 tendance at the Catholic Church. The oppositon of the Cath 
 olic priest to his father. His studies. 
 
 Genius has no pedigree, no parents, no children. The pos 
 sessor cannot tell how he came by it, and cannot transmit it 
 to others. Mr. Elaine s traits of character, which have 
 made him a statesman and a leader, are peculiar to himself, 
 and differ widely from those of his father, and are like 
 those of no other person whose biography it has been our 
 privilege to write or to study. Some of his old neighbors 
 give all the credit to his mother s influence, and with tradi 
 tional stories of her prophetic foresight, claim that she 
 laid the foundations, securely and wisely, of that compre 
 hensiveness and exactness of mental capacity which has 
 carried him successfully through the great trials of his life. 
 Some of his schoolmates say that it was the skill of his in 
 structors, who happened, from his father to the college grad 
 uation, to be gifted men in imparting just the knowledge 
 necessary, and insisting upon first the discipline adapted to 
 the cultivation of cool and strong statesmanlike character. 
 Some of the sages in the science of human nature say it 
 was due to the natural surroundings of his youth. To the 
 deep and ceaselessly rolling river, on whose shaded banks 
 he played as a child, into whose solemnly moving floods he 
 tossed the dark pebbles, and whose destructive power in the 
 
46 i in in i AM> ri r.i.K H I;VICES 
 
 freshet season startled his developing mind into preternatu 
 ral channel.-. Ono claims it was the wild forest and the 
 i-aL r i: -d xvnrry of the unsettled landscape, and note, in 
 pp.of of it. the supposed effect of a like wilderness upon 
 (lay. Calhoun, Douglas, and Lincoln. 
 
 ^ lint other men have had mothers as foreseeing and as 
 de\otrd. e\-n if the traditions concerning her extraordi- 
 narv prophesies be true, and many of them remain ordinary 
 and cnmnionplace in character and position. 
 
 < llrjvs make no great men. An educated idiot will 
 never make a statesman, notwithstanding the American 
 notion that the possession of a diploma should entitle any 
 simpleton to a place in our social aristocracy. The great, 
 a-ti\e, relentless, human world gives a man a place of real 
 influence, and crowns him as truly great for what he really 
 ri-. anl will not care a fig for any college certificate. The 
 0,11 v-tions which the great, busy world asks concerning the 
 claimant to -their confidence are what does he know? and 
 what can he do?^ It has no concern in the course or man 
 ner in which that knowledge or power was obtained. If a 
 man <.l>tain as much learning out of college, it is just as 
 valuable to him as it would be if he had been taught it in 
 ( oil. _r.-. It In- has natural genius it will show itself. If he 
 it not. education will not create it. Study like that of 
 Webster and (Ireeley, by New Hampshire pine knots, and 
 like ( iartield s. lv a wood pile, are the outgrowth of genius. 
 Like the mysterious power of dynamite, it cannot be con 
 fined, when- there is the least friction,. Like giant powder 
 ii bur-:- every bond, however adamantive, and, like love, it 
 laughs at castle walls. 
 
 >cenery however L r rand or strange does not create genius. 
 The MoDODgahela flows by many a farm and receives thou 
 sands of daily contributions in the shape of pebbles from 
 the plowboy-i un it> >hore> ; but its eternal song and its un- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 47 
 
 fathomed mysteries are unheard or misunderstood. Wood 
 lands stretch away from many a childhood s home ; moun 
 tains mighty and snow-capped frown or glitter above many 
 cottages where neither greatness nor real genius can be 
 found. The student of history sees that inherited disposi 
 tion influences the character, that early training may give a 
 bias to the mind, that education always enobles, and that 
 grand scenery has some strange agency in the unfolding of 
 the best characteristics of human nature. But that inspired 
 impulse and intuitive insight, called genius, cannot be ac 
 counted for by such influences nor fathomed by any known 
 system of human philosophy. While the life of Blaine 
 shows the value of education, industry, perseverance, integ 
 rity, and humanity, and that no barriers can be set up to 
 withstand the march of the truly great, it also teaches us 
 the importance of leaving the child and man in whom un- / 
 usual intellectual qualities are developing, free to choose I 
 any honorable calling untrameled by parental prejudices or_/ 
 social pride. Neither Washington nor Napoleon could learn 
 the classics, while Walter Scott, Lord Clive and Milton, it 
 is said, were not capable of learning anything during their 
 early childhood. When left to themselves and all artificial 
 restraints removed, their genius developed in entirely unex 
 pected directions. Blaine was a real genius. He had ex 
 ceptional mental capabilities and inclinations. Unconscious 
 ly to himself, he moved onward toward political influence 
 as a stream let loose by the sunshine on some glacier, creeps 
 forward, flowing around trees and about boulders, hindered 
 at times by rubbish and often stayed by unusual eminences, 
 but at last rolling onward into the wide plains an irresista- 
 ble river, deep, mysterious, sublime. 
 
 James Gillespie Blaine, the subject of this biography, 
 was born January 31st, 18?0. His father, Ephraim L. and 
 his mother, Maria Gillespie, still lived in their new two- 
 
48 TIM: i.irr. AM> ITBLIC SERVICES 
 
 storied house on the l:mks of the Monongahela. No por- 
 tentious events, either in natinv or public affairs, marked 
 lii> advent. A few neighbors, with <_ r enerous interest and 
 -vmpathv extended their aid and congratulations. The tops 
 of tin- hills and the distant Alle:hanies were white with 
 .-MMW. hut the valley was hare and brown, and the swollen 
 riser -\\ept the husy ferry-heat from shore to shore with 
 marked emphasis, as old acquaintance- repeated the news 
 of the day. "Ulaine has another SOD." 
 
 Another soul clothed inhumanity; another cry; increased 
 care in one little home. That was all. It seems so sad now 
 in this the day of his fame and power, that the mother who 
 with such pain and mis^ivini:. prayer and noble resolutions 
 saw his faev fur the tirst time, -hould now be sleeping in the 
 churchyard. In the path that now lead- by her grave she had 
 often pau.-ed In-fore entering the shadowy irates of the weather- 
 beaten Catholic church and calmed her anxious fears, that 
 -In- miirht devoutlv worship (iod and secure the answer to 
 her prayer for her child. 
 
 It ,-eems .-trance now. in the li^ r ht of other experiences, 
 that no tradition or record of a mother s prophecy concern 
 ing the future ^ivatnc.-s of her son comes down to us from 
 that birthday, or from his earliest years. lint the old Euro 
 pean ciiM-mi- and prejudices of her Irish and Scottish ances 
 try .-eem to have lingered with sufficient force to still give 
 tin- place of social honor and to found the parents hopes on 
 the First-born. To all concerned it was a birth of no special 
 licance. Ont-ide the family it was a matter of no mo 
 ment. Births were frequent. The Hrownsville public heard 
 of it and pa-sed on to forget, as a ripple in the ]Mmonra- 
 hela flashes on the careless si^ht for a moment, then the 
 rher rolls on as before. Kphraim lilaine was proud of 
 another son, the little brother and the smaller sister glee 
 fully hailed a new brother. The mother, with a deep joy 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 51 
 
 which escaped not in words, looked onward and tried to 
 read the future, when the flood of years should have carried 
 her new treasure from her arms. That flood has swept over 
 her now, and all her highest hope and ambition is filled, but 
 she seems not now to hear the church bells that ring nor the 
 cannon that bellow at the sound of his name. 
 
 All his early childhood years were spent about this home, 
 playing in the well-kept yard, gazing at the numerous boats 
 that so frequently went puffing by. For a short time the 
 family moved to the old Gillespie house further up the river, 
 and some of the inhabitants say that at one time while some 
 repairs were going on they resided at the old homestead of 
 Neal Gillespie, back from the river on Indian Hill. 
 
 One of the earliest incidents current among the people of 
 Brownsville is connected with "Jimmie s, toy-boat build 
 ing." Alongside the house there was a deep gully, made, 
 by spring streams which flowed from Indian Hill to the 
 river. At the bottom of this ravine James used often to 
 make a dam for the purpose of floating his rude toy boats. 
 He had often seen the boat builders at work in the new 
 yard not far from the house in which he lived. But oldei 
 boys, with a love for fun and with an expertness in some 
 modern political methods, would come after dark or during 
 his dinner hour and demolish the dam which had cost him 
 so much labor. Several times this was done to the little 
 man s great grief. Then he went, without telling his pur 
 pose to any one, to a large, strong man by the name of 
 Krepps, who had charge of the ferry, and offered to "go 
 after the cows for a whole week" if Mr. Krepps would 
 come and "make a big dam of real big rocks that no big 
 boys could pull up unless they were mighty big." 
 
 Whether James was taken at his word and allowed 
 to go after the cows for a whole week is not said, but 
 Mr. Krepps put in the "big rocks * for the boy, and 
 
 
;,_> THK LIKE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 neither hoys nor floods removed them for many years. 
 
 One playmate tells how he used to climb to the top of In 
 dian Hill with James nearly every day in summer, and sit 
 there with him as they counted the steamboats coming and 
 going. Once they ascended Krepps sKnob and while look 
 up the winding river and away into Virginia, Janio 
 .-aid: That s the end of the world and I m going there 
 -ome day." 
 
 As a child he had from the first good opportunities for an 
 education, and a love of political reading was early im 
 planted in him by the newspapers which he read and which 
 he went regularly to the County post-office, a mile distant, 
 to get. These journals included the County paper, the 
 I insburg Gazette, Philadelphia United States Gazette, then 
 edited by Joseph R. Chandler, and the semi- weekly Nation 
 al Intelligencer. 
 
 His father being a descendant of the old Scotch Cove 
 nanters, and a rigid Presbyterian in theory, paid but little 
 attention to religious matters, in fact, and gave that part of 
 his children s training almost wholly to his consistent Chris 
 tian wife. She unconsciously taught to all who knew of her 
 (iodly life that great truth, that real Christian life is in the 
 heart and character, and is deeper than creed and far wider 
 than any denominational walls. Gold is gold from what 
 ever form it shines. 
 
 She had the respect of all, the love of many. One cul 
 tivated and noble lady, now resident of Brownsville, told 
 the writer how she loved, as a girl, to visit Mrs. Blaine, 
 and often stayed over night. One day while the girl wa- 
 on such intimate terms with Mrs. Blaine, a neighbor re 
 monstrated with the girl s mother, who was also a Presby 
 terian. Then the girl s mother replied with great empha-i-. 
 "If my daughter will only grow up to be as good a woman 
 as Mrs. Blaine, I would be willing even that she should be 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 53 
 
 a Catholic." Mrs. Blaine was always retiring in her deport 
 ment, and never flaunted her religion, or its forms, before 
 any one. She was not a bigot. She was a sweet Chris 
 tian mother. That was all. To try to be more than that 
 is to be less. At her death many years later, she was fol 
 lowed to her grave by all the Baptist clergy of the town, 
 with whom she was at all times on terms of friendship. 
 
 She taught her children to be honest, generous, self- 
 sacrificing, and kind. She held up before them ever their 
 great Example, and while they were young, she took them 
 regularly to church, and they were christened in their 
 mother s faith. But when her boys showed a disposition 
 to adopt the creed of their paternal ancestry, and exhibited 
 their irritation under the restraints of the Catholic forms, 
 she counselled them to Godly lives and freely let them go to 
 the church of their choice. 
 
 His father came from a long line of Covenanters, and all 
 his alliances were with the Presbyterian church, but when 
 he ran for office he was accused, as his son has been, of 
 being a Catholic in disguise. When Ephraim Blaine was 
 nominated by the Whigs for a county officer in 1842, 
 the Catholic Priest at Brownsville, who was a bitter political 
 opponent, was asked by .a correspondent to send a certifi 
 cate that Blaine was a member of the Catholic Church. 
 To which the irate Father sent the following reply, and it 
 was published by Blaine s enemies. 
 
 f "This is to certify, that Ephraim L. Blaine is not now, 
 ;and never was a member of the Catholic Church, and fur 
 thermore, in my opinion he is not fit to be a member of any 
 
 /church." 
 
 ^^ 
 
 During James early childhood a strong bridge was con 
 structed across the Monongahela River, a short distance above 
 their home. The movement for a bridge and the organiza 
 tion of the company depended upon Ephraim L. Blaine, and 
 
.,1 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 In- was one of the most interested stockholders. His land 
 on the south side of the river would increase in value if such 
 a means of communication with prosperous Brownsville 
 h. >uld take the place of the ferry. So in 1833 the proposed 
 )ridge became a fact. Boat building for river navigation 
 ilso began to prosper, and extensive yards were opened on 
 hi West Brownsville bank of the river. One or two stores 
 v-re opened near the end of the bridge, and for a few years 
 ,|>hraim Blaine was believed to be very rich because of the 
 speculative rise of his building lots in West Brownsville. 
 ( There came a reaction however before he had sold many 
 lots, and that disaster was the forerunner of many discour- 
 ig losses which, together with his foolish extravagance, 
 j at last ended in straitened circumstances. 
 V Yet he was a man of great natural gifts, and his observa- 
 tion in travel, his study of law, and the social standing of 
 hi.- family, gave him considerable influence in public affairs 
 throughout his life. He maintained his dignified bearing, 
 his generous spirit of hospitality and his love of lively com 
 pany until his death. 
 
 As Prothonotary of Washington County, he was popular 
 as a public officer, and held the office from 1842 to 1845. 
 
 Tin- changed circumstances of the family drove James 
 inward upon himself for strength and company, and formed 
 those habits of meditation and self-reliance which so prom 
 inently characterize him now. His disinclination to go 
 \\ithbadcompany, his love for good books, his firm ad- 
 hrrrnrr to honesty, and his guileless truthfulness made him 
 a favorite with his mother, but at times unpopular with the 
 y uiith i if his own age. 
 
 All through these years the stories of war and adventure, 
 <>f death at the stake, of sieges, of pioneer self-sacrifice, 
 and of patriotic martyrdom connected with his own county, 
 and all within the lifetime of his grandfather, must have 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 55 
 
 been heard or read by him as household words. While 
 none of these things can be said to have made him the 
 statesman and leader which he afterwards became, yet they 
 may have had some educating power upon the genius which 
 in 1856 so suddenly beamed forth. 
 
 In 1842, James spent a year in the family of the Hon. 
 Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, who was by marriage a cousin of 
 James mother, and there attended school preparatory to his 
 entrance into Washington College. 
 
 The removal of his family to Washington, the county 
 seat, when Ephraim L. Blaine was elected Prothonotary, 
 was an especially favorable opportunity for him to attend 
 and secure the most complete advantages for a college 
 education. For years it had been his ambition, and his 
 father was equally anxious that all his children should have 
 a thorough collegiate training. 
 
 But in this there was nothing strange or startlingly pre 
 cocious. Hundreds of other boys have yearned for and 
 obtained the same privilege. In one thing only could he be 
 esteemed to excel other boys of his age. He was thorough. 
 Having anything to do he did it as well as the circum 
 stances would possibly allow. 
 
 One of his teachers still living, relates how she gave him 
 a series of grammatical rules to commit to memory. He 
 came to the recitation with only one learned. When she 
 asked him why he had neglected four-fifths of his lesson, 
 he showed her that he had industriously spent the entire 
 time in trying to understand what the first verse meant. 
 He could not be content with mere words. He wished to 
 know the reason and purpose. 
 
56 THK LIFK AND I t T.I.K >K It VICES 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Collide History. College Life at Little Washington. Elaine s 
 Y nith. His Standing. Treatment by College Mates. List of 
 his Class. Letter from him at the Centennial Celebration. 
 II:- Latent Talent. Graduation in 1847. Necessity of Earn 
 ing his own Support. 
 
 With all New England s well-earned reputation for learn- 
 in g, and great educational privileges, it may be gravely 
 doubted if a county can be found in any Eastern State, 
 where so many schools and academies flourish as in Wash 
 ington County, Pa. Schools, academies, and colleges were 
 imported with the first inhabitants. In 1780, an academy 
 established iii a log cabin at the county seat, and from 
 it graduated some of the most able orators in the Religious 
 and Political arenas of the West. 
 
 Among these, many institutions have preserved a high 
 social standard of education, and which have made for the 
 people of the county a reputation for education and general 
 intelligence, much to be envied, the most important of those 
 still standing is Washington and Jefferson College, repre 
 senting two old institutions united in 18G5. 
 
 Washington C olK-gc was founded in 1780, and chartered 
 by the Legislature in 180G, four years after the charter of 
 .! tier-son College in Cannonsberg in the same county. The 
 hiMory of this eollege. as written by Rev. James I. Brown- 
 son. D. D., of Washington, Pa., is a most interesting doc 
 ument, and shows how great an aid such a college may be 
 to a eoniiniinity and a nation. Founded by Rev. Matthew 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 57 
 
 Brown, D. P., with a self-sacrificing heroism which was 
 most remarkable, and sustained by men who assisted it at 
 continual loss to themselves, it gathered in the most gifted 
 young men of the West, and from it they went forth to 
 the bar, the pulpit, the marts of trade, the chairs of colleges, 
 the judge s bench, seats in Congress, author s honors, and 
 fields of battle. These unusual educational privileges called 
 into the county a highly cultivated class of people desiring 
 to educate their children. It elevated the standard of legal 
 practice and acumen in the courts, and greatly raised the 
 average scholarship in the pulpits. 
 
 It began with a little upper room. Now it has its stately 
 edifices with all the appliances and facilities for the most ad 
 vanced collegiate course, and an endowment of nearly 
 300,000 dollars. Dr. Brownson in the history of the col 
 lege published in 1882, says : 
 
 "Any other county of the commonwealth, if not also of the 
 nation, may be challeged for the production of an equal list 
 of educated sons, whether to fill her own high places or to 
 lead society in other counties, and states. And receiving 
 from far and near beyond her own borders the youth of 
 other communities, she has sent them back by hundreds, fitted 
 by thorough collegiate training for every variety of profes 
 sional and other responsible service. More than three thou 
 sand graduates, besides an almost equal number who have 
 taken a partial course, embracing fourteen hundred min 
 isters of the gospel, seven hundred and fifty lawyers, and 
 four hundred physicians, six or eight United States 
 Senators, six cabinet officers, fifty or more Representa 
 tives in Congress, and sixty judges, together with forty- 
 five presidents and seventy-five professors of colleges, 
 twenty-five professors in Theological Seminaries, and as 
 many principals of female seminaries ; to say nothing of the 
 headships of countless academies surely, this is a pro 
 duction of cultured men which may be safely put into 
 competition with that of any other community in kind or 
 value, or with any scale of material interests actual or pos- 
 
58 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 sible in like circumstances. Proud, therefore, as we may 
 
 1,.- to be reckoned in tin front rank of the world s competi- 
 t.u> .1- producer- of tlif world s tuiest wool, and rejoicing 
 as we do in the heritage of a soil and climate unsurpassed 
 tor tin- multiplied and varied comforts of life, our highest 
 exultation is in the educated men who have carried the name 
 and fame of Washington County as a chief home of cul 
 ture into tlu> foivmoM rivalry of our country, and made it 
 known acro-s tin- seas." 
 
 In 1881, James G. Blaine, writing to the people of his 
 native county, on the occasion of their Centennial Celebra 
 tion, made some interesting statements bearing on this same 
 topic, and for this and other considerations the letter is here 
 given entire : 
 
 WASHINGTON D. C., Sept, 5, 1881. 
 J<m\ D. MCKENNAN ; 
 
 Dear Sir I had anticipated great pleasure in being pres 
 ent at the Centennial Celebration of the erection of A\ r ash- 
 ington County, but the National sorrow which shadows 
 everv hou.-ehold detains me here. 
 
 I shall perhaps never again have the opportunity of see 
 ing so many of the friend.- of my youth, and so many of 
 inv blood and kindred, and you mav well conceive my dis 
 appointment i.- L r reat. 
 
 The Mrong attachment which I feel for the county, the 
 pride which 1 rheri.-h in it.- traditions, and the high estimate 
 which I have alwavs placed on the character of its people, 
 increa>e with \var> and retlection. The pioneers were 
 strong-hearted. ( .od-fearing, resolute men, wholly, or al- 
 mo.-t u holly, of Scotch or Scotch-Iri-h descent. They 
 were men, who, according to an inherited maxim, never 
 turned their hacks on a friend or on an enemy. 
 
 For twenty years, dating from the middle period of the 
 Revolution, the settlers were compo-ed very largely of men 
 who had them-elves served in the Continental Army, many 
 of them as ollicers, and they imparted an intense patriotism 
 to the public sentiment. 
 
 It may be anmng the illusions of memory, but I think I 
 ha\e nowhere else seen the Fourth of July, and Washing- 
 
, 
 
OF THR 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 61 
 
 ton s Birthday celebrated with such zeal and interest, as in 
 the gatherings I there attended. I recall a great meeting of 
 the people on the Fourth of July, 1840, on the border of 
 the county, in Brownsville, at which a considerable part of 
 the procession was composed of vehicles filled with Revo 
 lutionary soldiers. I was but ten years old, and may pos 
 sibly mistake, but I think there were more than two hun 
 dred of the grand, old heroes. The modern cant and criti 
 cism which w r e sometimes hear about Washington not being 
 after all, a very great man, would have been dangerous talk 
 on that day and in that assemblage. 
 
 These pioneers placed a high value on education, and 
 while they were still on the frontier, struggling with its pri 
 vations, they established two excellent colleges, long since 
 prosperously united in one. It would be impossible to over 
 state the beneficent and wide-spread influence, which Wash 
 ington and Jefferson Colleges have exerted on the civiliza 
 tion of that great country which lies between the Allegha- 
 nies and the Mississippi River. Their graduates have been 
 prominent in the pulpit, at the bar, on the bench, and in the 
 high stations of public life. During my service of eighteen 
 years in Congress, I met a larger number of the Alumni of 
 Washington and Jefferson, than of any other single college 
 in the Union. 
 
 I make this statement from memory, but I feel assured 
 that a close examination of the rolls of the two Houses from 
 1863 to 1881 would fully establish its correctness. Not only 
 were the two colleges founded and well sustained, but the 
 entire educational system of the county, long before the 
 school tax and public schools, was comprehensive and thor 
 ough. I remember that in my own boyhood that there 
 were ten or eleven academies or select schools in the county, 
 where lads could be fitted for college. 
 
 In nearly every instance the Presbyterian pastor was the 
 principal teacher. Many who will be present at your Cen 
 tennial will recall the succession of well-drilled students, 
 who came for so many years from the tuition of Dr. Mc- 
 Cluskey, at West Alexander, from Rev. John Stockton, at 
 Cross Creek, from Rev. John Eagleson, of Buffalo, and 
 from others of like worth and reputation. 
 
 It was inevitable that a county thus peopled should grow 
 
62 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 - 
 
 in -trength, wisdom and wealth. Its sixty thousand inhab 
 itants are favored far beyond the average lot of man. They 
 an- 1.1. -sed with a fertile soil, and with the health-giving 
 climate which belongs to the charmed latitude of the for 
 th-ill parallel, the middle of the wheat and corn belt of the 
 continent. Beyond this they enjoy the happy and ennobling 
 influences of scenery as grand and as beautiful as that which 
 lmv> tourists thousands of miles beyond the sea. I have, 
 IIIVM It. visited many of the celebrated spots in Europe and 
 in America, and I have nowhere witnessed a more attrac 
 tive sight than was familiar to my eyes in boyhood, from 
 tin- old Indian Hill Farm, where I was born, and where my 
 great grandfather, the elder Neal Gillespie, settled before 
 the outbreak of the Revolution. 
 
 The majestic sweep of the Monongahela through the foot 
 hills of the Alleghanies, with the chain of mountains, but 
 twenty miles distant, in full view, gave an impression of 
 heaiity and sublimity which can never be effaced. 
 
 I talk thus familiarly of localities, and of childhood inci 
 dents, because your assemblage, though composed of thou 
 sands, will, in effect, be a family reunion, where the only 
 thing in order will be tradition and recollections, and per 
 sonal history. Identified, as I have been, for twenty-eight 
 years, with a great and noble people in another section of 
 the I nion, I have never lost any of my attachment for my 
 native county and my native State. The two feelings no 
 more conflict than does a man s love for his wife, and his 
 love for his mother. Wherever I may be in life, or what- 
 e\er ray fortune, the county of Washington, as it anciently 
 v ..-. taking in all the State, South and West of the Monon 
 gahela, will be sacred in my memory. I shall always recall 
 with pride that my ancestry and kindred were, and are, not 
 inconspicuously connected with its history, and that on either 
 side of the beautiful river, in Protestant and Catholic cem 
 eteries, five generations of my own blood sleep in honored 
 grayes, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 JAMES G. BLAINE. 
 
 James entered upon college life at the early age of thir 
 teen which appears to have been a very precocious under- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 63 
 
 j taking. But when we consider that the standard of admis- 
 / sion was much lower then than it is now, and that the 
 / course of studies then was less arduous than it is now, the 
 \ the surprise in a measure vanishes. 
 
 Yet it was an unusual thing for one so young to enter 
 college. His father is said to have been more proud of it 
 than he was of his office of Prothonotary. Rev. David 
 McConaughy, D. D., L. L. D., was then president of the 
 college. The class was composed of robust, intellectual 
 boys, and it is somewhat interesting to see how they since 
 have scattered. 
 
 George Baird, Jr., physician, resides at Wheeling, W. 
 Va. ; Andrew Barr, minister at Wysox, Pa., died in 1864 ; 
 Robert C. Colmery, minister at Delavan, 111. ; Josiah C. 
 Cooper, physician at Philadelphia, Pa. ; Thomas Creighton 
 died 1860. George D. Curtis lives at Mounds ville, W. Va. ; 
 Cephas Dodd died at Washington, Pa. ; Hugh W. Forbes, 
 minister at Montezuma, Iowa ; Prof. Alex. M. Gow, at 
 Roschelle, Iowa ; John H. Hampton, lawyer at Pittsburgh, 
 Pa. ; John C. Hervey, at Wheeling, W. Va. ; R. Campbell 
 Holliday, lawyer, at Moundsville, W. Va. ; John G. Jacob, 
 editor, at Wellsburg, W. Va., ; Richard H. Lee, Jr., lawyer, 
 at Lewiston, Pa., ; John V. B. Lemoyne, lawyer, at Chi 
 cago, 111. ; La Fayette Markle, lawyer and editor, at Phila 
 delphia, Pa. ; Gasper M. Miller, physician, at Ottawa, 111. ; 
 James R. Moore, Prin. Acad., Morgantown, W. Va., died 
 1864 ; William S. Moore, lawyer and editor, at Washing 
 ton, Pa. ; M. P. Morrison, physician, at Monongahela City, 
 Pa. ; Robert J. Munce, physician, at Washington, Pa. ; 
 Edward B. Neely, lawyer, at St. Joseph, Mo. ; William 
 M. Orr, lawyer, at Orrville, O. ; Thomas W. Porter, law 
 yer, died at Waynesburg, Pa. ; Samuel Power, in Nevada ; 
 Win. H. H. M. Pusey, lawyer, at Council Bluffs, la. ; Hus 
 ton Quail, lawyer, died at Washington, Pa. ; John A Ran- 
 
64 -i in: LIKK AND rriiLir SKKVICES 
 
 kin, at Xenia, 111 : Robert Robe, minister, at Brownsville, 
 Oregon: James H. Smith died in Alleghany Co., Pa.; 
 John II. Storer, physician, at Triadelphia, W. Va. ; Alex. 
 Wilson, lawyer, at Washington, Pa. 
 
 In the class were some very brilliant scholars and some 
 were verv prepossessing in personal appearance. Neither of 
 these statements can be truthfully made of James. He was 
 but an ordinary scholar if his age be left out of the calcula 
 tion, and. according to the memory of his classmates he 
 was lank and awkward. The bright intellect and his really 
 line figure have been developed in the discipline of subse 
 quent years. 
 
 James was not a very active participant in any of the col 
 lege -ports, he having a habit of keeping very much to him 
 self. The literary and debating societies or clubs found in 
 him a special supporter. He could write an excellent com- 
 po-ition and often ventured upon an essay. These were 
 \ery well written and very well read if he was compelled to 
 read them himself before his class. He was diligent, per- 
 si.-tent, and frank. But none prophesied that the leading 
 man of the class in the great practical real life of the world 
 would be James G. Blaine. 
 
 He was intellectually created for emergencies. It re 
 quired some sudden call to develop his metal. If on the 
 turning of an instant he was required to do any work, and 
 where he had no time or opportunity to think of himself, he 
 would astonish all who saw or heard him. His tempera 
 ment was such that he shrank from all self-assertion and 
 cowered before any public attention. But when there was 
 work no other could do, or words to be uttered no other 
 could say, then lie would suddenly appear like a different 
 hoy and show that the spirit of a great genius was sleeping 
 in hi> soul. 
 
 Such emergencies did not come often in college days, 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 65 
 
 where, as a rule, the most rattled-brained and shallow re 
 ceive the most honor and attention outside the regular ex 
 aminations. 
 
 Those happy years passed quickly away with him. Yet 
 not too quickly, as he felt when it w r as apparent that his 
 father s property was fast slipping away, and he could no 
 
 Znger hope for assistance from that quarter. 
 James was but seventeen years of age, in 1847, when he 
 *aduated, astonishingly near the head of his class. Then 
 the honors of the class being equally divided between him 
 and two other students, he stepped forth into the world self- 
 dependent. As hard as it often seems to see a boy thus 
 early take upon himself the self-supporting duties of a man, 
 yet it is almost always the discipline necessary to develop "a 
 strong, self-reliant manhood. This was especially so with 
 James, whose retiring inclinations were likely to retard this 
 progress, unless stern necessity drew him out. What was 
 Ephraim L. Elaine s loss became the nation s gain. It 
 forced James into the practical discipline necessary to de 
 velop his talents. 
 
 He wished to be a lawyer. But he must earn his own 
 living. However, he could not be satisfied with that. He 
 must earn more. Those occupations and professions as a 
 rule pay the best in which the workman confers the greatest 
 benefit. The more one can bless others the more will he be 
 blessed. To get his own education it became necessary that 
 he should educate others. 
 
 In his father s family there were then, besides his older 
 brother and sister, two younger brothers, Robert and John, 
 and his father was out of public office. In this situation J 
 like most self-supporting graduates of colleges in America,! 
 he turned toward the profession of a teacher, as the most 
 favorable and remunerative occupation. 
 
66 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 His father s death. Decides to go to Kentucky. The Western 
 Military Institute. Popularity with the boys. Meets Miss 
 BUnwood. Marriage. Goes to Philadelphia. Successful 
 u-acher of the Blind. Removes to Maine in 1854. 
 
 The three years which followed his graduation, and during 
 which he was a teacher at Blue Lick Springs, Kentucky, 
 produced a great change in Blaine, and in 1850 lie is said 
 to have become an attractive and mature man. His life 
 was overshadowed by the death of his father, June 28th, 
 1 xf>0, and his oares thereby greatly increased. Those were 
 days of great transition. The sad gathering of his father s 
 mourning friends, the solemn service over the remains, the 
 open grave in the old Catholic churchyard, all emphasized 
 tin- change. He was passing out of childhood and youth 
 into manhood. 
 
 Hark of that dark day, a father and a home. From that 
 day on he must expect no protection but such as his own 
 _\ could win. 
 
 Into tlu? profession of a teacher he entered with his whole 
 nature, and was from the first a successful instructor. The 
 >;ime characteristics which led him to defend the smaller 
 and weaker boys in college, made him a favorite with his 
 pupils. He hal a natural and strong repugnance to every 
 kind of oppression. He would not stand quietly by and see 
 a strong boy abuse a weak one, or silently allow a luirlv boy 
 to t a>c and annoy a sensitive girl. The strong friends 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 67 
 
 which he has still in his native county, who appear to love 
 him so tenderly, were many of them the recipients of his 
 kindness and the subjects of his defense in the old school 
 days. One of his scholars, writing from Kentucky in 1863, 
 said : 
 
 "He should have been a judge. His keen sense of jus 
 tice and his wonderful ability to discover deceit or shams, 
 made him the master of the situation. They often managed 
 to mislead the other teachers, and could offer frail excuses 
 to the principal, often with impunity, but to Mr. Blaine 
 never. He knew before we spoke, and often kindly saved 
 the boys from lying by rebuking them first and letting them 
 explain afterwards. I never knew of his making a mistake 
 in that matter." 
 
 The year that he graduated from college, Blaine secured 
 the position as teacher at the Western Military Institute at 
 Blue Lick Springs. Col. Thornton F. Johnson was the 
 Principal of the Institute. 
 
 The Colonel s wife was also a teacher, and was at the 
 head of a Young Ladies Seminary at Millersberg, which 
 is about twenty miles from Blue Lick Springs. 
 
 In the Military Institute there were between four and five 
 hundred students, many of them of that fiery temperament 
 which characterized the youth of that climate and era. 
 Many of those boys became prominent in after years as 
 leaders in military and political life, and were about equally 
 divided between the North and the South in the Great War 
 of the Rebellion. When one of them, who became a lawyer 
 at Nashville, Tennessee, heard that Blaine was so active 
 an advocate of Abolition, he said to a friend, "He is con 
 sistent to his old life. It was natural for him to dislike 
 slavery." 
 
 In that institution Blaine was clearly the favorite. He 
 knew every boy by name. He knew their individual tastes 
 
68 THK LIKE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 ami character. He sympathized with the suffering and en 
 joyed tin- sports of the strong. As a teacher, he was clear 
 and simple in his explanation, and deeply in earnest in im 
 parting information. But the ambition of his life was to 
 be a lawyer. For such a profession he was eminently fitted 
 by his intuitive insight into human nature, and his native 
 fearlessness. 
 
 It was while Bluine was a professor at Blue Lick Springs 
 that IK- met Miss Harriet Stanwood, of Augusta, Me. She 
 \va- living with her sister, and was a teacher at Mrs. Thorn 
 ton s female seminary. Miss Stanwood was a descendent 
 from tin- old Puritan stock in a direct line from the Stanwood 
 familv of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and in March, 1851, be 
 came his wife at Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 Blaine went from Kentucky to Philadelphia to teach from 
 1 -vVj to 1854, inan Asylum for the blind, called The Penn 
 sylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind. It 
 appears that while there he began the study of law with 
 Theodore C uyler, and occupied his spare hours in the ac 
 quisition of legal knowledge. 
 
 .Mr. William Clmpin, the present principal of the institu 
 tion was principal then, and engaged Blaine to be head 
 master of the boys department. Mr. Chapin, in 1884, in 
 a conversation with the editor of the Philadelphia Press, 
 concerning 1 Maine s professorship, said that "Blaine was 
 principal teacher on the boys side for two years, and when 
 hr departed lie left behind him not only universal regret at 
 rious loss to the institution, but an impression of his 
 personal force upon the work and its methods, which sur- 
 \i\es the lapse of thirty years." 
 
 "The Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the 
 Blind is the second place in which Mr. Blaine taught after 
 hi- irraolnation from Washington College. He rang the bell 
 at the front door of the building one summer afternoon, 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 69 
 
 In 1852, in answer to an advertisement for a teacher. 
 There were thirty or forty other applicants, but his manner 
 was so winning, and he possessed so many manifestly valu 
 able qualities that I closed an engagement with him at once. 
 He was married, and his wife and little son, Walker, came 
 here with him. His qualities, which impressed me most 
 deeply, were his culture, the thoroughness of his education, 
 and his unfailing self-possession. He was also a man of 
 very decided will, and was very much disposed to argument. I 
 He was very young then only twenty-two and was rather F 
 impulsive, leaping to a conclusion very quickly. But he 
 was always ready to defend his conclusions, however sud 
 denly he seemed to have reached them. We had many a 
 familiar discussion, and his arguments always astonished me 
 by the knowledge they displayed of facts in history and pol 
 itics. His memory was remarkable, and seemed to retain 
 details which ordinary men would forget." 
 
 "Now, I will show you something that illustrates how 
 thoroughly Mr. Elaine mastered anything he took hold of," 
 said Mr. Chapin, as he took from a desk in the corner of 
 the room a thick quarto manuscript book, bound in dark, 
 brown leather, and lettered "Journal" on the corner. "This 
 book Mr. Elaine compiled with great labor from the minute 
 books of the Board of Managers. It is a historical view 
 of the institution from the time of its foundation up to the 
 time of Mr. Elaine s departure. He did all the w r ork in his 
 own room, telling no one of it until he left. Then he pre 
 sented it, through me, to the Board of Managers, who were 
 both surprised and gratified. I believe they made him a 
 present of Si 00 as a thank offering, for an invaluable work." 
 
 Indeed, this book, the first historical work of Mr. Blaine, 
 is a model of its kind. On the title page, in ornamental 
 pen work, executed at that time by Mr. Chapin, is the in 
 scription : 
 
70 THK I.IKK AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 "Journal of the Pennsylvania Institution for Instruction 
 of the Blind, from its Foundation, Compiled from Official 
 
 . by James G. Blaine. 1854." 
 
 The methodical character of the work is most remarka 
 ble. On the first page every abbreviation used in the book 
 is entered alphabetically. The first entry reads : "On this, 
 and the four following pages, will be found some notes in 
 regard to the origin of the Pennsylvania Institution for the 
 Instruction of the Blind, furnished by I. Francis Fisher, 
 KS.J." From this page to the 188th, in which is the last 
 entry made by Mr. Blaine, every line is a model of neatness 
 and accuracy. On every page is a wide margin. At the 
 top of the margin is the year, in ornamental figures. Below 
 it a brief statement of what the text contains opposite that 
 portion of the marginal entry. Every year s record closes 
 witli an elaborate table, giving the attendance of members 
 of the board. The last pages of the book are filled with 
 alphabetical lists of officers of the institution and statistical 
 tables, compiled by the same patient and untiring hand. 
 One of the lists is that of the "principal teachers." No. 
 !" is followed by the signature "James G. Blaine, from 
 August 5th, 1852, to" and then, in another hand, the 
 record is completed with the date November 23d, 1854. 
 
 "I think that the book," remarked Mr. Chapin, "illus 
 
 trates the character of the man in accurate mastery of facts 
 
 and orderly presentation of details. We still use it for 
 
 ence, and Mr. Frank Battles, the assistant principal, is 
 
 bringing the record down to the present time. 
 
 "I recall one incident," Mr. Chapin continued, "which 
 indicates Mr. Blaine s mode of discipline, and shows, too, 
 that be was in those days somewhat impulsive. It was one 
 of his duties to take charge of the boys at breakfast, and 
 M>mctime.s there would be a few sleepy laggards. One 
 morning a whole roomful of boys, five or six of them, 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 71 
 
 failed to appear. Mr. Elaine quietly walked upstairs and 
 locked them in. The boys had a screw-driver and they un 
 fastened the lock ; but by the time they reached the break 
 fast-room the tables had been cleared. The next mornino- 
 
 O 
 
 they rose in time for breakfast, and attended classes, and 
 the little rebellion was over. 
 
 "Mr. Elaine taught mathematics, in which he excelled, and 
 in the higher branches. His wife was universally beloved and 
 often read aloud to the pupils. When he went away to be 
 come editor of the Kennebec Journal, we felt that we had 
 lost a man of large parts, and we have watched his upward 
 career with great interest. Yes, indeed, we re all for 
 Elaine here. He has called here a number of times when 
 he stopped in the city on his way to and from Washington. 
 The last time he was here he heard with great interest of 
 the progress of D. D. Wood, the blind organist of St. 
 Stephen s Church, who was one of ^ his pupils, and recalled 
 Mr. Wood s proficiency in mathematics." 
 
 Three persons now holding positions in the institution, 
 Michael M. Williams, William McMillan and Miss Maria 
 Cormany, were pupils under Mr. Elaine. Mr. Williams 
 said of him : "Everybody loved Mr. Elaine and his wife. 
 Both were always ready to do anything for our amusement 
 in leisure hours, and we had a great deal of fun, into which 
 they entered heartily. I think that Mrs. Elaine read near 
 ly all of Dickens works aloud to us, and Mr. Elaine used 
 to make us roar with laughter by reading out of a book en 
 titled Charcoal Sketches. In the evenings he used to sit 
 under the gaslight, reading aloud to both the boys and girls. 
 Then we would wind up with a spelling bee. Sometimes 
 Mr. Elaine would give out the words and sometimes one of 
 the big boys would do it, while Mr. Elaine stood up among 
 the boys. Then we would have great fun trying to spell 
 the teacher down. " 
 
72 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Removal to Maine. Beginning of his Editorial Career. His Po 
 litical Position. The Kennebec Journal. Leading Thought 
 ( oiu iTiiiiiLT the Organization of the Republican Party. State 
 s. Slavecy. Wise Sayings. Drawn into Local Politics. 
 
 In 1854 Blaiue moved to Augusta, Maine, the former 
 home of his wife, and having an opportunity given him to 
 enter into Editor^d-work. he quickly and eagerly availed 
 himself of it. Jostph Baker, a lawyer of Augusta, desired 
 a partner iii the purchase and management of the Kennebec 
 .Journal, a weekly newspaper, published at Augusta, with 
 tri-wcckly editions during the sessions of the Maine Legis 
 lature. In Blaine a suitable business associate was found, 
 and tin- name of "Baker & Blaine" appeared at the head of 
 tin- columns. At that time Blaine s influence and ability 
 entered the high road to fame and greatness. New ambi 
 tion- :ind new hopes dawned for him. The latent powers 
 of his mind and character, which awaited such an occasion 
 to di.-plav themselves, then began to be seen and understood. 
 It is tin- almost universal verdict of journalists, who have 
 had experience in both fields, that it is far more difficult, 
 and reijuiivs far more ability to successfully conduct a coun 
 try paper, or one in a small city, than to manage one in 
 >ome great metropolitan center. The eccentric, independ 
 ent, intelligent people in a New England village, will criti- 
 ci>e with less mercy, and more accuracy, than the wealthy 
 of a city, who read in haste, and have no care 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 73 
 
 for grammatical errors or minor discrepancies of statement. 
 The editor and preacher who can successfully stem the cur 
 rent in a New England village, will have no trouble to win 
 his way in the city. In the country towns there are only so 
 many constituents, and one must satisfy them all to pay his 
 way on their patronage, while in the city any man of de 
 cided opinions, or harsh eccentricities, will call to himself 
 like a magnet, out of the thousands, all who have an affinity 
 for him. Men could succeed politically and socially in New 
 York or London, who would make a miserable failure in 
 Augusta. 
 
 Elaine was personally known to every man in the city 
 before he had been in the editorial chair for a week. The 
 editorials and news of his paper would be the subject of talk 
 in the shops, the drawing-rooms, the schools, and the sewing- 
 circles. His editorials must be very brief, and, if of any 
 use, must be directly to the point. If he misquoted, or mis 
 stated, or lacked good judgment, or fairness, he would be 
 mercilessly ridiculed in the social gatherings, and facetiously 
 lampooned on the streets. If he should be lazy, or discour 
 teous, social ostracism and financial ruin inevitably follow. 
 
 It is a most interesting study to look back over the files 
 of Elaine s paper, and mark how, day by day, he developed 
 from an unknown stranger, and unsophisticated youth, into 
 the strong writer and able thinker. Until then all his pow 
 ers were kept in abeyance. 
 
 Selections of the following paragraphs from his early 
 editorials and reports will show the bent of his genius. 
 
 Speaking of the organization of the Legislature of Maine, 
 in 1855, he said : 
 
 "Thus is the great Republican party of Maine fairly in 
 augurated into power in the Legislative departments of the 
 State, with a popular good will, a prestige of success, and 
 the elements of permanancy such as no party has had since 
 
74 Tin: i.irr: AND IMT.I.K SERVICES 
 
 the birth of our State. Long may it live to protect our 
 inteiv>ts, develop our resources, and under all cirrmn- 
 KtHKi;* </ //< tn <! right i and trust the consequences to Infinite 
 II / .. Let it be not merely the inauguration of a new 
 partv. but the exhaltntion of principle above party, and the 
 embodiment of honesty into the administration of the State. 
 Thru will the honest and good of all classes rally around it, 
 ivjoiee in it and perpetuate it." 
 
 te place an unjust and foolish judge is said to have 
 charged the (Jrand Jury of honest men, that they ought to 
 indite -ome men of the opposite political party for holding 
 - t meetings, whereupon Blaine quaintly remarks : -The 
 (iraml .Jury listened to the judge with profound attention, 
 ami responded, ahem !" 
 
 There might be some reason in the counsel to compro- 
 mi-e where the issue is not one of morals, or is doubtful and 
 undefined, but when asked to compromise with an undis- 
 1. open, hideous wrong like slavery! Never." 
 
 "Ought ;i nation, in strict justice, to be measured by a 
 moral Mandard different from that which determines the 
 character of a man?" 
 
 "All arrows dipped in bad rum or the poison of slander 
 will fall powvrle>< at the moral man s feet." 
 
 f~ "In the old country, it is said, everybody is trying to find 
 / out what his ance.-tors were // l>irfli, instead of what he 
 J himself is by nature. This is certainly the fittest way pos- 
 / sible to make a fool of anv man who has not had the mis- 
 / fortune to be born one." 
 
 "Slaxrry i- .-cetioiiul and temporary, freedom i> national 
 * and universal." 
 
 44 Alway> n-vert to the plain facts, and view them separate 
 from all party and sectional influences." 
 
 One or tv... item- like the following extract show that 
 Blaine had to meet the u>ual local prejudice against "Car 
 petbaggers." 
 
 "In reply to the Collector s fierce onslaught upon our- 
 
KENNEBEC JOURNAL OFFICE. BLAINE, EDITOR, 1854 1857. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 77 
 
 selves, we have not a word to offer. We bow our heads, 
 overcome. The charge of being an imported Federalist 
 from a distant State/ is so grave, so overwhelming that we 
 are crushed ; our spirit is gone ; anything else we could 
 have endured but to have it said that we are a Federalist, 
 aye, and an imported one ; and imported, too, from a dis 
 tant State, is so cruel, so severe, that we have no courage 
 left!!" 
 
 "Treat your farm and your cattle honestly, and you will 
 soon see that honesty is the best policy ." 
 
 "A nation is a home in theory. We are brethren. Re 
 buking a brother sincerely ought not to diminish love, no 
 matter to what party he belongs." 
 
 Speaking of the rumors of filibustering expeditions to 
 seize and occupy various States of Central America, he 
 said : 
 
 "It requires no sagacity to see the origin, cause and de 
 sign of this movement. It is nothing more and nothing less 
 than planting the seeds of slavery in a congenial climate, 
 where, when they are duly ripened, sundry slave States may 
 be formed, which in due time shall seek annexation to our 
 government, and have their petition enforced by the present 
 Southern States under the threat of the dissolution of the 
 Union." 
 
 In 1855, Anson P. Morrill was chosen Governor by the 
 Legislature. The Maine Law was the issue, and the Jour 
 nal was its defender. 
 
 u 
 
 We beg to say that the anti-slavery sentiments, which, 
 from our earliest youth, we imbibed in our native Pennsyl 
 vania, the first of the old thirteen, to abolish slavery, 
 were deepened and strengthened by a residence among slave 
 holders ; and that nowhere, either on slave soil, or on free 
 soil, have we expressed, other feelings than those of decided 
 hostility to the extension of the withering curse." * * 
 
 "The Southerners despise a Northern traitor ; and all or 
 ganists and apologists of dough-facery , after earning the 
 
78 THE LIFE AND IM T.I.IC SERVICES 
 
 contempt of freemen at home, have only for consolation the 
 of their Southern masters." 
 
 Speaking of the proposition to carry slavery into free 
 Kansas : 
 
 "Let not the fatal spirit of compromise induce us to ac 
 quiesce in past wrongs, because of some promised advan 
 tage and security in future. Compromise with Slavery is 
 hut another phase of Sacrifice of Liberty ; and in the past 
 we ha\e had enough, and more, of that." 
 
 Speaking of the outcome of the Republican State Con 
 vention in 1855 : 
 
 The doctrines of the resolutions may strongly resemble 
 tin- Whig doctrines of the American Revolution. They may 
 be like the Democratic ideas of Thomas Jefferson. They 
 express the principles and the settled determination of the 
 Republicans of Maine." 
 
 "The Republican party can well sustain the loss of the 
 t any man who is willing, directly or indirectly, to 
 enl >!> the administration of President Pierce, with all its 
 mea-mvs of infamy." 
 
 "The only reliable allies the slaveholders have in this 
 State arc the Pierce and Douglas Democrats, the broken 
 and demoralized remnants of that once proud and dominant 
 party \\hich endorsed the Wilmot proviso in 1847, the flow 
 er of which has, by principles, courage and numbers, done 
 .- much to form the strong and determined Republican party 
 of the State, which is pledged to stand by the interests of 
 liberty and the Union." 
 
 "We make it as a sober and well-considered statement, 
 thar our country is to-day in greater peril by elements and 
 agencies within her borders, than at the commencement of 
 the Revolution by the plans of the British ministry and the 
 power of Iiriri>h arms. It requires no prophet to decide 
 that the aggressions of the slave power are more dangerous 
 to the freedom and prngiv>s ot the American people, than 
 
 the threatened despotism of Kngland in 177."). And what 
 is the nnst melancholy and >hamefnl. the- -ions have 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 79 
 
 been invited and vastly strengthened by the treachery and 
 cowardice of men living in the Free States." 
 
 "There never existed in the State of Maine such a power 
 ful political organization as the Republican party is to-day. 
 They have shown their mettle in a contest where the fire 
 raged fiercely, and they have come out with banners flying 
 and with words of good cheer from more than 50,000 men. 
 Such a result ought not to be called a defeat ; it is rather a 
 glorious triumph, and the sure presage of future and con 
 tinued victories. If any Republican in the whole State feels 
 the least discouraged, he is not a worthy soldier in the 
 cause." 
 
 "The Republican party is the only true National party. 
 Its platform is the only ground upon which the friends of 
 the Union can stand. Its fast-gathering strength is to be 
 the bulwark of the Union against the dangers that thicken 
 around its future. It is the only breakwater against the 
 black tide of despotism that threatens to spread over the 
 whole country. It calls on the nation to return to the policy, 
 the principles, and the maxims of the statesmen who won 
 our liberties, reared the fabric of our government, and gave 
 its first direction. Its principles are broad as the Union. It 
 demands national men, national measures, and is the only 
 truly national party that has the prospect of carrying the 
 country against the sectional, dangerous and corrupt, political 
 organization that now controls the country, to the disgrace 
 of the American name throughout the civilized world." 
 
 He had many strong editorials in opposition to the de 
 lusion of squatter sovereignty, pleading that this is a nation, 
 and not a confederation of States, held together by a rope 
 of sand. 
 
 At near the close of 1855, he wrote : 
 
 "The deepening cry from all quarters is, that the AVhite 
 House must be cleansed, and all the channels to and from 
 the same thoroughly renovated. The march of slavery 
 must be stopped, or the nation is lost. Only by the firm 
 md practical union of all true men in the nation can its 
 most valuable interests be preserved. This great question 
 
SO TIIK I. IKK AND I l HLIC SERVICES 
 
 (tin- extension of hinnaii bondage), which gathers around 
 the gateway of the Northwest, cannot be postponed; it 
 premefl for decision now. Other issues may be safely de 
 ferred, without loss, but the questions raised by the Mis- 
 >oiiri Prohibition cannot Be deferred. It is often the case 
 with nations, as with individuals, that events of the most 
 \\eiirhtv and lasting consequences converge on a single point, 
 which cannot be neglected without final loss, beyond the 
 hope of recovery. We have approached twelve on the dial 
 of time, beyond which it must not pass before the right 
 com--, of action is taken, or the result of delay is fatal 
 through long years. He is a puerile trifler, a sneaking 
 dough-face, or a traitor to his country, who wishes to divide 
 or distract the public mind with other political topics and 
 designs, \\ln-n there is the most pressing need that the true 
 men of the nation should unite to take right and sure action 
 !iat is of the utmost importance to the Union." 
 
 Of an absurd inauguration prayer in 1856, he wrote : 
 
 Kdward Everett, as every one knows, made the best 
 jirnifi- > r<>r offered to-a Boston audience; and the inaugu 
 ration prayer is pronounced by all to be incomparably the 
 er addressed to the Senate of Maine." 
 
 I -peaking of there-election of B. F. Wade to the 
 l/nited States Senate, he says: 
 
 Mr. Wade s re-election is his thorough vindication 
 
 i>t the puerile slanders and falsehoods uttered last fall 
 
 !>y a I.-, kit -- and mercenary press, that he is unfriendly to 
 
 the I n ion. The great State of Ohio, binding together the 
 
 I nion with strong chains of interest and patriotism, lying 
 
 aloiig.-idr the States of slavery, as loyal as any of her sister 
 
 States, reports in the popular branch of its government 
 
 unanimously against a petition for dissolution, and shows her 
 
 de\ iitiim to freedom and the national unity in electing by a vote 
 
 of nearly three to one, a man who stands firmly in defense 
 
 of the North when her institutions are assailed by the ag- 
 
 isione of >la\ery. Let this course be followed up lv 
 
 the people, that the holdeM and most unshrinking are to be 
 
 sustained, and cowardice, and flunkeyism will go down 
 
 at once in the political market. While all haste and im- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 81 
 
 prudence should be avoided, nothing is clearer than that 
 timidity and weakness operate as the miasma of death to a great 
 moral movement, as the cause of freedom has become before 
 the American people. It is an encouraging fact that the Re 
 publican party is bringing to its fold the choicest and ablest 
 spirits of the country, and if it will not shrink, nor com 
 promise its principles and true position, is sure to become 
 the dominant and truly conservative party of the Union." 
 
 On the address to remove Judge Davis from the Supreme 
 Judicial court : 
 
 "The Coalitionists have settled it in a party caucus that 
 Judge Davis must go off the bench, and they are as incapa 
 ble of giving him a fair trial as are bribed jurors to do justice 
 to two parties. No matter what evidence may be submit 
 ted to exculpate Judge Davis from the charges laid against 
 him ; no matter how clearly learned counsel may demon 
 strate that his removal would be a violation of the spirit of 
 the constitution and a precedent of a dangerous and alarm 
 ing character ; no matter what may be done, or what may 
 be said, what may be proved, or what may be disproved, 
 Judge Davis must go off the bench. King Caucus that om 
 nipotent monarch in drilled party organizations, has decreed 
 it, and his obedient subjects must enforce the edict. A 
 formal trial is to be held, but in reality it is a sham and a 
 mockery." 
 
 Between the two champions of Republicanism in Maine, 
 Lot M. Morrill and Hannibal Hamlin, there was in 1857, 
 a rivalry for senatorial honors. Mr. Hamlin, who had been 
 elected Governor the previous fall, was chosen ; Mr. Blaine 
 having espoused his cause. In an editorial on his elec 
 tion Mr. Blaine said : 
 
 "The great error of the Northern States has uniformly 
 been, that they fail to continue their Senators and Repre 
 sentatives in Congress, for a sufficiently long period, to be 
 come thoroughly conversant with legislative proceedings and 
 to build up that personal influence and weight which avail 
 so much in the defeat or success of every measure that 
 comes before Congress." 
 
82 mi: i. ii i. AM ri i-.i.ic M.K\ i- Bfl 
 
 .Jud je Davis had been removed from the Supreme Bench 
 tor purely political reasons, by Samuel Wells, Democratic 
 Governor. The columns of Mr. Blaine s paper teemed 
 with the defense of the purity of the Judiciary and, indeed, 
 made it one of the issues that insured the Republican suc- 
 . Speaking of Judge Davis removal, Mr. Blaine said : 
 
 4 The whole proceedings, from its inception to its close, 
 was a bold and reckless piece of political crime, which made 
 a deep stain on the history of the State. It was an attack 
 mi the independence of the Judiciary, of the most dangerous 
 and pernicious tendency." 
 
 When the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court on the 
 Dred Scott case was announced, Blaine wrote : 
 
 4 Whither do all these things tend? Are we to be a per 
 manently subdued people? We can but regard them as the 
 last turns to the screws of despotism, that presage the 
 mighty uprising and triumph of the people. Slavery has 
 to the farthest limits, of its power and aggression. 
 Henceforth it must lose in the great contest which it is 
 waging against freedom. The day of truce has gone by ; 
 the slaveholders have left the freemen of the nation no other 
 iv-ort but revolution a revolution, if slavery wills it to be 
 no other, only through the peaceful agencies of the press, 
 of public opinion, of religion, and of the ballot box. These 
 aided by time, and the increase of free population, at no 
 distant day, will give us every department of the govern 
 ment, and regain to national freedom, what has been lost 
 by Southern cupidity and Northern treason." 
 
 ( M course his active promotion of the interests of the Re 
 publican party and his zeal in its primitive organization 
 called its attention to him. Being editor of the leading 
 journal, and published also at the capital of the State, the 
 Republican legislature made it the official organ of the 
 State, and the party cheerfully accepted its leadership. 
 
 Ili> p< r-onal appearance and manners were so agreeable 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 83 
 
 and popular that he was almost always nominated by some 
 friend for any important party office which the caucus or 
 convention met to fill. Nearly all these he declined. He 
 did take, after much pressure from friends, the place of del 
 egate to the Republican National Convention of 1856, which 
 nominated Freemont and Dayton, for President and Vice 
 President. 
 
84 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Sale of the Kennebec Journal. The Portland Advertiser. His 
 Neighbor s Story of his First Candidacy. His First Speech 
 es. Defends Augusta. Domestic Nature. His Manner of 
 Conversation. His Generous Donations. Joins the Congre 
 gational Church. Mission Work among the Lowly. The old 
 Stanwood Homestead. Saving the Falling. Habits as an 
 Editor. Dealings with his Enemies. Workman s Story. 
 
 Blame disposed of his interest in the Kennebec Journal 
 Oct. Oth, 1857, to John S. Sayward, of Bangor, Maine, 
 and took a more remunerative and influential position on 
 the Portland Daily Advertiser. 
 
 But his three years of editorial life, notwithstanding his 
 decided political opinions, were years of accumulation, both 
 in friends and property. He was moral, economical, gener 
 ous, and industrious. Faithful friends took him into their 
 confidence, and as a citizen and social companion, he was 
 welcome to every fireside. The best test of any man s 
 character is the estimation of him among his neighbors 
 whose intercourse with him is a daily matter, and it would 
 be unwise in writing history to overlook that important * 
 source of trustworthy, information. 
 
 One of Mr. Blame s neighbors in Augusta, a man highly 
 respected and holding a local ollicial position of great 
 responsibility, wrote some incidents of Mr. Elaine s life 
 which apply so largely to the period of his life as an editor, 
 that we insert them entire : 
 
 "Mr. lilaine first entered political life in 1858, as rep- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 85 
 
 resentative in the Legislature from Augusta, at the age of 
 twenty-eight years, the people here early recognizing his abil 
 ity as a leader. He entered this with great timidity, and 
 hesitation. One of the leaders of the party often related how 
 the future great man one evening took him by the arm, 
 and they walked the retired streets of the city con 
 sulting in regard to his candidacy, Mr. Elaine expressing 
 great hesitancy in accepting the position so clearly marked 
 out by his fellow-citizens. This is characteristic of the 
 man. Although impetuous in nature, courageous and fear 
 less, he was always extremely cautious in choosing his po 
 sition. After being selected, he was not to be driven from it. 
 
 "His fame as a debater, which culminated on the floor of 
 Congress, began in the Maine House. His newspaper ex 
 perience gave him the valuable and ever available power of 
 conciseness of thought. He never made a speech too 
 long to be read, and never spoke longer than the people 
 wanted to hear him. 
 
 "His first, great triumph in debate was won on the 
 floor of the Maine House, in the winter of 18G2, with 
 Hon. E. K. Smart, of Camden, on a national question, 
 when he held up Smart s Congressional career to show 
 his wavering position. Many to this day who witnessed 
 the remarkable scene, will remember the black book of 
 fate (the Congressional Record), which Blaine held up 
 to Smart s blanched face, and from which he quoted at 
 will. From that beginning Blaine became the leader of his 
 party in Maine, as Smart, who was afterwards Democractic 
 candidate for Governor, and took the stump in his own 
 behalf, had abundant reason to know. 
 
 "When Augusta was struggling to increase her population 
 by adding to her manufactures, the issue was squarely made 
 between the friends of progress, represented by the Repub 
 lican party, and those who desired to keep Augusta a way- 
 station, Mr. Blame s powers were enlisted at once, as they 
 could always be depended upon in a local emergency. At 
 one of the largest meetings ever held at Granite Hall, he 
 delivered a speech, burdened with statistics, showing great 
 familiarity with the city s finances and entire municipal af 
 fairs, as well as familiarity with the success of manufactures 
 elsewhere. 
 
80 Tin: i in: AM> rrm.tr SKI: VICES 
 
 "Thai speceh, so full of statistical matter, was prepared 
 the lav previous, the original manuscript put into the prin 
 ter s hands for copy, and the speech delivered entirely 
 from memory. He has often told me that a figure, or clus 
 ter of figures, fixed in his mind, are there forever. It is 
 needle-- to say, this measure was carried. 
 
 "This very last season the question came up whether a 
 fixed valuation should be placed upon the property of the 
 larirest manufacturing company in our midst the real issue 
 being, whether a liberal policy should continue it here, or a 
 penurious one drive it away. Mr. Blainc was at home rest 
 ing. The hearts of the people again turned towards him in 
 a e. .ntest that appeared extremely close, and which greatly 
 excited the. people. Attention to national affairs had not 
 disengaged his mind from local interests, and in a speech 
 which fairly electrified the vast audience, he carried his 
 point, and saved to the city its controlling manufacturing 
 interest. 
 
 " Mr. Blaine s popularity in Augusta is not altogether be 
 cause of his National reputation, but of his real, practical 
 work and usefulness as a citizen. He has bridged over 
 many difficulties with his great ability. 
 
 "Mr. Blaine delights in the excitement attending a politi 
 cal campaign. Although drawing large audiences wherever 
 he goes, as the people know that Blaine always says some- I 
 thing, he is most successful in the actual planning of a cam 
 paign, and setting others to work. But he is most happy on 
 the .-.tump, without being embarrassed with the details of a 
 c;m\ass. Have often heard him say. When I take the 
 stump I immediately bigin to gain in flesh, and strength, and 
 courage. He would speak with the greatest ease twice a 
 day. and would think nothing of riding across the country 
 forty miles from one appointment to another. lie would 
 much rather, in these campaign tours, stop in some obscure 
 family mansion than at the public house. Sensible that all 
 power in a republic is lodged in the people, his ambition 
 was to get as near the people as possible. And this he did 
 without assuming that objectionable, patronizing air, so 
 common among little great men. In the cabins of the poor, 
 in the cottage of the laboring man. in the workshop, where 
 tr ; wheels of machinery are humming, wherever man earns 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 87 
 
 his daily bread by the sweat of his brow, there Mr. Blaine 
 enters, and is ever welcome. Once seeing a person, and 
 conversing with him, the face and form, the lineage, the 
 family history and characteristics of the individual are 
 henceforth impressed upon his mind, to be recalled at wilj 
 by his great memory. How did he know me, and how 
 did he know events in my life which I myself have forgot 
 ten? What a wonderful man he is ! said one, enthusiasti 
 cally turning away from an interview. How in the world 
 did he know I had a sister Mary, who married a Jones ? 
 inquired another. This wonderful memory of faces and 
 family history has been a great help to Mr. Blaine in his 
 public career. 
 
 "While most engaging and fascinating in conversation, he 
 always approaches a man on the topic which will most in 
 terest the individual addressed. On religious subjects he is 
 perfectly at home, with a sharply defined system of belief 
 and profound knowledge, showing deep research into the 
 theological discussions. Was it a plain farmer who sought 
 an interview ? He would go over with him the prospects of 
 the crops, the kind and amount of fertilizers used, the price 
 of farm wages, and all the matters relating to farm and 
 home industry. And so of every occupation or profession, 
 his knowledge being so varied and general as to enable him 
 to touch men at the most susceptible points. A well-known 
 horse dealer called upon Mr. Elaine to negotiate the sale of 
 a horse. The conversation at once turned upon horses. 
 Mr. Blaine gave the names of all the noted horses, the best 
 time they had made, the track on which it was accomplished, 
 the date of the achievement, and even the name of the driver. 
 The horseman came away thunderstruck. Gracious ! ex 
 claimed he, That man knows everything ! A Democrat 
 before, he ever afterwards voted the Republican ticket, out 
 of pure admiration for Mr. Blaine. 
 
 "Mr. Elaine s gifts to charitable and benevolent operations 
 have been most liberal, while his contributions to the edu 
 cational funds of colleges and seminaries of learning have 
 been munificent. All he wanted to know w r as how much 
 was wanted, and his check was made out immediately. A 
 certain doctor of divinity, an inveterate beggar, called once 
 Mr. B. was engaged in conversation with another 
 
g TI1K MIT. AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 gentleman. II* e\eu-ed himself, and cordially greeting the 
 doctor with an extended hand, inquired : k llow large shall 
 tin- check I.e. tins time, doctor? He has contributed di- 
 rectlv to tin- erection and support of nearly every church in 
 the city. This is certainly true of all the church edifices 
 built (hiring his residence here. His purse strings are un- 
 tied at every appeal. How much is needed? has ever 
 been his inquiry, and not how little will do? His giving 
 ha.- n t been confined to public libraries, schools, church 
 bells, and other public objects, but many a widow s heart, 
 and maiiv a desolate home has been made to rejoice on ac 
 count of "his noble benefactions. Occasionally the report 
 .f a large gift would find its way into the ^newspapers, but 
 those the most appreciated the world never kuew. But one 
 other man in the State has been his equal in the matter of 
 giving Mr. Blaine s much loved friend, ex-Gov. Abner 
 Cobum of Skowhegan. People have misjudged Mr. Blaine s 
 wealth by this very trait of liberal giving. Measured by 
 that, by the ordinary tests, he ought to have been worth 
 his millions ; but, knowing him intimately, it is my opinion 
 that he never saw the time when he could count a million 
 dollars as all his own. 
 
 "Twenty-seven years ago Mr. Blaine became a member 
 of the Congregational Church in this city, then under the 
 pa-torate of Rev. Dr. Webb, now of Boston. While a firm 
 Iidieverin the doctrines of that communion, he is broad and 
 liberal in his practices and affiliations, being willing to tol 
 erate even Bob Ingersol, with all his vageries. There is 
 not the taint of narrow religious partizanship or bigotry 
 about him. He has the heart, and soul, and life of an every 
 day, practical Christian. He early espoused the Sunday- 
 school cause. Nearly thirty years ago, Peoples Hall and 
 ii- vicinity was the Devil s half-acre of Augusta. It was 
 a place where doubtful characters congregated and low 
 dances were held. The church estal dished there a mission 
 Sunday-school, and Mr. Blaine had a class of men and 
 women who had scarcely ever entered, a church, and who 
 were gathered in from the highways, and who came in theii 
 shirt sleeves, some laying aside their pipes and tobacco, anc 
 MUM,- ha\ ing about them the fumes of liquor. Mr. Blaine 
 would prepare him-elf for his class with the same care as 8 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 89 
 
 lawyer would prepare a case for the courts. There was in 
 spiration and power in his teaching. His exposition of 
 the Sacred Word was clear, lucid and convincing, and he 
 led many a miserable creature up from the slums of their 
 daily thought and living to the pure and bracing atmos 
 phere of a higher life. The entire moral atmosphere of 
 Peoples Hall and its surroundings were changed. I met, 
 not long since, a gentleman who was a member of that 
 large Sunday-school class of Mr. Elaine s, and, who was 
 rescued, by his efforts, from a worthless life. Said he : Not 
 a day passes but I bless the name of Blaine. The words 
 he uttered long years ago, in that Sunday-school class, ring 
 in my ears to-day." 
 
 "Mr. Blaine began housekeeping in Augusta in the old- 
 fashioned homestead on Green Street, under the ancestral 
 elms, formerly owned by the Stanwood family. The house 
 was built nearly a hundred years ago. He occupied the east 
 tenement, of some seven rooms, and lived in a very humble 
 and unostentatious manner. One domestic attended to the 
 household duties, which were always under the personal su 
 pervision of Mrs. Biaine, who added to her other accom 
 plishments that of being an excellent housekeeper. And 
 here, within the charmed circle of his home, Mr. Blaine was 
 at his very best. He never undertook the slightest care or 
 responsibility concerning the management of household 
 affairs ; was always glad to have some one else assume that. 
 Apprentices in the printing of lice boarded at his house, and 
 he and Mrs. B. were to them a father and mother in all the 
 kindly relations and ministries expected from parents. One 
 young man, of impulsive temperament, gave the family 
 considerable solicitude, on account of keeping late hours, 
 coming home habitually after the other members of the fam 
 ily had retired for the night, and sometimes under the in 
 fluence of liquor. Mr. Blaine resolved to save that young 
 man if possible. He didn t begin by trying to reform him 
 with a club in the side of the head, but he gently persuaded 
 him into the better way. Being himself a thoroughly tem 
 perance man, not keeping in his house even the lightest 
 wines, he could talk to the young man from the correct 
 moral standpoint. He, who was being led on to ruin, be 
 came a man, and is now one of the most successful business 
 
90 TIIK LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 men in the State, and rejoices in every prospect of the priv- 
 ilrge of voting for Mr. Blaine. 
 
 4 Mr. Blaine had no special room assigned as his study, 
 but the dining-room was his editorial-room, where the able 
 Iradrrs , and sharp replies to contemporaries, were written. 
 The meal over, and the cloth removed, Mr. Blaine would 
 bring out his huge sheets of paper, and begin his editorials. 
 Hi- handwriting is bold and pronounced. He never writes 
 or marks proof with a pencil. He never rewrites, but the 
 changes and interlineations are just dreadful. While 
 weaving the thread of his article, he is entirely oblivious of 
 all that is passing about him. He thinks upon his feet, 
 paring the floor before submitting his thoughts to paper. 
 Very little of his editorial-work was done at the Journal 
 otlice. When there, he looked over the newspapers, ex 
 changed cheerful and helpful words with the compositors at 
 the case, and, above all, met his political friends, imbibed 
 their views, and replenished his material for future editorial- 
 work. The inside form of the paper was never made 
 up without his personal supervision. He would stand by 
 tin- foreman and dictate the position of every article, from 
 tlir leader down to the most trivial three-line item. He was 
 so greedy of space, and so anxious to give his readers the 
 largest possible amount of reading, that he frequently had 
 columns of matter left over. 
 
 u Mr. Blaine is the most persistent and tireless worker I 
 tver knew. His ability to stand the strain of intense work, 
 without apparent weariness, is accounted for by the fact that 
 In- is careful of his diet, takes plenty of sleep, and reasonable 
 exercise. 
 
 Nothing malignant about his nature. Absolutely with 
 out malice. Will reward an enemy sooner than punish him. 
 It a man should fight him bitterly to-day, he would be just 
 as likely to do him a favor to-morrow. This has been a 
 source of great annoyance to his steadfast friends. 
 
 Had hr rntered the pulpit, instead of the political arena, 
 thnv would not have been his equal in the profession in the 
 country. Had he chosen a business life, his wealth would 
 have equaled that of Vanderhilt." 
 
 To which may be added this from another neighbor: 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 91 
 
 "A little incident that I noticed fully illustrates the man. 
 A young man was carrying from the chamber of the new 
 part of his house, a barrel rilled with shavings down a lad 
 der (the stairs had not been built then) , the foot of which 
 was obstructed by a lot of rubbish, and some boxes had 
 been so placed on one side as to make temporary steps 
 for the last four or five feet. Mr. Elaine was standing back 
 to the ladder conversing with some one, when the young 
 man, miscalculating his position, instead of stepping oa 
 one of the boxes as he intended to, stepped square on Mr. 
 Elaine s shoulder. Mr. Elaine stood like a soldier at his 
 post, and when the fellow began to apologize, Mr. Elaine s 
 reply was, Oh, never mind, I never step out from under 
 any one who depends On me for support. Eut I should 
 suppose Mr. Elaine had forgotten all about that long ago, 
 only that he seems to remember everything but his enemies, 
 if he ever had any." 
 
92 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAFIER IX. 
 
 Beginning of Political Life. His First Office. His Maider 
 Speech. Election to the Legislature. His Great Diffidence. 
 Compelled to Speak. Development of Genius. His Great 
 Speech on Confiscation in 1862. Opening Fame as a Nation 
 al Man. 
 
 The practical beginning of Elaine s political career was 
 in 1856, when he was elected a delegate to the Republi 
 can National Convention, although his name appears as 
 one of the secretaries of a Republican mass meeting IE 
 Augusta, Aug. 22, 1855. He was but twenty-six years oi 
 age, still exceedingly diffident and unable calmly to face the 
 smallest audience. It is instructive to all and especially 
 encouraging, to talented but bashful young men, to reaci 
 an account by an eye-witness of the reception given the del 
 egation on their return from the Convention. The writer 
 said that : 
 
 "Among the interesting earlier incidents of Mr. Blaine g 
 political career, was his election as a delegate from the 
 third Congressional district to the first Kepnhliran National 
 Convention, in May, 1856, which noininatrd Gen. John C. 
 Freemont to the Presidency. Upon his return from tlu 
 convention a ratification meeting was held in Meonian Hall, 
 Augusta, and upon the urgent insistence of some of his per 
 sonal friends he was persuaded, reluctantly, to appear upon 
 the platform and make report of the doings of the Conven 
 tion. This was his first public effort. He was then twenty- 
 six years of age. Although remarkably ready and easy oi 
 speech and holding a practiced and powerful pen, he had an 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 93 
 
 almost unconquerable repugnance to letting his voice be 
 heard, except in familiar conversation where his brilliant 
 powers of statement and argument, his marvelous memory 
 of dates and events in political history, and his acquaintance 
 with, and keen estimate of the public men and parties of the 
 day, were the delight and wonder of all who listened to him. 
 The writer well recalls the trepidation, at once painful and 
 ludicrous with which he rose to address the meeting. In 
 confronting the sea of faces, almost every one of whom was 
 known to him, he seemed to be struggling to master the ter 
 ror that possessed him. He turned pale and red by turns, 
 and almost tottering to the front, stood trembling until the 
 generous applause which welcomed him had died away, 
 when, by a supreme effort he broke the spell, at first by the 
 utterance of some hesitating words of greeting and thanks, 
 and then gathering confidence, went on with a speech which 
 stirred the audience as with the sound of a trumpet, and 
 held all present in breathless interest and attention to its 
 close. From that moment Mr. Blaine took rank among the 
 most effective popular speakers of the day ; but it may be 
 doubted if among the many maturer efforts of his genius 
 and eloquence upon the political platform or the legislative 
 tribune, he has ever excited an audience to a more pas 
 sionate enthusiasm or left a profounder impression upon the 
 minds and hearts of his hearers. 
 
 It is very pleasant to recall the fact that the writer, upon 
 the occasion referred to, in offering his congratulations to 
 the youthful debutant, predicted for him great success and 
 eminence in public life. He must acknowledge, however, 
 that it never entered his prophetic head, that he should 
 himself live long enough to have the proud privilege of tak 
 ing by the hand again the old friend of nearly a third of a 
 century, now grown gray in the love and service of his 
 country honored and exalted by her for that love and ser 
 vice and congratulate him upon his nomination to the 
 highest post of public duty in the gift of that country, by 
 the great party of which he was one of the fathers and 
 founders." 
 
 In the fall election of 1858, Blaine was elected to the 
 lower House of the Maine Legislature, after the most per- 
 
94 THE I.I IT. ANP 1TBLIC SERVICES 
 
 it urging of his friends to accept the nomination. He 
 was still unable to overcome his extreme trepidation before 
 an audience and his appearance during the local canvass 
 W*t rare and his speeches exceedingly brief. Such as he 
 did venture upon were written out in full and memorized. 
 Committing to memory, however, with Mr. Blaine. was a 
 vi-rv easy matter. His memory was then, and ever has 
 been, a marvel. 
 
 He began his Legislative life modestly and quietly. But 
 the appearance of questions intimately connected with the 
 ivcltare of his constituents, and attacks made upon the party 
 he had assisted into being, compelled him as a conscientious 
 servant of his people,, to stand and speak. Such discipline 
 was all that he needed. Genius for statesmanship was 
 there. Talents lay sleeping in his soul. To awaken them 
 was all he required. 
 
 After he had served one term there was no question with 
 any one but that he could be re-elected so long as he wished. 
 He had an intelligent, appreciative, grateful constituency. 
 They knew when they were faithfully served, and he had 
 satisfied them wholly. 
 
 Four times he was elected to the Legislature, and at the 
 beginning of his third term he was elected Speaker of the 
 Maine House of Representatives and re-elected the follow 
 ing year. Those were eventful years in the history of the 
 Nation and State. 
 
 Illaine was instinctively recognized as a leader and found 
 himself in a most responsible position. As an editor 
 through the summer months and a l-gi>lator through the 
 winter his whole life became centered on public affairs and 
 the nation s good. 
 
 In the session of 1862, when the war and its dreadful 
 consequences agitated the Nation beyond description, Blaine 
 was Speaker of the House. But in a committee of the 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 95 
 
 whole he made a speech which has never been forgotten, 
 and which set him before the people as a National man and 
 secured doubtless his election the next year to Congress. 
 The speech was made in reply to Mr. Gould, of Thomaston, 
 on the Confiscation Resolve, and a full report of it was 
 published in all the papers of that time. The perusal of it 
 by the reader will give a far better idea of Elaine s talents 
 and peculiarities than any description which might be given. 
 It was delivered March 7th, 1862. 
 
 The following resolutions were passed by the Senate of 
 Maine, on the 7th of February, 1862, by yeas 24, nays 4. 
 
 STATE OF MAINE. 
 RESOLVES RELATING TO NATIONAL AFFAIRS. 
 
 Resolved, That we cordially endorse the administration 
 of Abraham Lincoln in the conduct of the war against the 
 wicked and unnatural enemies of the Republic, and that in all 
 its measures calculated to crush this rebellion speedily and 
 finally, the administration is entitled to and will receive the 
 unwavering support of the loyal people of Maine. 
 
 Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress, by such means 
 as will not jeopard the rights and safety of the loyal people 
 of the South, to provide for the confiscation of estates, real 
 and personal, of rebels, and for the forfeiture and liberation 
 of every slave claimed by any person who shall continue in 
 arms against the authority of the United States, or who 
 shall in any manner aid and abet the present wicked and un 
 justifiable rebellion. 
 
 Resolved, That in this perilous crisis of the country, it is 
 the duty of Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional 
 power to "raise and support armies," to provide by law for 
 accepting the services of all able-bodied men of whatever 
 status, and to employ these men in such manner as military 
 necessity and the safety of the Republic may demand. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the 
 Senators and Representatives in Congress from this State, 
 and that they be respectfully requested to use all honorable 
 means to secure the passage of acts embodying their spirit 
 and substance. 
 
THK I. II 1. AM) PUBLIC SKKVICKS 
 
 The Resolutions were sent to the House for concurrence, 
 and were there referred to the Committee of the Whole. 
 OM the f .th and 7th of March, Mr. Gould, of Thomaston, 
 made an elaborate argument against them. At the conclu- 
 MO:I of his remarks he was replied to by Blaine, in the an 
 nexed speech. The Resolutions were subsequently adopted 
 by the House in concurrence with the Senate, by yeas 104, 
 nays *Ji . 
 
 Mr. Chairman : JThe first hour of the seven which the 
 gentleman from Thomaston has consumed I shall pass over 
 with scarcely a comment. It was addressed almost exclu- 
 .-ivelv, and in violation of parliamentary rules, to personal 
 matters between himself and a distinguished citizen from 
 tlu- same section, lately the Gubernatorial Candidate of the 
 Democratic party, and now representing the County of 
 Knox in the other branch of the Legislature (Col. Smart). 
 With that quarrel, here or elsewhere, it would be unseemly 
 for ni- t meddle, and without intending disrespect to either 
 gentleman, I may quote the Grub Street couplet, apt if not 
 elegant, as illustrating my position : 
 
 "For the matter of that I don t care a toss up, 
 Whether Mossup kicks Harry or Barry kicks Mossup." 
 
 And at the game of "kicking," I warn the gentleman 
 from Thomaston, from my own past observation, that he 
 will find the Senator from Knox quite as valiant an adver 
 sary as he will care to encounter. Without further delay 
 on matters personal, I proceed sir, to the discussion of what 
 1 may term the inestimably important question submitted 
 to the judgment of this Legislature. 
 
 I shall best make myself understood, and perhaps most 
 intelligibly respond to the argument of the gentleman from 
 Thoinaston, by discussing the question in its, lM^_pl^tses : 
 first a> to the power of Congress to adopt the measures 
 conceived in the pending Resolutions ; and secondly as to 
 the expediency of adopting them. And at the very outset, 
 I find between the gentleman from Thomaston and myself, 
 a most radical difference as to the "War Power" of the 
 Constitution ; its origin, its extent, and the authority which 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 97 
 
 shall determine *ts action, direct its operation, and fix 
 its limit. /He contends, and he spent some four or five 
 hours in attempting to prove, that the war power in this 
 Government is lodged wholly in the Executive, and in de 
 scribing his almost endless authority he piled Ossa on 
 Pelion until he had made the President under the war 
 power perfectly despotic, with all prerogatives and privi 
 leges concentrated in his own person and then to end the 
 tragedy with a farce, with uplifted hands he reverently 
 thanked God that Abraham Lincoln was not an ambitious 
 villain (like some of his Democratic predecessors, I pre 
 sume) to use this power, trample on the liberties of the 
 nation, erect a throne for himself, and thus add another to 
 the list of usurpers that have disfigured the world s history. 
 That was precisely the line of the gentleman s logic first 
 stripping all the other departments of their proper and con 
 stitutional power, heaping it all on the President and then 
 thanking God that the President does not rule as the ca 
 prices of tyranny might dictate ! Could argumentative 
 nonsense go farther? | 
 
 I dissent from these conclusions of the gentleman. I read 
 the Federal Constitution differently ! I read in the most 
 pregnant and suggestive section of that immortal charter 
 that certain "powers" are declared to belong to Congress. I 
 read therein that "Congress shall have power" among other 
 large grants of authority, "to provide for the common de 
 fense ;" that it shall have power "to declare war, grant let 
 ters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning cap 
 tures on land and water ;" that it shall have power to "raise 
 and support armies," to "provide and maintain a navy," and 
 to "make rules for the government of the land and naval 
 forces ;" and as though these powers were not sufficiently 
 broad and general, the section concludes in its eighteenth 
 subdivision, by declaring that Congress shall have power 
 "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for 
 carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other 
 powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the 
 United States, or in any department or officer thereof." 
 Mark that "in any department or officer thereof!" 
 
 Such are the large grants of war power made specifical 
 ly to Congress in the Federal Constitution ; and to show 
 
98 THE LIFE AM) ITHI.ir SKRVK KS 
 
 you that these irrants were understood to be of indefinite 
 it, hounded and limited only by the law of necessity, I 
 .-hall quote aii authority which tor three-quarters of a <vn- 
 fUry lias received the undivided respect of the nation an 
 authority which has been venerated and accepted by all the 
 most eminent Constitutional lawyers of our country, from 
 Chief ,Ius! ice Marshall, the greatest of our earlier jurists, 
 to Daniel Webster, the greatest of all. I refer to the writ 
 ings of Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist. In the 
 twentv-third number of that great work, Mr. Hamilton dis- 
 cu-.-e- the very question at issue here to-day in reference to 
 the power of the government to defend and preserve u the 
 public peace against internal convulsions" as well as "exter 
 nal attacks." Speaking of the power to provide for the 
 common defense" specifically declared in the Constitution 
 it>elf. as I have above quoted, u to be a Congressional pow 
 er," Mr. Hamilton says : 
 
 The authorities essential to the care of the common de 
 fense, an- these: to raise armies ; to build and equip fleets ; 
 to prescribe rules for the government of both ; to direct their 
 operations; to provide for their support. These powers 
 ought to exist without limitation ; because it is impossible 
 to foresee or to define the extent and variety ot national ex 
 igences, and the correspondent extent and variety of the 
 means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The cir 
 cumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite ; 
 and for this reason, no constitutional shackels can wisely be 
 imposed <>\\ the power to which the care of it is committed. 
 This power ou-ht to be co-extensive with all the possible 
 combination- of such circumstances, and ought to be under 
 the direction of the same councils which are appointed to 
 preside o\i-r the common defense. 
 
 "Thi.- i> one of tho.-i- truths which, to a correct and un 
 prejudiced mind, carries its own evidence along with it ; and 
 may be obscured, but cannot be made plainer by argument 
 or reasoning. It rest.- upon axioms, as simple a< they are 
 universal the mean- ou^ht to be proportioned to the end ; 
 the persons from whose agency the attainment of any end 
 i- xpected. ought to po.-.-i-.-s the means by which it is to be 
 attained. 
 
 . . . And unless it can be shown, that the circumstances 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 99 
 
 which may affect the public safety, are reducible with cer 
 tain determinate limits ; unless the contrary of this position 
 can be fairly and rationally disputed, it must be admitted as 
 a necessary consequence that there can be no limitation of 
 that authority, which is to provide for the defense and 
 protection of the community, in any matter essential to its 
 efficacy." 
 
 The great respect due to the quotation I have just made, 
 comes in the first place from the eminent character of the 
 man who wrote it. It gives an enhanced force from the 
 fact that the author assisted in framing the Constitution 
 whose meaning he was so clearly expounding ; and in the 
 third place it is of especial value from the circumstance that 
 it was written pending the adoption of the Constitution, and 
 as an inducement to the people to ratify it. It is to be noted, 
 moreover, that Mr. Hamilton was the acknowledged leader 
 of the Federal party of that day a party accused, and per 
 haps justly, of wishing to vest all the power possible in the 
 hands of the President ; and yet this Prince of Federalists 
 oncedg^^ilrather I should say specifically asserts, that the 
 principles on which any war shall be conducted, whether 
 against "internal convulsions" or "external attack," shall 
 be determined by Congress. 
 
 And I beg you further to observe, Mr. Chairman, that at 
 the very time Mr. Hamilton was penning and publishing the 
 words I have quoted, Patrick Henry, the leading spirit of 
 the Republicans, who opposed the Federal Constitution, and 
 who wellnigh succeeded in defeating the adoption of that 
 instrument in Virginia, stood up in the Convention of that 
 State, and in a speech of such power as only he could com 
 mand, grounded his opposition on the fact that this large 
 grant of power was made to Congress. And he appealed 
 with vehement warmth to the slaveholding interests, then, 
 as now, so sensitive as to its presumed rights and dangers, 
 warning them, and bidding them remember that in certain 
 contingencies and exigencies, "Congress could under the 
 war power of the Constitution, abolish slavery in all the 
 States." 
 
 We thus have, Mr. Chairman, as contemporaneous expo 
 sitions of the Constitution, the expressed opinions of the 
 leading Federalist and a leading Republican of that era a 
 
100 TIIK KMT. AM> rrm.K BBRYICEfl 
 
 supporter and a loading opponent both eminent, 
 both hone*, the one supporting, the other opposing, for pre- 
 ei>rlv tlu same reasons an agreement of testimony as 
 marked as it is conclusive. 
 
 At thf origin of our government, Mr. Chairman, the 
 people were jealous of their liberties ; they gave power 
 guardedly and grudgingly to their rulers ; they were hostile, 
 above all things, to what is termed the one-man power, and 
 you cannot but observe with what peculiar care they provided 
 against il abuse "fiia- war power. For after giving Con- 
 ""gressthe power "to declare war, and "to raise and support 
 armies." they added in the Constitution these remarkable 
 and emphatic words, "but no appropriation of money to 
 that use shall be for a longer term than two years," which 
 is precisely the period for which the Representatives in the 
 popular branch are chosen. Thus, sir, this power was not 
 gi\en to Congress simply, but in effect it was given to the 
 House of Representatives ; the people placing it where they 
 could lay their hands directly upon it at every biennial elec 
 tion, and say "yes" or "no" to the principles or policy of 
 anv war. And it is worthy of note that this popular con 
 trol is secured at every corner and through every loophole 
 of the Constitution ; for not only do the people in their pri 
 mary capacity, by direct suffrage, elect their Representa 
 tives every two years, but in a case of a vacancy happening, 
 no power, save that of the people themselves is able to h ll 
 it. It vacancy happens in the Senate, the Governor of a 
 State may appoint a successor till the Legislature meet. 
 lint it it occur "in the representation of any State" the Con 
 stitution >imply declares that the executive authority of such 
 State "shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancy," 
 leaving to the people directly the choice of the Representa- 
 ti\e. It i- moreover declared in the Constitution, "that all 
 bills tor iwenne shall originate in the House of Representa- 
 ti\es,"thus giving again to popular control the power of 
 the "purse," which is superior to the power of the "sword," 
 as without, the sword has "neither force nor edge." Talk, 
 sir, as the gentleman from Thomaston has, for so many 
 hours, about the war power being lodged exclusively in the 
 1 -ident ! Why Mich an :is>-rtioii i- the acme of nonsense. 
 "Without the assent of Congiv there can be no war, and 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 101 
 
 Congress can stop the war at any moment it chooses. With 
 out the assent of Congress, and the supply of money by 
 Congress, your quartermaster can give you no transporta 
 tion ; your commissary cannot issue a ration ; your chief of 
 ordnance cannot furnish a cartridge ; your paymaster can 
 not give a private a single month s wages. As the House of 
 Commons, sir, in England controls the aristocratic Chamber 
 of Lords, and holds in check the power of the Throne, by 
 having the exclusive right to originate ^supply bills," so, 
 sir, our House of Representatives, through the right to orig 
 inate bills of revenue, causes the fresh and vigorous voice 
 of the people to be heard against the long-tenured power of 
 Senators and the individual wishes of the Executive. And 
 in attempting to strip the Representative branch of this, its 
 rightful prerogative, and the thousand incidental powers de 
 rived from it, and through it, the gentleman from Thomas- 
 ton has aimed to curtail the power of the people, and to give 
 to the whims and preferences it may be, of a single man, 
 what was intended to be, and must of right continue to be, 
 for the arbitrament and deliberate decision of the people of 
 the entire nation. 
 
 In all that I am thus maintaining in regard to the supreme 
 war power of Congress, I make no conflict between that and 
 the Executive power, which in war, as well as in all matters 
 of civil administration, belongs to the President. The ques 
 tion at issue between the gentleman from Thomaston and 
 myself is not whether the President has power of great mag 
 nitude in the conduct of a war, for that I readily admit, or 
 rather I stoutly affirm ; but the point at issue is, which is 
 superior in authority, Congfess or the President? I think 
 I have shown that the Constitution vests the supreme unlim 
 ited power in Congress, and that the President must obey 
 the direction of Congress, as the chief executive officer of 
 the nation, and at the same time he must be held accounta 
 ble for the mode in which his subordinate officers execute 
 the trusts confided to them. There can be no confusion of 
 ideas as to the proper metes and bounds of this authority, 
 and I am quite sure that this war will progress to a successful 
 conclusion, without the conflict of authority under discus 
 sion being even once practically developed. I need say no 
 more on this point than simply to introduce an illustration 
 
lllj THK UFK AND ITlil.U SKKVICES 
 
 of how the power of Congress is felt in proscribing rules 
 for tin- government of tin- land and naval forces." Until 
 quite recently many of the commanding generals have been 
 in the habit of returning fugitive slaves that sought refuge 
 in their camps. Congress considering such a practice to be 
 ndal on our civilization, has just directed that it shall 
 . and the President, as the executive officer of the na- 
 tion. i- charged with the enforcement of the will of Con- 
 is in the premises. With that conclusive example of the 
 exercise of Congressional power, which I have been dis- 
 cu.->ing. I leave this branch of the subject. - 
 
 Mr. Chairman, upon an analysis of the different positions 
 held by the gentleman from Thomaston and myself, on the 
 various questions suggested by the resolves under discus 
 sion. I find that after proper elimination the points at issue 
 -may .fairly be reducedjo two. The first, as to wherein the 
 war power of tin- (iovernment is lodged, has been examined, 
 and 1 have attempted to demonstrate that the Constitution 
 it in Congress. I shall have more to say on this topic 
 n- I progress in my remarks. The other point at issue has 
 reference to the relations that IIQW exist between the Gov 
 ernment of the United States and the so-called Confederate 
 States. 
 
 The gentleman from Thomaston has quoted the Treason 
 clause of the Constitution, and has elaborately argued that 
 the armed rebels in the South have still the full right to the 
 protection of property guaranteed therein, and that any con- 
 li-ration of their property or estates by any other process 
 than is there laid down would be unconstitutional. I am 
 endeavoring t- Mate the position of the gentleman with en- 
 tin- candor, a.- 1 dr-iiv to meet this argument throughout in 
 that spirit. I maintain, sir, in opposition to this view, that 
 we derive the right to confiscate the property and liberate 
 the slaves of rebels from a totally different source. I main 
 tain that to-dav u e are in a state, of civil war, civil war, 
 too. of the mo.-t gigantic proportions. And 1 think it will 
 Strike this House as a singular and most significant confes 
 sion of the unsoundness of the gentleman s argument, that 
 to Mistain his position he had to denv that we are engaged 
 in civil war at all. He stated, much to the amusement of 
 the Ilou>e, I think, that it was not a civil war because Jeff 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 103 
 
 Davis was not seeking to wrest the Presidential chair from 
 Abraham Lincoln, but simply to carry off a portion of the 
 Union in order to form a separate government. Pray, sir, 
 is not Abraham Lincoln the rightful President of the whole 
 country and of all the States, and is it not interfering as 
 much with his constitutional prerogative to dispute his au 
 thority in Georgia or Louisiana as it would be to dispute it 
 in Maine or Pennsylvania ? Could absurdity go farther than 
 the gentleman has carried it in taking this ridiculous posi 
 tion:? " Sir, what constitutes a civil war? That is settled 
 by International Law ; and I am but repeating a principal 
 familiar to every schoolboy when I read from Vattel the 
 following pertinent declarations which I venture to say were 
 never disputed and never will be by any one except the gen 
 tleman from Thomaston : V. 
 
 "When a party is formed in a State, which no longer 
 obeys the sovereign, and is of a strength sufficient to make 
 head against him; or when, in a republic, the nation is 
 divided into tivo opposite factions, and both sides takes arms, 
 this is called civil war. . . . The sovereign indeed never fails 
 to term rebels all subjects openly resisting him ; but when 
 these become of strength sufficient to oppose him, so that he 
 finds himself compelled to make war regularly oil them, he 
 must be contented with the term civil luar." 
 
 And as we are engaged in civil war what is the result? 
 Why simply that the contest must be carried on as between 
 foreign parties, and on that point I again quote Vattel : 
 
 " Whenever a numerous party thinks it has a right to re 
 sist the sovereign, and finds itself able to declare that opinion 
 sword in hand, tlie war is to be carried on between them in 
 the same manner as betiveen two different nations." 
 
 And I maintain, sir, that to-day we are practicing pre 
 cisely on that principle. On what other ground do we send 
 back thousands of traitors taken with arms in their hands, 
 as exchanged prisoners, instead of indicting, trying and 
 Ranging them? On what other ground are we continually 
 receiving and sending flags of truce ? Ouiwhat other ground 
 did that arrant traitor Ho well Cobb come down only last 
 week to Fortress Monroe and hold a parley with General 
 Wool as to a systematic exchange of prisoners? On what 
 
104 Hi; I.IFK AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 >und do we blockadr their ports? On what -other 
 ground Kgre we compelled, with no little humiliation, to 
 give up Slidell and Mason? On what other ground did 
 -ident Lincoln but a few days since order that the scoun 
 drels taken from the piratical privateers of Jeff Davis 
 should he removed from Moyamensing Jail and treated as 
 prisoners of war? This, Sir, was the last as it was the 
 greatest concession, and it leaves us to-day in the attitude of 
 practically conceding, without formally granting, to the so- 
 called Confederate States the same rights of war that we 
 would accord to any belligerent power, and I understand 
 the gentleman from Thomaston to approve this course? 
 (Mr. Gould nodded assent.) And yet, Mr. Chairman, 
 while giving to these armed traitors all these rights and im 
 munities, the gentleman tells you that Congress shall not 
 authorize the confiscation of the property or the liberation 
 of the slaves of a single rebel except by "due process of law." 
 
 fin other words, the gentleman gives to the traitors the protec 
 tion of belligerents outside or independent of the Constitu 
 tion, and of loyal citizens inside or under the Constitution 
 
 i at one and the same time. And he denies the right of our 
 Government to proceed against them by virtue of any rights 
 acquired from the belligerent attitude of the parties, or in 
 deed, to (mote his exact words, in any mode than by "due 
 pro.-,--- of law." In other words, the gentleman gives every 
 a<l\antage to the rebels and imposes every disability on the 
 Federal Government, and in assuming this ground I charge 
 the gentleman with having advocated the cause of Jeff 
 Da\ i- just as effectually as though he had appeared here as 
 his avowed champion with a retainer in his pocket from that 
 Prince of Rebels. Sir, I am in favor of conducting this 
 contest effectively and honorably ; and I perceive and think 
 I appreciate the policy which our government, however re 
 luctantly, has adopted in carrying on hostilities with the 
 ordinary u.-ages and principles of war. Indeed, after the 
 rebellion as-umed its collossal proportions it was quite im- 
 pi> ihle to do otherwise without encountering numberless 
 and insuperable emharra.-.-iiients. All that I a.-k, sir, is that 
 \\ e shall have as g.n.d a- we give, and that since we are fonvd 
 to treat these rebels as public enemies and incur all the dis 
 advantages resulting therefrom, we shall at least have the cor- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 105 
 
 responding advantages that logically pertain to our position, 
 and shall in consequence thereof exercise and enforce the 
 rights of war against the so-called Confederates so long as 
 the state of war continues. 
 
 Of course this position does not imply that the only rights 
 we have against these rebels are those of belligerence or 
 war ; nor does it exclude us from asserting the higher rights 
 of sovereignty whenever they can be made effective. By no 
 means. Even the sweeping quotation I have made from 
 Vattel is restricted by the same writer in a clause immedi 
 ately following, to the time during which the war continues. 
 That celebrated author is careful to state, and I quote his 
 exact language, that the sovereign authority "having con 
 quered the opposite party and reduced it to sue for peace, 
 may except from the amnesty the authors of the trouble and 
 the heads of the party; may bring them to a legal trial, and 
 on conviction punish them. So that by the law of nations 
 and the law of common sense, we have as against the rebels 
 the rights both of belligerence and sovereignty the latter 
 class of rights being incapable of enforcement at present, 
 and so remaining until they are vindicated and re-established 
 through the rights and powers of belligerence, lln addition 
 to the authority of Vattel, which I have quoted, I am glad 
 to be able to refer to a very recent opinion from one of the 
 most eminent Constitutional lawyers in New England, in 
 support of my position. I refer to a decision of Judge 
 Sprague in a recent prize case in the U. S. District Court 
 in Boston. That eminent jurist laid it down as an indis 
 putable doctrine of law, that to-day we have as against the 
 so-called Confederate States all the rights of belligerence 
 and sovereignty too thus sustaining not only in effect, but 
 in precision of language, the principles I have quoted from 
 Vattel ; and which I have labored to establish as essential 
 to sound views and conclusions on the important subject 
 under discussion. 
 
 And here, Sir, in pursuance of the principles I have enun 
 ciated, I lay down the proposition as broadly as my language 
 can express it, that every power and prerogative which the 
 Federal Go vernment would rightfully possess in war, as 
 against England, France, Brazil, Mexico, or any other for 
 eign power, it does this day possess as against the so-called 
 
106 THE LIFE AND 1TBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Confederate States. And I challenge any gentleman suc- 
 illv to refute that proposition ! But the moment these 
 war powers are carrit l to the destruction or forfeiture of 
 tin- propcrtv of a rebel, the gentleman from Thomaston cries 
 out i hat the Constitution of the United States is violated in 
 the M-ction where Congress is prohibited forfeiting property 
 exi-ept during the life of the person attainted" of treason. 
 
 I tell the gentleman, that the operation of that clause of 
 the Constitution is one governing the civil tribunals of the 
 land, when- courts are in session, juries empaneled, preee] -is 
 served, and the process of law unobstructed. If he contends 
 that it is applicable to a condition of things wherein the 
 civil power of the Government has ceased to be operative 
 in eleven States, he must contend by parity of reasoning 
 that every other provision of the Constitution is equally 
 operative, and that the state of belligerence does not super 
 vene with its own well-defined and self-protective laws. If 
 lie takes this ground, and there is none other left him, I ask 
 him. and 1 want an answer, whence is derived the power 
 to blockade the ports of the Rebel States? 
 
 The Constitution of the United States says expressly that 
 *n<> preference shall be given to the ports of one State over 
 those of another." And yet directly in the face of this in 
 hibition, a blockade of the most rigorous character has been 
 instituted by which Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, 
 and all other Southern ports are cut off from all commerce, 
 while New York, Boston, Portland, and all other loyal ports 
 are left in the free and unrestricted enjoyment of trade. 
 Whence is the power derived to do this? The gentleman 
 does not answer. Is it an unconstitutional act because in 
 apparent conflict with the letter of one section of that in- 
 Mrunient How can the gentleman justify the act, other 
 than by the war power of the liovernment blockading the 
 port- of the >o-called Confederate States, just as we did the 
 ports of Mexico when at war with that power? 
 
 I a.-sert then, again Sir, that we have as a government, 
 all the rights of war against the so-called Confederate States 
 so long as they are in rebellion, .-word in hand, and 1 assert 
 that this proposition is not only unanswered but unanswer 
 able. Now. Sir. what are these rights? I have no desire 
 to inflict upon this House lengthy readings: from Vattel, and 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 107 
 
 Grotius, and Phillimore, and Wheaton, and Kent upon 
 points of international law all of which authors are lying 
 here before me. I content myself with asserting what will 
 not be denied, that the right of indemnification from the 
 property of the enemy for the expenses of the war is clearly 
 recognized by all the standard authorities, j You may seize 
 whatever is essential to the support of your army and con 
 vert it to your use. You may take his horses and his 
 mules ; his houses and his crops ; his slaves and his depend 
 ents, and use them just in such manner consistent with 
 humanity as may conduce to your triumph and reimburse 
 you for your outlays. 
 
 The gentleman from Thomaston seemed by his remarks 
 to have a great admiration for Gen. Halleck, and in that I 
 most cordially sympathize ; now I should like the gentle 
 man to tell me by what particular provision of the Federal 
 Constitution General Halleck has been exacting contribu 
 tions from Messrs. A. B. and C., leading secessionists in 
 St. Louis, for the support of Union men who have been 
 driven from their homes and hearths by the myrmidons of 
 Price and McCulloch? Does the gentleman pretend that 
 this money was taken from these secessionists by "due pro 
 cess of law," or was it taken under the war power which 
 Alexander Hamilton said could have no "-constitutional 
 shackles whatever?" Why, Sir, if the argument of the 
 gentleman was carried to its legitimate conclusion, your 
 Union armies could not shoot a single rebel nor imprison a 
 single traitor, for the Constitution declares that u no person 
 shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due 
 process of law." To assume the ground of the gentleman 
 from Thomaston with its legitimate sequences, is practically 
 to give up the contest. For he tells you, and he certainly 
 repeated it a score of times, that you caimot deprive these 
 rebels of their property except "by due process of law, "and 
 at the same time he confesses that within the rebel territory 
 it is impossible to serve any pivropt or enforce any verdict. 
 He at the same time declares that we have not belligerent 
 rights because the contest is not a civil war. Pray what 
 Vind of a war is it? The gentleman acknowledges that the 
 rebels are traitors, and if so they must be engaged in some 
 kind of war, because the Constitution declares that "treason 
 
108 THE LIrE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 against the 1 nited States shall consist only in levying war 
 against tin-in." It is therefore war on their side. It must 
 also he war on ours, and if so, what kind of war? 
 
 Mr. Gould rose and said that he would define it as domes 
 tic war. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Elaine (resuming) : 
 
 / Domestic war ! that s it ! Well, Mr. Chairman, we shall 
 I learn something before this discussion is over. Domestic 
 /war ! I have heard of domestic woolens, domestic sheetings, 
 and domestic felicity, but a "domestic war" is something 
 entirely new under the sun. All the writers of interna 
 tional law that I have ever read, speak of two kinds of 
 war, foreign and civil. Vattel will, I suppose, have a new 
 edition with annotations by Gould, in which domestic 
 war" will be definecl and illustrated as a contest not quite 
 foreign, not quite civil, but one in which the rebelious party 
 have at one and the same time all the rights of peaceful citi- 
 - and all . the immunities of alien enemies for that is 
 pivci-ely what the gentleman by his argument claims for the 
 Southern secessionists. 
 
 liut. Sir, I have been digressing. The line of my argu 
 ment was leading me to show the rights of war as defined 
 and accorded by international law having already demon 
 strated that whatever these rights may be we have them to 
 day a- aj.iiiist the so-called Confederate States. I have 
 briefly Mated what these rights are in respect to the property 
 of the enemy, as defined in books of European and Ameri 
 can authority. I propose in addition to show what we as a 
 nation have construed them to be in practice. I propose to 
 show t tin- House that in the Mexican war our Govern 
 ment, through instructions issuing from the War Depart- 
 inent, then presided over by one of the most eminent of 
 American statesmen (the late ( io\ rnor Marey) , sanctioned 
 the very doctrines I have advocated. 
 
 In a letter of instruction to General Taylor. September 
 J-J. 1*1:. Governor Marey laid down the principle that "an 
 invading army has the unquestionable ri.irht to draw its sup 
 plies from the enemy without paying for them, and to re 
 quire contributions for its support and to make the enemy 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 109 
 
 feel the weight oj the ivar;" and General Taylor was accord 
 ingly instructed to proceed in the campaign on this principle. 
 
 A few months later President Polk, in a letter to his Sec 
 retary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker, maintained "the 
 right of the conqueror to levy contributions on the enemy 
 in their seaports, towns or provinces, and to apply the same 
 to defray the expenses of the war." And on this principle 
 he seized the Mexican custom-houses, levied the duties and 
 turned all the receipts into the coffers of the Union, and in 
 his own language, in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, 
 March 31, 1847, Mr. Polk "claimed and exercised this as 
 a belligerent right." 
 
 Now, Sir, against the Mexicans this was an indisputably 
 proper exercise of the belligerent power. Viewed external 
 ly, other nations could do nothing else than acquiesce in it. 
 But from an internal point of view, a very grave question 
 arose in regard to it, and it was the same which divides the 
 gentleman from Thomaston and myself in one branch of 
 this discussion to-day. And that question was whether the 
 President had the right to direct the seizure of the custom 
 houses, and this collection of duties, or whether it was a 
 matter belonging primarily and exclusively to Congress, as 
 the war-making power of the Government, entitled to "pre 
 scribe rules concerning captures on land and water. The 
 subject was discussed with some warmth at the time in both 
 branches of Congress, and though Mr. Polk s course was 
 sustained by the partizan majority in both Senate and 
 House, the weight of the argument was clearly against him 
 Mr. Webster demonstrating with his ponderous logic that 
 the power did not belong to the President. The subject was 
 of such importance as to call for notice and discussion in the 
 late edition of Kent s Commentaries, where, after minutely 
 stating what President Polk had done, the learned commen 
 tator makes the following remarks : 
 
 "All these rights of war undoubtedly belong to the con 
 queror or nation who holds foreign places and countries by 
 conquest ; but the exercise of those rights and powers, ex 
 cept those that temporarily arise from necessity, belong to 
 that power in the government to which the prerogative of 
 war is constitutionally confided. * These fiscal 
 
 and commercial relations, issued and enforced at the mere 
 
110 THE LIFE AND ITBLIC SERVICES 
 
 pleasure of a President, would seem to press strongly upon 
 tin- constitutional power of Congress to raise and support 
 annio, to lay and collect taxes, duties, and imports, and to 
 regulate commerce with foreign nations, and to declare- war, 
 and make rules for the government and regulation of the 
 land and water, and to define offenses against the law of 
 nations. Though the Constitution vests the executive power 
 in the Piv>ident, and declares him to be commander-in-chief 
 of the army and navy of the United States, these powers 
 must necessarily be subordinate to the legislative power in 
 Congress. It would appear to me to be the policy or true 
 construction of this simple and general grant of executive 
 power to the President, not to suffer it to interfere with 
 those specific powers of Congress, which are more safely 
 deposited in the legislative department, and that the powers 
 thus assumed by the President do not belong to him but to 
 Congress." 
 
 I very much fear that the extensive law library of the 
 gentleman from Thomaston, is not graced with the latest 
 edition of Kent, or he would hardly have ventured to lay 
 down doctrines and principles which are so signally denied 
 and rebuked in that peerless authority. 
 
 And this construction, enunciated by Webster and Kent, 
 I maintain. Sir, is understood to be the doctrine of President 
 Lincoln, whom the gentleman has endeavored so ingeniously 
 to misrepresent in his argument, and to damage by his sup 
 port. The gentleman stated that the President had reversed 
 General Fremont s order of confiscation because of its inex 
 pediency and tendency to "raise a great row." The simple 
 fact of the record is, and that is all we have to appeal to, 
 that the President stated in his letter to General Fremont, 
 that "he thought it proper to adhere to, and not transcend, 
 the law of Congress," and as General Fremont s order did 
 transcend the confiscation act of the extra session of Con 
 gress, it was directed that it be changed to conform to it. 
 The meaning of this declaration of the President was that 
 Congress only had the right to do that which General Fre 
 mont proposed to do in his proclamation. And this meaning 
 wa> made still more distinctly manifest by the following un 
 equivocal declarations in the message of the President at 
 the beginning of the present session of Congress. I quote : 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. HI 
 
 U I have, in every case, thought it proper to keep the in 
 tegrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the 
 contest on our part, leaving all questions which are not of 
 vital military importance to the more deliberate action of 
 the Legislature. 
 
 "So also obeying the dictate of providence as well as the 
 obligations of law, instead of transcending I have adhered 
 to the act of Congress to confiscate property used for insur 
 rectionary purposes. If a new law upon the same subject 
 shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly considered. The 
 Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means 
 must be employed." 
 
 Gen. Halleck, who is no less a lawyer than a military 
 chieftain, has deliberately expressed the opinion that he has 
 no right to liberate a single negro, except as authorized 
 to do so by the war power of Congress thereby very clear 
 ly and closely following the admirable exposition of the 
 Constitution, as laid down in the famous case of Brown vs. 
 the United States by Chief Justice Marshall. 
 
 John Quincy Adams, a name reverenced wherever popu 
 lar liberty has an advocate, laid down the following propo 
 sition on the floor of the House of Representatives : 
 
 "From the instant that your slave-holding States become 
 the theater of war, civil or foreign, from that instant, the 
 war powers of Congress extend to interference with the in 
 stitution of slavery, in every way in which it can be inter 
 fered with from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or 
 destroyed, to the cession of the State burdened with slavery 
 to a foreign power. 
 
 If civil war come, if insurrection come, is this beleaguered 
 Capital, is this besieged Government to see millions of its 
 subjects in arms, and have no right to break the fetters 
 which they are forging into swords ? No ! The war pow 
 er of the Government can sweep this institution into the 
 Gulf." 
 
 And, sir, in a House full of the most brilliant Southern 
 lawyers, Wise, and Dromgoole, and Rhett, and Marshall 
 among them, not one dared to dispute the proposition. 
 Mark the extent to which Mr. Adams carries the war 
 power of Congress "even to the cession of the State bur 
 dened with slavery to a foreign power !" 
 
112 II IK LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 The mail of last evening. Sir. added to tin* list of authori- 
 ti-> one which is entitled to eminent respect, and one which 
 I j , ciallv commend to the gentleman from Thomaston as 
 _ > Mindly Democratic. I refer to a letter of the vener- 
 ahle Amns Kendall, one of a series which he is addressing 
 to Piv.-ident Lincoln. He is contending against the propo 
 rtion tor universal emancipation, slaves of loyal and dis- 
 loval alike, as being wrong in policy and unjust towards 
 good citizens. He urges a different course, and asks the 
 extivmc emancipationists to direct their enginery against 
 tin- slaves of rebels only that being clearly within their 
 power. I quote Mr. Kendall s closing paragraph: 
 
 Patriotic men may well differ as to the extent to which 
 the punishment of treason shall be carried. The extreme 
 emancipationists may, if they choose, insist that it shall be 
 carried to the extent of confiscating and setting free all the 
 slaves of rebels. That they may do without assailing any 
 jn-inciple of the Constitution, and surely they would be much 
 >t longer on that ground than any other. Why, then, should 
 they abandon the Constitution, and place themselves on 
 revolutionary ground? Why not act with cordiality with 
 those who are striving to maintain the Constitution as it is; 
 ami, that being accomplished, seek the consummation of their 
 ends by means of confiscation under authority?" 
 
 Mr. Kendall thus assumes as a proposition which no one 
 will dispute, that Congress has the power to liberate the 
 slaves of rebels. The gentleman from Thomaston stub 
 bornly contends that Congress has no such power under the 
 Constitution, and that if it should attempt to go a pin s 
 point beyond the Constitution, Congress would become as 
 much a traitor as Jeff Davis and his confederates in guilt. 
 Tin- gentleman s argument, then, is simply this, and nothing 
 more and nothing less, viz., that we have no power to con- 
 li.-cate the slaves of rebels that it would be treason to as 
 sume this power, which could in no event be justified. What 
 is the inf civiHv? fWhy simply that if it come to a ques 
 tion between sacrificing slavery or sacrificing the Union, the 
 jreiitleman sacrifices the Union, lu-caiise lie can find no con 
 stitutional power to save it. He teds badly over it ; he 
 wrings his hands with impotent regret, but not having the 
 constitutional power to do the only thing which might 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 113 
 
 become necessary to save the Union, he must "let it 
 slide." ^ 
 
 His rules of statesmanship in this matter are equal in 
 wisdom to the rules of etiquette which forbade the French 
 man drowning in the river from calling on a passer-by to 
 rescue him, because he did not enjoy the acquaintance of 
 the gentleman, and such a liberty would be improper ! The 
 difference between myself and the gentleman from Thom 
 as ton is very wide and at the same time very simple. As 
 between Slavery and the Union he, by his logic, goes for 
 sustaining the first at the sacrifice of the second ; whereas I 
 go for smiting the first if it stand in the way of the salva 
 tion of the second. That is the whole thing in a nutshell ! 
 
 The gentleman strove elaborately to prove that this Gov 
 ernment, this Nation, this great American people have no 
 right to do anything not distinctly warranted in the Federal 
 Constitution. Sir, no position could be more radically erro 
 neous, and that false premise is the corner-stone of error on 
 which the gentleman has reared such a superstructure of 
 wrong deductions and conclusions. I affirm, Sir, in oppo 
 sition to this assumption, that the American people have 
 rights which are anterior to and wholly independent of the 
 Constitution ; and I affirm moreover that while that precious 
 instrument will continue to be, God grant for these many 
 generations, the rule of our civil administration, yet that 
 over it and under it and outside of it and above it there is 
 engraven on the hearts of this people that God-given right, 
 that great precept of nature, "Save thyself!" And I 
 maintain, Sir, that the great law of self-preservation which 
 in the individual knows no limit but necessity, is even 
 stronger in a nation, by as much as the interests and im 
 portance of a nation transcend those of an individual. In 
 the magnificent paragraph which in the earlier part of my 
 remarks I quoted from Mr. Hamilton, this self-evident truth 
 is thus tersely enunciated: "The circumstances that en 
 danger the safety of nations are infinite ; and for this reason 
 no constitutional shackles can be wisely imposed on the 
 power to which the care of it is committed." 
 
 There was one error, Mr. Chairman, which seemed to 
 haunt the gentleman very persistently throughout the entire 
 thread of his argument and that was the alleged impossi- 
 
114 TIIK I.I IT. AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 hility of bringing tin- war power to bear against the rebels 
 without first conceding that they had actually carried their 
 states out of tlu- I nion. He stated many times that if the 
 Kel.el States are integral members of the Union, the con 
 test with the rebels themselves cannot be carried on as a 
 war, and that conversely to concede that it is war, is to con 
 cede that the States have actually seceded and set up a sepa 
 rate power. No ^tatement could be jftoj;&.Absw41y falla 
 cious or amusingly ridiculous, as the gentleman himself will 
 Bee hv the most casual recurrence to fundamental principles. 
 The State cannot be compromised or destroyed by the wrong 
 ful acts of never so large a majority of its people. The wrong 
 doers by the very force of their numbers may and do acquire 
 certain immunities against individual punishment as I have 
 already shown, but they do not acquire the right to change 
 the relations of the State.) I maintain as stoutly as he does, 
 that Virginia and Tennessee, and all the rest of the eleven, 
 are to-day States in the Union, and that the Constitution 
 and laws of the Nation are operative within their bor 
 ders. A rebellious force, however, having risen to such 
 strength as. to thwart the civil power and prevent the actual 
 operation of the laws, it is the duty of the Nation through 
 the war power to vindicate its authority, so that a Consti 
 tution which is operative may be made actually operating, 
 and that laws which are in force may be really enforced. 
 The gentleman s laborious effort, therefore, to demolish the 
 theory of Senator Sumner in regard to the suicide of the 
 Rebel States, has no pertinency whatever in this discussion. 
 All the positions I have assumed, and all the arguments I 
 have made use of to sustain these positions, have expres.-ly 
 negatived the theory of Mr. Sumner, and therefore I am 
 not called upon to notice it further. I have merely to say 
 in leaving this topic that the argument which maintains that 
 the States would have to be out of the Union, before a con- 
 te>t with their rebellious inhabitants could be conducted as 
 a civil war, is nothing short of an Irish bull of the most 
 grotesque description. If the States are not members of 
 the t nion they are a foreign power, and of course a con 
 test with their people could not In- a civil war. The very 
 e.-.-ence of a civil war consists in its being a strife between 
 members properly subject to the same sovereign authority. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 115 
 
 | And the dilemma herein suggested, ridiculous if not con- 
 ; temptible, is the same which has driven the gentleman to 
 \ deny, as he has done, that this contest is either a "foreign 
 war" or a "civil war." He had to manufacture a new kind 
 of war "domestic" he styled it in order, as he hoped, 
 to escape the absurd conclusions which some of his propo 
 sitions led to. The gentleman setting out with radically 
 erroneous premises could do nothing else than wander aAvay 
 from the landmarks of truth and sound logic and there he 
 continues to wander "in endless mazes lost." 
 
 I have now, Sir, at somewhat greater length than I de 
 signed when I rose, discussed the question of constitutional 
 power, so far as it is brought into issue by the pending re 
 solves. I have endeavored to establish as essential to the 
 maintenance of my position two propositions : First, that 
 the war power of this Government is lodged in Congress ; 
 and second, that under every principle and every precedent 
 of international law the Government of the United States 
 while sovereign over all, has, so long as the rebellion en 
 dures, all the rights of war against those who in armed force 
 are seeking the life of the nation. If I have established 
 these propositions, I have demonstrated the amplest power 
 to adopt the measures proposed in the Resolves before us. 
 If we have these powers we may do with and towards the 
 rebels of the Confederate States, so-called, precisely as we 
 would and did towards Mexico ; and I have given the au 
 thority of Hamilton, and Kent, and Webster, and John 
 Quincy Adams, and President Lincoln, to show that the 
 specific line of policy as regards the property of the enemy 
 is to be dictated by Congress. With this brief summary I 
 proceed to discuss the second branch of my subject, which 
 has reference to the expediency of adopting the resolves be 
 fore us. 
 
 The first resolve, endorsing the Administration in gen 
 eral terms, is, I believe, not objected to in any quarter, and 
 is not in dispute between the gentleman from Thomaston 
 and myself. The only objection I have to it, is that it is 
 cold, and stiff and fprmal, whereas to reflect my feelings it 
 should be warm and cordial and unreserved. I am for the 
 " Administration through and through being an early and 
 unflinching believer in the ability, the honesty and patriot- 
 
116 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 ism of Abraham Lincoln, I did in my humble sphere, both 
 with pen and tongue, all I could to promote his election ; 
 and while I was thus engaged the gentleman was denounc 
 ing him as a Black Republican and an Abolitionist and a 
 Disunionist. 
 
 Mr. Gould rose and denied that he had done so. 
 
 Mr. Hlaine. Well, it is rather late to correct the record. 
 All the gentleman s political associations in the campaign 
 were with the most virulent revilers of Lincoln and Hanil in, 
 and if he did not personally and publicly indulge in these 
 slang charges and epithets, it was because he did not mount 
 the stump. I am quite sure that the language I have quoted 
 has formed the staple of his denunciations against other 
 leading Republicans. However, we ll accept the gentle 
 man s disclaimer as an act of repentance, even though late, 
 and pass on to the resolution, which is in these words : 
 
 " Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress by such meani 
 as will not jeopard the rights and safety of the loyal people 
 of the South, to provide for the confiscation of estate, real 
 and personal, and for the forfeiture and liberation of every 
 slave claimed by any person who shall continue in arms 
 against the authority of the United States, or who shall 
 in any manner aid and abet the present wicked and unjus 
 tifiable rebellion." 
 
 Mark, Mr. Chairman, the careful manner in which the 
 resolution is drawn. In the first place the means adopted 
 are to be such as will not jeopard the rights and safety of 
 the loyal people of the South." And in reference to those 
 who are to be punished, it is specially provided that the 
 blow shall fall only on those "who shall continue in arms 
 against the authority of the United States." The punish 
 ment is not to be retrospective ; all who will turn from past 
 error and folly and crime shall be forgiven, but those who 
 shall after due notification continue in arms, shall do so at 
 tin- expense of the forfeiture of their estates and the liber 
 ation of their slaves. Should the ideas of these resolves 
 evrr be formed into practical legislation, it is evident that a 
 day would be set and defined, beyond which a continuance 
 in ann.-d treason should be punished in the manner indicat 
 ed. Thus much for the positive and plain intent and mean- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 117 
 
 ing of this resolve. Let us examine briefly just what a man 
 means when he votes against it. The negative of it, which 
 is the position assumed by the gentleman from Thomaston, 
 means simply that no, matter how long or how wickedly a 
 rebel may continue m~ treason ; uo-.-jnatter how he may 
 slaughter and devastate jjio matter how many and how sa 
 cred laws of God and man he may trample under foot, 
 still, you shall not deprive him of his estate or his slaves ; 
 every civil right which he had as a good citizen shall 
 still be guaranteed to him. Why, Sir, the gentleman in 
 point of right under the Constitution and laws, makes no dis 
 tinction and boasts that he makes no distinction, between the 
 loyal and the disloyal claiming that each is entitled to all 
 civil rights and that the man fighting in the ranks of Jeff 
 Davis army will have his estate and his slaves protected 
 under the flag of the Union just as effectually as the man 
 who is imperiling his life in the national army for the sal 
 vation of the government. The resolution, sir, I repeat, 
 in leaving its further discussion, is most carefully guarded 
 declaring that the "rights of loyal men shall not be jeop 
 arded," and 
 
 Mr. Gould interrupted, wishing to state that the clause 
 in reference to protecting the rights of loyal men was mere 
 clap-trap, impracticable and absurd that the liberation of 
 one-half the slaves would render the remainder worthless. 
 
 Mr. Blaine. The gentleman is evidently not very familiar 
 with the statistics on the subject, or he would know that in 
 Maryland, the free negro population is some thousands larger 
 than the slave population, and I have yet to learn that slaves 
 have not been held to be as valuable in Maryland as else 
 where. I say, moreover, that if every negro in the South were 
 emancipated to-day, their number to the square mile of the 
 territory inhabited by them would not be nearly so great as 
 is the number of free negroes to the square mile in Mary 
 land.! 
 
 I was about to say, Sir, when the gentleman interrupted 
 me, that the resolution is one against which I can hardly 
 see how a man can vote if he sincerely desires a vigorous 
 prosecution of this war though, of course, I will not ques- 
 
118 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 tion the loyalty <.r the motives of any one. I pass to the 
 consideration of the third resolution, as follows : 
 
 "Resoh-L That in this perilous crisis of the country it 
 is the duty of Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional 
 power to -rai.se and support armies, to provide by law for 
 accepting the services of all able-bodied men of whatever 
 status, and to employ these men in such manner as military 
 neeos.-ity and the safety of the Republic may demand." 
 
 Tin- gentleman says this is the same resolution, in effect, 
 a.- that originally introduced in the Senate by Colonel Smart, 
 and its design is to incite an insurrection of the negroes, 
 and to arm them. The resolution must be taken and judged 
 lv itself its own words. It simply declares that the .sbr- 
 vices of all men should be accepted this implies that the 
 service is previously offered, and expressly negatives the 
 idea of calling on the negroes "to rise." It further says, 
 that these men should be employed as military necessity 
 and the safety of the Republic may demand." I do not an 
 ticipate that any necessity will arise for arming the slaves, 
 and as a! present advised, I would not vote for a resolution 
 recommending that step. But there are a thousand things 
 which tin- negroes may do, which would greatly lighten the 
 labors of our brave brethren in the ranks of the National 
 armv. Thev may dig trenches, throw up embankments, 
 lal>or on fortifications, aid in transporting baggage, and make 
 themselves "generally useful." They are, moreover, good 
 spies and scouts, and may be employed in a thousand ways 
 to the advancement of the Union cause. "Why, it is assert 
 ed on the very best authority, that the information of Buck* 
 ner s failing strength in Fort Donelson, was first made known 
 to (icm-ral (I rant by a negro who ex-apod from tin- rebel 
 lines, and that this information was the basis on which he 
 refused Bucknor s proposal for an armistice and brought him 
 to an immediate and unconditional surrender. Had General 
 (irant not possessed this knowledge, he might have consent 
 ed to a truce, during which, rebel reinforcements arriving 
 from C larksville, might have carried the day against him. 
 
 But the negro who supplied the timely information should, 
 according to the argument of the gentleman, have been 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 119 
 
 driven from our lines and remanded to the custody of his 
 rebel master. The gentleman declares he would not accept 
 the services of negroes in any capacity nor in any event. 
 
 This resolution declares that these services should be ac 
 cepted "if the safety of the republic demands it ;" the gen 
 tleman from Thomaston says they should not. It is really 
 singular, how at every crook and corner of the gentleman s 
 argumejitJie is driven to the abominable conclusion by his 
 logic, that the safety of slavery is of greater moment than 
 4he- safety of the Republic. The gentleman s line of argu 
 ment leaves no other conclusion open to him. 
 
 The fourth, and concluding resolution of the series re 
 quires no notice, as it relates merely to the forwarding of 
 the others to our Senators and Representatives. 
 
 In summing up these resolves, Sir, I maintain that they 
 propose nothing which may not be properly done under the 
 Constitution of the United States. They are moderate res 
 olutions conservative in doctrine, and well-guarded in ex 
 pression. I believe that the adoption of their substance by 
 Congress would be beneficial to the Union cause ; I believe 
 that such measures are just what the rebels most dread, and 
 I feel assured that a confiscation act would prove verily a ter 
 ror unto evil doers. I have said, Sir, that the legislation 
 demanded is entirely within the power of Congress, without 
 infringing the Constitution, or rather in direct pursuance of 
 the war power of that instrument, as expounded by Hamil 
 ton and Henry, by Adams and Webster, by Marshall and 
 Kent. All that I have proposed and advocated will in no 
 wise conflict with the Constitution, and I think the rebellion 
 will be subdued without resorting to extra constitutional 
 measures. But lest the gentleman should infer that I shrink 
 from the logical consequences of some propositions which I 
 have laid down as ultimate steps, I tell him boldly that if 
 the life of the nation seemed to demand the violation of the 
 Constitution, I would violate it, and in taking this ground I 
 \ am but repeating the expression of President Lincoln in his 
 \ message, when he declared that "it were better to violate 
 one provision than that all should perish." And I will give 
 a higher and more venerable authority than President Lin 
 coln, for the same doctrine. NO less a personage than 
 Thomas Jefferson wrote the following sentiments in a letter 
 
120 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 to J. R. Calvin, from his retirement at Monticello, Septem 
 ber 22, 18101 
 
 u The question you propose, whether circumstances do not 
 sometimes occur, which make it a duty, in officers of high 
 trust, to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solu 
 tion in principle but sometimes embarrassing in practice. A 
 strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the 
 high duties of a good citizen ; but it is not the highest. The 
 law r s of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our coun 
 try when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our 
 country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be 
 to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all 
 those who are enjoying them with us ; thus absurdly sacri 
 ficing the end to the means." 
 
 This doctrine cuts right athwart, and scatters to the four 
 winds of heaven the whole argument of the gentleman. He 
 sticks to forms ; I go for substance. He sacrifices the end 
 to the means. I stand ready to use the means essential to 
 the end. I stand with, or rather follow after, Jefferson and 
 Lincoln ; he assumes a ground which both of those statesmen 
 have denounced and execrated. 
 
 I have been discussing these questions, Mr. Chairman, in 
 no partizan spirit. I feel none. As a Republican, I have 
 been among the foremost to welcome loyal Democrats to a 
 hearty and generous co-operation in sustaining the measures 
 necessary to vindicate the authority of the Union. I recog 
 nize the Senator from Knox (Col. Smart), whom I am glad 
 to see among my auditors, as a cordial co-laborer in the 
 good cause ; my friend across the hall from Oldtown (Mr. 
 Sewall) , I cordially greet and warmly welcome. I mention 
 these gentlemen for they are this moment in my eye, and 
 because they are types of many other loyal Democrats who 
 hold the same good principles. The gentleman from Thoin- 
 aston, by the doctrines he has advocated, has placed himself 
 outside the pale, and until he recants his errors we cannot 
 receive him into fellowship. I remember, and I do not 
 quote it irreverently, the injunction to the church to add to 
 itself only "such as shall be saved." 
 
 I claim, Mr. Chairman, that in the whole history of par 
 tizan organizations not one can be found that has acted with 
 the generosity and liberality that has characterized the Re- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 121 
 
 publicans since the outbreak of the rebellion. Why, Sir, in 
 the State of Ohio, with sixty thousand partizan majority, 
 the Republicans patriotically and most liberally gave the 
 Gubernatorial nomination last year to a life-long Democrat 
 David Todd (who presided over the convention that nomi 
 nated Mr. Douglas for the Presidency), and they elected 
 _:m by a countless majority. With similar liberality they 
 allowed one branch of the Legislature to fall under the con 
 trol of those who were supposed to be loyal and liberal 
 Democrats. And what is the result? Why, Sir, to-day, 
 after all this liberality from the Republicans, the Democrats 
 in the branch of the Legislature controlled by them, oppose, 
 and will probably defeat the re-election to the United States 
 Senate of that most earnest, brave and true man, Benjamin 
 F. Wade. That is the return the Republicans get for their 
 lavish liberality. 
 
 In New York, Sir, equal generosity was shown by the 
 Republicans at the last election. They w r ent so far even as 
 to place their life-long opponent, Daniel S. Dickinson, at 
 the head of their State ticket, and gave the Democrats half 
 of the remainder of the nominees all of whom were tri 
 umphantly elected. In return, they have received nothing 
 but reviling and abuse, and I challenge any gentleman to 
 point out a single locality where the Democrats having a 
 clear majority, a Republican has been allowed to put his 
 head above water. And to-day we are invited by the gen 
 tleman from Thomaston to patriotically abandon our entire 
 party organization. Magnanimous advice ! Most disinter 
 ested counsel ! I say to the Republicans of this House, that 
 while I am opposed to stirring up anything like partizan 
 rancor during this crisis in the affairs of the Nation, yet we 
 must look well to it that we sustain with increased vigor the 
 Administration of Abraham Lincoln which we brought into 
 power, and for whose acts we will be held responsible. 
 While, then, we will welcome to our political fireside all 
 who are disposed to co-operate with us, we will jealously 
 guard against all these insidious attempts to disrupt that 
 party organization, which is alone able to give to the Ad 
 ministration an efficient and permanent support. And when 
 I urge this policy, I am sure that I speak no less the senti 
 ments of patriotic Republicans, than of those truly loyal 
 
122 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Democrats who intend to stand by the Administration to 
 tin- einl of this ii.L r ht with rebellion and treason. 
 
 I am somewhat distrustful of the sincerity and the endur 
 ance of the support, which the gentleman says he has given 
 and will give to President Lincoln. I remember that at 
 tin- extra session of the Legislature nearly a year ago, the 
 gentleman was equally demonstrative in his professions of 
 support to the Administration of Gov. Washburne, and yet_ 
 I am credibly informed that the gentleman took occasion to 
 roundly and soundly abuse the Governor in the Democratic 
 Convention in the County of Knox in August last. 
 
 Mr. Gould rose and denied that he had abused Governor 
 "Washburne. 
 
 MR. BLAINE : I repeat my assertion, Mr. Chairman, 
 and I say the gentleman, both in the Convention at Rock- 
 laud and afterwards at Camden, abused Governor Wash 
 burne, as that term is employed politically. He denounced 
 him as an "abolitionist," and opposed a union with his 
 frirnds as far as he could and as far as he dare ; and in the 
 Convention- Mr. George A. Starr and the gentleman had a 
 colloquy, in which Mr. Starr, though a life-long Democrat, 
 ;<<! that he would vote for Gov. Washburne a thousand 
 times before he would vote for John W. Dana. And the 
 gentleman from Thomaston would not take the same ground, 
 but K-ft himself open to all the inferences of sympathy with 
 di.-loyal Democrats, rather than with the supporters of Gov 
 ernor Washburne. It is in view of these facts, Mr. Chair 
 man, that I have said I distrust the sincerity and the per 
 manence of the gentleman s support of President Lincoln. 
 Why, Sir, we have just heard from the President in a com 
 munication of as great importance as any that has ever emi- 
 natcd from the Executive Mansion. I hold in my hand his 
 message sent to Congress yesterday, and borne to us on the 
 lightning s wing, in which he proposes compensation to the 
 States that may agree to abolish slavery. I want to know 
 from the gentleman from Thomaston if he supports the 
 President in that policy? 
 
 Mr. (iould -rated that lie understood the President s prop 
 osition to be to compensate all the slave-owners, loyal and 
 disloyal alike, and in that view, as a peace measure, he 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 123 
 
 might possibly go for it. He would not say that he would 
 support it otherwise. 
 
 Mr. Elaine. A most remarkable interpretation of the 
 President s position, truly ! the gentleman thinks that Abra 
 ham Lincoln is solemnly proposing to pay the rebels hard 
 cash for their slaves, and thus to replenish their treasury, 
 otherwise so nearly exhausted. A brilliant policy indeed ! 
 But this construction which the gentleman puts on the mes 
 sage is in perfect keeping with the determination which he 
 has shown all through, to put the estates and slaves of rebels 
 on the same footing and under the same protection accorded 
 to those of loyal men. If negroes are to be paid for, the 
 gentleman is determined that the rebels shall have their full 
 share of the cash. I think President Lincoln would be 
 slightly surprised if any one would tell him that the country 
 understood his proposition in that way, and yet, unless it 
 does mean that, the gentleman from Thomaston says he will 
 not support it thus at the first practical test, deserting the 
 President whom he has eulogized so highly. I had no idea 
 when I fell into this vein of the discussion, that the insin 
 cerity of the gentleman would be made so quickly and so 
 ludicrously apparent. 
 
 I read, Sir, in that message, something more than this 
 great proposition for compensated emancipation. I read in 
 it a declaration as plain as language can make it, that what 
 ever measures may be deemed necessary, to crush out this 
 rebellion speedily and effectually, will be unhesitatingly 
 adopted, f What else does the President mean when he says 
 that "all indispensable means must be employed for the pres 
 ervation of the Union," that "the war must continue" as 
 long as resistance continues, without regard to the ruin 
 which must attend it ? What does the President mean by 
 this language ? Still more, what does he mean when he 
 declares tfiat "such measures as may obviously promise 
 great efficiency towards ending the struggle must and will 
 come ?" 1 I ask the gentleman what the President means by 
 that, and he refuses to answer me. I tell the gentleman 
 that it means the adoption of precisely such measures as we 
 are discussing here to-day, and that these resolutions are but 
 sustaining the already foreshadowed policy of the President, 
 whenever the necessity for the enforcement of these meao- 
 
124 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 ures arises, or win-never they may, in his own language, 
 promise great etlieieiicy towards ending the struggle." 
 
 And, Sir, the struggle will be ended with victory for the 
 Union and lor liberty. The triumphs at Mill Spring, at 
 Roanoke, at Henry, and at Donelson, are but the earnest 
 of unbroken successes which under vigorous counsels now 
 controlling the army are to attend the Union Cause. It is 
 not to be as it has been. In the past autumn and early 
 winter our prospects seemed dark and dreary. We closed 
 tin- year with those terrible disasters at Big Bethel, at Bull 
 Him, at Ball s Bluff, unredeemed ; and our national en 
 ergies seemed paralyzed with inaction and with treason, 
 the war was being conducted in a manner that never did, 
 and never will, and never can achieve anything but misfor 
 tune and disgrace. It was a war of half measures, pain 
 fully parallel in policy with that which in England, under 
 tin- temporizing expedients urged by such leaders as Essex, 
 and Manchester, and Northumberland, had welluigh sac 
 rificed the popular cause in the contest with the first Charles 
 a policy which is thus described and denounced by the 
 most brilliant of English historians and the most astute of 
 English critics : 
 
 If there be any truth established by the universal ex 
 perience of nations, it is this ; that to carry the spirit of 
 peace into war, is a weak and cruel policy. The time of 
 negotiation is the time for deliberation and delay. But 
 when an extreme case calls for that remedy, which is in its 
 own nature most violent, and which, in such cases, is a 
 remedy only because it is violent, it is idle to think of miti 
 gating and diluting. Languid war can do nothing which 
 negotiation or submission will not do better; and to act on 
 any other principle, is not to save blood and money, but to 
 squander them." I close as an apposite illustration of the 
 rival truth just enunciated, by quoting the well-known 
 declaration of Edwin M. Stanton * k that the failure to at 
 tack Manassas in December last, will cost this nation three 
 hundred millions of dollars and thirty thousand precious 
 li\ 68." 
 
 One other speech in the Maine Legislature attracted na 
 tional attention, a> the whole people were excited at the 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 125 
 
 time, Feb., 1859, about the acquisition of Cuba. Blaine 
 was seriously opposed to the intended purchase, and in his 
 speech, on the Resolve introduced by Mr. Porter of 
 Lowell, he said : 
 
 I have no intention, Mr. Speaker, of inflicting a lengthy 
 harangue upon the House, this morning, in regard to the 
 acquisition of Cuba, though such a design has been attrib 
 uted to me, by one or more newspapers, that have assumed, 
 I know not on what ground, to advertise me for the "per 
 formance." When the Resolves were introduced by the 
 gentleman from Lowell, on Wednesday, last, they were, by 
 my motion, laid on the table. I did not think that the 
 House could, at that time, be properly diverted from atten 
 tion to the subjects before it, and I was not in favor of in 
 terrupting the ordinary and legitimate business of the ses 
 sion by the introduction and consideration of topics purely 
 and solely political in their nature. I intended, however, at 
 a suitable time, to move that the Resolves be taken up, 
 and I submitted the motion this morning only after I had 
 learned from the Speaker that all the business on his table, 
 claiming the attention of the House, had been despatched. 
 As there still remains an hour or two of the iisual morning 
 session, I have presumed that the House w r ould not be 
 averse to hearing from members a brief expression of their 
 views on the important subject comprehended in the Re 
 solves now before us ; and as the matter is one of a political 
 character, some freedom will be accorded, no doubt, to those 
 who speak, in the allusions which they may be forced to 
 make to the partizan relations of gentlemen on this floor. 
 
 It is well known, Mr. Speaker, that whether fortunate or 
 unfortunate, simulated or real, there is an avowed split in 
 the ranks of the Democracy of this State in regard to the 
 policy of the National Administration. The gentleman from 
 Camden (Mr. Smart) may be considered the leader of the 
 heretical band who refuse to abide by the tests enunciated at 
 Washington, while, on the other hand, the gentleman from 
 Lowell (Mr. Porter) stands on this floor as the representa 
 tive of the "most straitest sect" of Buchanan Democrats. 
 The gentleman from Camden some time arranged his wires, 
 and enunciated his platform, containing the "squatter sov- 
 
126 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 eiviirnty" idea, which the President denounces as a mon- 
 > trou* hereey. rYom this dogma it was understood tliat tlie 
 gentleman from Lowell earnestly dissented, and he formerly 
 protested against it, in the name of all the collectors, post 
 masters, and tide waiters, from the New Hampshire line to 
 the waters of the St. Croix. It was expected, therefore, 
 that when anv political movement should be made on this 
 floor by the gentleman from Lowell, acting as the represent- 
 ative and accredited spokesman for the Moors, the Leavitts, 
 tin- Diekersons, and the Macdonalds, it would be so unmis 
 takably loyal to the measures of the "Administration, "all 
 and singular," that no doubtful or double meaning could, in 
 any way, be affixed to it. I must, therefore, express my 
 unfeigned astonishment at the limping, hesitating, timid and 
 inconclusive character of the Resolves offered by the gentle 
 man from Lowell in favor of the acquisition of Cuba. Lest 
 any gentleman should think I am characterizing these Re 
 solves in extravagant language, I will with your permission, 
 Mr. Speaker, read them, in order that the House may be 
 reminded afresh of their true scope and meaning. They 
 are as follows : 
 
 7.v.soZverf, That the Senators of Maine be instructed, and 
 our Representatives in the Congress of the United States be 
 requested, to exert their influence and give their votes for 
 any honorable measure that has been or may be brought for 
 ward looking towards the early aquisition of Cuba by the 
 United States. 
 
 Resolved, That the Governor be requested to forward a 
 copy of these Resolves to the Governors of the several States 
 and Territories, to be laid before the Legislatures thereof, 
 and to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, 
 to be laid before the Senate and House of Representatives of 
 the United States. 
 
 Like a great many other political productions, these Re 
 solves are remarkable rather for what they omit than for 
 what they *.r]>ress; and are still more notable for what they 
 imi>1y. What do they omit, Mr. Speaker? They omit most 
 pointedly and purposely .every declaration that could be tor 
 tured into an approval of the. measures now actually pend 
 ing in the Senate, of the United States for the acquisition of 
 Cuba. What do they express? Nothing but a mild ap- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 127 
 
 proval of any honorable measures that may be brought for 
 ward for the acquisition of Cuba. What do they imply f 
 Why, plainly and palpably, that the proposition now pend 
 ing, known as the Slidell measure, is not an honorable one, 
 and therefore no endorsement of it is asked from the Legis 
 lature of Maine. I beg the gentlemen of this House to ob 
 serve then, Mr. Speaker, that even the Administration Dem 
 ocrats, choosing their own ground and proposing to this 
 House whatever they pleased to propose, have not dared to 
 come hither and insult the dignity and decency of the Legis 
 lature by asking its approval of the extraordinary measure 
 now under discussion at Washington. More than this, Mr. 
 Speaker, they have deliberately expressed their own opposi 
 tion to it by failing to endorse it. They ask us to approve 
 an "honorable" measure; mark you! not Mr. Slidell s 
 measure ; not the measure conceived and brought forth at 
 the White House ; not the measure carried to the Capitol 
 by the Fidus Achates of the President ; not the measure now 
 enlisting the support of every Administration Senator and 
 the Illinois Rebel" besides. No indeed, not this ; the Re 
 solves before us ask no approval of this gigantic, alarming 
 and corrupting proposition, but they ask us to instruct our 
 Senators in Congress to support some "honorable" meas 
 ure, and the inevitable implication is that the pending meas 
 ure is not an honorable one. The gentleman who intro 
 duced these Resolves, and those with whom he consulted 
 (for I presume they were not brought forward without some 
 conference,) are perfectly aware of the character of the Sli 
 dell proposition ; they know that the attention of the whole 
 country is fixed upon it ; they know that its discussion is 
 calling forth the best talent in the United States Senate ; 
 they know that it is a favorite measure with the President ; 
 and they know that it commands the support of every Ad 
 ministration Democrat in either branch of Congress. Un 
 der these circumstances, Mr. Speaker, I ask you what the 
 studied omission of all reference to the measure in these 
 Resolves can mean, except an implied and bitter disapproval 
 of it and all the more bitter because implied. The French 
 have a saying that "condemnation by implication is harder 
 to endure than flat opposition," and I commend the moral of 
 the adage to those Democrats who, when expected to be 
 
128 THE LIFE ANI IMT.LIC SERVICES 
 
 4 "faithful among the faithless," have hesitated and faltered 
 and fallen hack. 
 
 Sti far, Mr. Speaker, as the Resolves under consideration 
 imply disapproval of the Slidell measure, they have my 
 lu-art v concurrence, and I have no doubt, the concurrence 
 of a large majority of this House. I object to their 
 adoption, however, because they express in an indirect 
 manner what I wish to see asserted explicitly and with em- 
 phasis. The proposition to place thirty millions of dollars 
 at the .disposal of the President and to run the nation in 
 debt for the purpose of raising the money ; to surrender to 
 him the power to make treaties, annex territory and form 
 States ; to create him absolute dictator, with the purse of 
 the nation in one hand and the sword in the other ; to have 
 peace or war, prosperity or misfortune follow at his will, 
 or to be decided by his errors. Such a proposition, I say, 
 is too monstrous to be entertained for one moment by any 
 one who values the preservation of constitutional rights and 
 tin- perpetuity of a Republican Union. A dozen years ago, 
 when our country was in actual war with a neighboring 
 nation, when -it was supposed that peace could be promoted 
 and hastened bv placing three millions of dollars at the dis- 
 p<>.-al of the President, the proposition was regarded so 
 dangerous, that staid, conservative and dignified senators 
 thought themselves justified in resorting to methods of op 
 position almost revolutionary in their character, in order to 
 compass defeat. The precedent was regarded as a danger 
 ous one, and was even admitted to be so by those who sus 
 tained the measure the only plausible defense of which 
 WAS that the fund appropriated might and would hasten the 
 peace which was so generally desired. But now, when we 
 are in profound "amity and concord" with all the great 
 nations of the earth, when a change in our foreign relations 
 would most probably be for the worse, it is deliberately 
 proposed to place under the control of the President the 
 enormous sum of thirty millions of dollars, in order to see 
 whether he may not corrupt Spanish officials into a transfer 
 of their most valuable dependency, and pos.-ihly get us into 
 ir with England and France as a sort of premium to the 
 value of Cuban acquisition. The proposition to place three 
 millions at President Polk s disposal to get us out of v<ir 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 129 
 
 was, as I have said, considered doubtful and dangerous, 
 and yet now it is coolly proposed to give President Buchanan 
 ten times as large a sum to see if in some kind of secret 
 diplomacy he may not possibly be able to get us into a war. 
 The Democratic party in Congress sustained both measures, 
 the past and the present, but I think it a singular species of 
 political arithmetic that considers it worth three millions of 
 dollars in 1847 to get out of a war with a weak power, yet is 
 anxious to pay thirty millions in 1859 for the possibility of 
 getting into a war with three strong powers ! I do not 
 wonder, therefore, that the Administration Democrats in 
 this State fail, as they have failed, to endorse the outrage 
 ous measure, and all I desire is that the Maine Legislature 
 will not content itself with the implied disapprobation of 
 the Slidell scheme proposed by the Resolutions before us, 
 but that a manly, outspoken, and explicit protest shall be 
 recorded against so dangerous a policy. It is for this 
 reason, Mr. Speaker, and with these views, that I desire to 
 amend the resolves presented by the gentleman from Lowell, 
 and I now move that all after the word "Resolved" be 
 stricken out, and the following inserted : 
 
 Resolved, That the proposition now pending in the Senate 
 of the United States whereby the sum of thirty millions of 
 dollars is to be placed at the disposal of the President to 
 enable him to initiate and carry forward whatsoever meas 
 ures he may please for the acquisition of Cuba, is of extra 
 ordinary character and of most dangerous tendency. It 
 not only breaks down the constitutional safeguard of our 
 government by yielding the entire treaty-making power to 
 the Executive, but it leaves the issue of peace or war to be 
 decided at his discretion, and the prosperity of the nation 
 to be jeoparded even by his mistakes. 
 
 Resolved, That the Senators and Representatives in Con 
 gress from Maine will reflect the will of their constituents 
 by vigorously opposing the measure. 
 
 Resolved, That the Governor be requested to forward 
 these resolves to the Senators and Representatives in Con 
 gress from this State. 
 
 This substitute does not imply a condemnation of the 
 Slidell measure ; it plainly expresses it, and will thus, I 
 believe, more truly reflect the views of this House than any 
 
130 THE LIFK AM) I UBLIC SERVICES 
 
 half-way evasive or inconclusive declaration could possibly 
 do. In reference to the general subject of the acquisition 
 of Cuba, which may be considered as in some sense before 
 tin- House, I have a few remarks to offer, and I am frank 
 t<> confess in the language of the famous judge," that "a 
 good deal may be said on one side of thai question, and a 
 good deal on the other." The acquisition of the island 
 would incorporate into our nation a large number of people 
 differing radically and essentially from us in race, in lan 
 guage, in religion, in domestic habits, and in civil institu 
 tions. Kven with our enormous powers of deglutition, 
 digestion and absorption, our energies would be taxed to a 
 dangerous extent by the attempt to make the mixed and 
 mongrel people of that island homogeneous with our own. 
 Its annexation would also increase to an alarming extent 
 the influence of the Slave power in the Government of this 
 country, and would give them additional strength and pres 
 tige in the Senate of the United States, which, as every 
 one knows, has always been their stronghold, both for 
 offense and defense. The objections to the acquisition of 
 Cuba which grew out of these considerations are most cogent 
 and pressing, and certainly of sufficient weight to restrain 
 the ardor of annexation, which some of our people might be 
 supposed to cherish when looking at the subject purely from 
 a commercial standpoint. 
 
 On the other hand, there is a very general acquiesence in 
 the position that our country can never permit any other 
 power to obtain possession of the island. Such is the well- 
 known and peculiar situation with reference to our own 
 country, that we would be deaf to the plainest dictates of 
 self-interest if we should permit it to fall under the domin 
 ion of either of our great rivals in Europe. It may, there 
 fore be considered the settled policy of this nation to prevent 
 the island of Cuba from being transferred to any other na 
 tion, and I think it is equally the settled policy not to molest 
 Spain in her peaceful and rightful possession of it. Every 
 statesman in the country who has been called upon to affirm 
 the position of our Government on this question, has uni 
 formly taken the ground that we .should not and would not 
 disturb Spain in her ownership of the island, and that until 
 >-he was ready to entertain or propose terms of cession or 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 131 
 
 transfer, it was not becoming in us to agitate the question. 
 Such are the expressed and recorded views of John Quincy 
 Adams, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, James Buchanan, 
 William L. Marcy, and Edward Everett six of the most 
 distinguished gentlemen who have presided over the State 
 department of this Government. If I had public documents 
 at hand I could quote the opinions of each and all these 
 eminent men in support of the views I have advanced. I 
 am able, however, at this time, to call the attention of the 
 House to an extract from but one of the numerous State 
 papers to which I have referred, and that is from the letter 
 of instructions written by Mr. Buclianan when Secretary of 
 State under Mr. Polk in 1848, to Mr. Romulus Saunders 
 of North Carolina, then our Minister to Madrid. In that 
 letter Mr. Buchanan, speaking for the Administration, au 
 thorized Mr. Saunders -to offer one hundred millions of dol 
 lars to Spain for the Island, and he accompanied his instruc 
 tions with a disclaimer of any design or desire to coerce 
 Spain into the sale. I quote the following extract from 
 his remarks : 
 
 "The fate of this island must ever be deeply interesting 
 to the people of the United States. We are content that it 
 shall continue to be a colony of Spain. Whilst in her pos 
 session we have nothing to apprehend. Besides, we are 
 bound to her by the ties of ancient friendship, and we sin 
 cerely desire to render these perpetual." 
 
 Why then are we not still "content that it shall be a col 
 ony of Spain?" Do we not know, of a verity, that "whilst 
 in her possession we have nothing to apprehend?" I com 
 mend Mr. Buchanan s words in 1848 to his adherents in 
 1859, and knowing as they do, that Spain was never so 
 reluctant to part with Cuba as now, indeed never so fully 
 determined to hold it as at this moment, what I ask can be 
 the object of agitation on the subject? No sane man in the 
 country believes that the passage of the Slidell measure and 
 the prodigal expenditure of the whole thirty millions of 
 dollars that it gives to the President, will bring us any 
 nearer to the possession of Cuba than we are to-day ; at 
 the same time every one can see that such a measure would 
 be a most dangerous one, both as practice and precedent, 
 and that it is objectional on every consideration of expedi- 
 
132 TIIK LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 encv and right. The executive power of the country is 
 puHieieiitly strong and overshadowing already without seek 
 ing to aggrandize and increase it by enormous grants of 
 extra-constitutional power. Let us then discountenance and 
 repudiate this alarming measure as dangerous in itself and 
 not even tending to compass the object which is put forth 
 a- a pretext and excuse for it. Let us cease a fruitless and 
 aimless agitation at home which no one expects to result in 
 practical good ; let us cease also to insult and menace that 
 proud old monarchy of Castile and Arragon, to which, as 
 Mr. Buchanan asserts, "we are bound by the ties of ancient 
 friendship that we sincerely desire to render perpetual." 
 
 In 18$9, Elaine was appointed Prison Commissioner for 
 tin State of Maine. With a perseverance and dilligence 
 which was marvelous, he investigated everything relating 
 to the prison, and visited many prisons in other States. His 
 report on the subject is a public document, still much used, 
 and its recommendations and statistics are often quoted as 
 authority in distant States. 
 
 Elaine was a delegate to the Republican Convention in 
 }*( >(), and worked earnestly for the nomination of Abraham 
 Lincoln. His efforts succeeded in dividing the Maine dele 
 gation, which greatly influenced the result. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 133 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Election to Congress. The Condition of the Nation. Elaine s Col 
 leagues. Committee Work. Studies to be quiet and to do his 
 own business. The Measures he advocated. Views on Pro 
 tection. On Negro Soldiers. Debates. Keturn of Slaves. 
 
 In 1862, Anson P. Merrill, who had served one term 
 from the Augusta district in the National House of Repre 
 sentatives, retired voluntarily, and left the field open to all 
 competitors. But there was but little division of public 
 sentiment. It was clear to all before the Convention met, 
 that the choice of the people w^as James G. Elaine. His 
 constituency was one of the most intelligent in the nation, 
 and at that time their interest was not factional or personal. 
 The heart of the people was marvelously agitated by the 
 events connected with the great war. Homes were deso 
 lated by untimely deaths in battle. Taxation became griev 
 ous, and National pride was at its highest, and even to a 
 dangerous pitch. Citizens everywhere took an excited in 
 terest in National affairs, and desired to send their best men 
 without reference to local questions or factional prejudices. 
 
 Everywhere throughout the North the same feeling was 
 exhibited. What a magnificent array of names does the 
 record of those years of trial present to the historian. The 
 war and its tests brought into the United States Congress 
 then as great and noble a body of Statesmen as the world 
 ever saw in one assembly. Into that Congress, where no 
 second-rate mind could be felt, and no ordinary man would 
 
134 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 1)0 noticed, Blaine was considered worthy of a place by a 
 constituency which appreciated the risk and understood their 
 responsibility. 
 
 His election was triumphant, having three thousand ma 
 jority. Yet it was all so natural, and so much expected, 
 that all were ready to say, "I told you so." He was the 
 man for the place. No other competitor was seriously con 
 sidered. 
 
 December 7th, 1863, Blaine took his seat in the House 
 of Representatives at Washington, and thenceforward be 
 came a National man. With him in the House were the 
 following statesmen : 
 
 Lorenzo D. M. Sweat, Sidney Perham, John H. Rice, 
 Frederic A. Pike, Daniel Marcy, Edward H. Rollins, James 
 \V. Patterson, Frederic E. Woodbridge, Justin S. Morrill, 
 Portus Baxter, Thomas D. Elliot, Oakes Ames, Alexander 
 II. Rice, Samuel Hooper, John B. Alley, Daniel W. Gooch, 
 George S. Boutwell, John D. Baldwin, William B. Wash- 
 burne, Henry L. Dawes, Thomas A. Jenckes, Nathan F. 
 Dixon, Henry C. Deming, James E. English, Augustus 
 I raiKlriree, John H. Hubbard, Henry G. Stebbins, Martin 
 Kalbflriseh, Moses F. Odell, Benjamin Wood, Fernando 
 WiM)d, Elijah Ward, John W. Chandler, James Brooks, 
 Anson Herri ck, William Radford, Charles H. Winfield, 
 Homer A. Nelson, John B. Steele, John V. L. Peruyn, 
 John A. Griswold, Orlando Kellogg, Calvin T. Ilubbard, 
 James M. Marvin, Samuel F. Miller, Ambrose W. Clark, 
 Francis Kernan, DeWitt C. Littlejohn, Thomas T. Davis, 
 Tlu-odore M. Pomroy, Daniel Morris, Giles W. Hotchkiss, 
 Robert B. Van Valkenburgh, Freeman Clarke, Augustus 
 Frank, John B. Ganson, Reuben E. Fenton, John F. Starr, 
 George Middleton, William G. Steele, Andrew J. Rogers, 
 Ni liriniah Perry, Samuel J. Randall, Charles O Neill, 
 Leonard Myers, William D. Kelley, M. Russell Thayer, 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 135 
 
 John D. Stiles, John R. Broomall, Sydenham E. Ancona, 
 Thaddeus Stevens, Myer Strouse, Philip Johnson, Charles 
 Dennison, Henry W. Tracy, William H. Miller, Joseph 
 Bailey, Alexander H. Coffroth, Archibald McAllister, James 
 T. Hale, Glenni W. Schofield, Amos Myers, John L. Daw- 
 son, James K. Moorhead, Thomas Williams, Jesse Lazear, 
 Nathaniel B. Smithers, A. P. Field, Thomas Collman, 
 George H. Pendleton, Alexander Long, Robert C. Schenck, 
 J. F. McKinney, Frank C. Le Blond, Chilton A. White, 
 Samuel S. Cox, William Johnson, Warren P. Noble, James 
 M. Ashley, Wells A. Hutchins, William E. Finck, John 
 O Neill, George Bliss, James R. Morris, Joseph W. White, 
 Ephraim R. Eckley, Rufus P. Spaulding, James A. Gar- 
 field, Lucien Anderson, George H. Leaman, Henry Grider, 
 Aaron Harding, Robert Mallory, Green Clay Smith, Brutus 
 J. Clay, William H. Randall, William H. Wads worth, John 
 Law, James A. Cravens, Henry W. Harrington, William 
 S. Holman, George W. Julian, Ebenezer Dumont, Daniel 
 W.Voorhees, Godlove S. Orth, Schuyler Colfax, Joseph K. 
 Edgerton, James F. McDowell, Isaac N. Arnold, John F. 
 Farnsworth, ElihuB. Washburne, Charles H. Harris, Jesse 
 O. Norton, John R. Eden, JohnT. Stuart, Lewis W. Ross, 
 Anthony L. Knapp, James C. Robinson, William R. Mor 
 rison, William J. Allen, James C. Allen, John G. Scott, 
 Austin A. King, James S. Rollins, Fernando C. Beaman, 
 Charles Upson, John W. Longyear, Francis W. Kellogg, 
 Augustus C. Baldwin, John F. Driggs, James F. Wilson, 
 Hiram Price, William B. Allison, J. B. Grinnell, John A. 
 Kasson, A. W. Hubbard, James S. Brown, Ithamar C. 
 Sloan, Amasa Cobb, Charles A. Eldridge, Ezra Wheeler, 
 Walter D. Mclndoe, Thomas B. Shannon, William Higby, 
 Cornelius Cole, William Windom, Ignatius Donnelly, Fran 
 cisco Perea, John F. Kenney, George E. Cole, Samuel G. 
 Daily, Hiram P. Bennet, J. B. S. Todd. 
 
136 TIII: i. IKK AND IT P. LIC SERVICES 
 
 In the Senate at the same session were the following 
 named men. inanv of whom have had no superior as patri 
 otic statesmen in this later age of the world: 
 
 Hon. Lot M. Morrill, Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, Hon. 
 Daniel Clark, Hon. John P. Hale, Hon: Solomon Foot, 
 H.n. .Jacob Collarmer, Hon. Henry Wilson, Hon. Charles 
 Simmer, Hon. Henry B Anthony, Hon. William Sprague, 
 I Ion. .lames Dixon, Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, Hon. Ira 
 Harris, Hon. Edward D. Morgan, Hon. John C. Ten Eysk, 
 Hon. Edward Cowan, Hon. Charles R. Buckalew, Hon. 
 James A. Bayard, Hon. William Saulsbury, Hon. Reverdy 
 Johnson, Hon. Thomas H. Hicks, Hon. John S. Carlile, 
 Hon. Lemuel J. Bowden, Hon. Lazarus W. Powell, Hon. 
 Garrett Davis, Hon. John Sherman, Hon. Benjamin F. 
 Wade, Hon. Henry S. Lane, Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, 
 lion. Lvman Trumbull, Hon. Zachariah Chandler, Hon. 
 James Harhm, Hon. James W. Grimes, Hon. James R. 
 Doolittle, Hon. Timothy O. Howe, Hon. James A. Mc- 
 Dougull, Hon. Morton S. Wilkinson, Hon. Alexander 
 IJamsey, Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy, Hon. James H. Lane, 
 lion. James W. Nesmith, Hon. Benjamin F. Harding, 
 Hon. Jacob M. Howard, Hon. William A. Richardson, 
 Il-.n. William Wright, Hon. William S. Willey, Hon. 
 Peter G. Van Winkle. 
 
 Blaine s personal influence was not at first felt so much 
 as that of some other of the new members, but it increased 
 >teai lily and surely. Whatever committee-work was given 
 him to do, he did carefully, thoroughly and exhaustively. 
 It was not long before the intelligent and observing men 
 about him learned that he could be consulted as authority 
 on all the subjects submitted to his committees. That was 
 a reputation and an influence far more telling and lasting 
 for tho>e fearful and dangerous times than one gained by 
 brilliant oratory or roinvited forwardness. Hon. Scuyler 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 137 
 
 Colfax, Speaker of the House, appointed Elaine on the Com 
 mittee on Militia and on the Committee on Post Offices. 
 But during the session many special committees were ap 
 pointed on which he appeared with increasing frequency. 
 
 He did not speak often. But when he did address the 
 chair his words were important, and his motions and objec 
 tions effective. His training as speaker of the Maine House 
 gave him the advantage of a great familiarity with parlia 
 mentary law, and he was quick to see the place in which 
 a motion, objection, or point of order would accomplish 
 more than an extended speech. 
 
 Day by day his acquaintance extended, sitting by sitting 
 his influence grew, until he was recognized instinctively by 
 all as a master mind and a very shrewd parliamentarian. 
 
 Before that Congress the most difficult and complicated 
 questions constantly arose, and often under the strain of 
 great excitement, caused by news of disastrous defeat or 
 glorious victory in the field, measures came before it con 
 cerning the enlistment of soldiers, the taking of slaves as 
 contraband of war, negotiation with the rebels, the nation s 
 uncertain relations to England and Mexico, the treatment 
 of traitors, the status of prisoners of war, the construction 
 of a navy, the issue of paper money, the drafting of men in 
 to the army, contraction of the public debt, the construc 
 tion of the Pacific railroad and that greatest of all great 
 questions which any nation has to consider, viz : the eman 
 cipation of the slaves. 
 
 On all these questions Elaine went on record unflinching 
 ly and repeatedly. It is a marvel that on all the votes he 
 gave, and of all the measures he advocated every one was 
 approved by the nation either at once or in after time. 
 Some will say it was remarkable luck. To the historian it 
 looks like wisdom and foresight. He was true to his mot 
 to, "Under all circumstances dare to do right and leave the 
 
138 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 consequences to Infinite "Wisdom !" He introduced into 
 Congress, during that session, the proposition to refund to 
 tin- loyal States the money expended in raising armies. 
 
 Tin- question of free trade was then agitated but lilaine 
 seems to have been intently studying the question, and was 
 more of a statesman than a hobbyist. Not his individual 
 fine theories, but what was best for the time and plan- 
 seemed to occupy his attention. In June of 18G4, Hon. 
 Samuel S. Cox, of Ohio, made a strong speech in which he 
 contrasted the protection the laws gave the industries of 
 New England and the protection given those of Ohio. 
 In that speech he called the New England States the "pro 
 tected states." In recording such matters there is nothing 
 better than the official records and hence the remarks of 
 lilaine on the matter are given here from the Congressional 
 Globe. 
 
 "It has grown to be a habit in this House, Mr. Chairman, 
 to speak of New England as a unit, and in assailing the 
 N-w England States to class them together, as has been 
 done to-day, by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Cox) 
 throughout his entire speech. In response to such attacks, 
 each particular Representative from a New England State 
 miirlit feel called upon to defend the whole section. Eor 
 myself, sir, I take a different view. I have the honor to 
 represent in part one State, the State of Maine, and 
 I have no more to do with the local and particular interests 
 of the rest of New England than with any other State in 
 the Union. The other New England States are ably rep- 
 iv.-ented on the floor, and it would be officious and arrogant 
 in me to speak for them. But when the gentleman from 
 Ohio presumes to charge here, that the State I represent re 
 ceives from Federal legislation any undue protection to her 
 local interests, he either ignorantly or willfully misrepre 
 sents the case so grossly, that for ten minutes I will occupy 
 tin- attention of this House in correcting him. 
 
 [f the gentleman from Ohio, who has given us such a learned 
 lecture on political economy, were at all well posted in re- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 139 
 
 gard to the industrial pursuits of the people of Maine, he 
 would know that two great leading interests are lumber and 
 navigation. Now will the gentleman be good enough to 
 tell the House what protection is extended by the laws of 
 the United States to the lumber interest? At no time in 
 our history, Sir, did lumber receive more than a feeble pro 
 tection, and even that was taken away ten years ago, by 
 the gentleman s political associates when they formed the rec 
 iprocity treaty, and then broke down the only business we 
 had and threw in the whole lumber product of the British 
 provinces to compete with us. And in regard to our great 
 interest of navigation, will the gentleman be good enough 
 to tell the House when a ship is launched from a Maine 
 shipyard to engage in the commerce of the world, what 
 protection is given by the United States laws against com 
 petition with foreign bottoms ? Not a particle, Sir. These 
 two great leading interests of my State derive no advantage 
 from Federal legislation, while one of them has been very 
 greatly damaged by the treaty-making power of the Fed 
 eral Government. I do not hesitate to declare here to-day 
 that the State of Ohio has upon her products and her manu 
 factures ten dollars of protection from Federal legislation, 
 where Maine has twenty-five cents. 
 
 But, Sir, let us take another view of this matter. The 
 State of Maine consumes every year five hundred thousand 
 barrels of flour, all of which with a trifling exception is 
 brought from the West ; and a large proportion, I presume, 
 from the State of Ohio. Now if the gentleman s logic be 
 good, it would be very admirable for this country to so 
 change its domestic industry as to detatch the six hundred 
 thousand people of Maine from their present pursuits, and 
 convert them into producers instead of consumers of bread- 
 stuffs and provisions. And let this change be made through 
 out all the manufacturing and commercial districts of the 
 Union, converting the five millions consumers into producers 
 of grain and meats, and the withering effect on the gentle 
 man s State and on the entire West, would be too apparent 
 to require a speech of an hour and a half to demonstrate it. 
 Sir, I am tired of such talk as the gentleman from Ohio has 
 indulged in to-day, and in so far as it includes my own 
 State as being a pensioner upon the General Government, or 
 
140 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 dependent upon the bounty of any other State, I hurl back 
 the charge with scorn. If there be a State in this Union 
 that can say with truth that her Federal connection confers 
 no special benefit of a material character, that State is 
 Maine. And yet, Sir, no State is more attached to the 
 Federal Union than Maine. Her affection and her pride 
 an- <rntered in the Union, and God knows she has con 
 tributed of her best blood and treasure without stint in sup 
 porting the w r ar for the Union ; and she will do so to the 
 end. But she resents, and I, speaking for her, resent the 
 insinuation that she derives any undue advantage from Fed- 
 oral legislation, or that she gets a single dollar she does not 
 pay back. 
 
 As compared with Ohio, whence this slander comes, I 
 repeat, Sir, that Maine receives from Federal legislation no 
 protection worth reckoning. The gentleman comes up here 
 ami classifies the States of the Union as "protected" and 
 "unprotected" States, and he puts my State in the "pro 
 tected" class, while the most youthful page on this floor, 
 who has studied Mitchell s Geography, knows that the 
 gentleman s own State derives from the General Govern- 
 ; an immeasurably larger degree of protection for her 
 local interests than the State of Maine does. 
 
 I observe, Sir, that a great deal has been said recently in 
 the other end of the Capitol in regard to the fishing boun- 
 ti.-. a ] iort ion of which is paid to Maine. I have a word 
 t> say on that matter, and I may as well say it here. Ac 
 cording to the records of the Navy Department, the State 
 of .Maine has sent into the naval service since the beginning 
 of this war. six thousand skilled seamen, to say nothing of 
 tin- trained and invaluable officers she has contributed to the 
 .-line sphere of patriotic duty. For these men the State has 
 received no credit whatever on her quotas for the army. If 
 you will calculate the amount of bounty that would have 
 been paid to that number of men had they enlisted in the 
 army, instead of entering the navy as they did without 
 bounty, you will find it will foot up a larger sum than 
 Maine has received in fishing bounties for the past twenty 
 years. Thus. Sir. the original proposition on which fishing 
 bounties wen- granted that they would build up a hardy 
 and skillful class of mariners for the public Defense in time 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 141 
 
 of public danger has been made good a hundred and a 
 thousand-fold by the experience and developments of the 
 war. 
 
 This much, Sir, I have felt called upon to say in response 
 to the elaborate and carefully prepared speech of the gentle 
 man from Ohio. I have spoken in vindication of a State 
 that is as independent and as proud as any within the limits 
 of the Union. I have spoken for a people as high-toned 
 and as honorable as can be found in the wide world. I 
 have spoken for a particular class many of them my con 
 stituents who are as manly and as brave as ever faced the 
 ocean s storm. And so long, Sir, as I have a seat on this 
 floor, the State of Maine shall not be slandered by the gen 
 tleman from Ohio, or by gentlemen from any other State. 
 
 Blaine was an ardent supporter of the theory that the 
 slaves should be enlisted into the army the same as white 
 men, and how he felt and what he said upon it can best be 
 seen by the record of his controversy with Mallory of Ken 
 tucky. 
 
 Mr. Mallory said that the negroes not only did not behave 
 with any gallantry, but they shrank and fled at the first dis 
 charge of rebel musketry, and were sent back under the cover 
 of a hill to Frankfort. And I tell you, Sir, when we come 
 to find out the whole truth in relation to these black soldiers 
 at Petersburg, we shall find that they distinguished them 
 selves as highly and in somewhat the same way as did those 
 negroes at Frankfort. 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 Ken 
 tucky I came to the conclusion from what I saw of the ne 
 groes that there was a great deal of fight in them. 
 
 MR. MALLORY. Was the gentleman ever attacked by 
 them? 
 
 MR. BLA-INE. And if the gentleman has ever resided a 
 little further South than Kentucky, on the sugar plantations 
 of Louisiana and Mississippi, I would ask him if the per- 
 
liL* THE LIFE AND ITHLK 1 SERVICES 
 
 feet terror of those regions is not a runaway negro in the 
 canebrakea? 
 
 MR. MALLORY. Well, Sir, he would do for a bugaboo, 
 to frijrhten negro children and wliite children into propriety. 
 
 Mi;. lii.MM-:. Well, I know it to be a fact. The gentle 
 man from Kentucky will acquit me of having had anything 
 t> do with getting up that dispatch, to which he has alluded. 
 
 Mi:. MALLORY. Certainly I do. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I have entire faith and if I had not, I 
 would never vote a dollar of appropriation for these negro 
 troops that well-trained and disciplined negroes will make 
 good troops. I do not believe they will make as good troops 
 as white men, and I do not value any white man s opinion 
 who does think so. But I have one fact which I desire to 
 Mate. Some three weeks ago I had a conversation with 
 Mr. Charles Hale, of Boston, who has just set sail for 
 Kirvpt, as Consul of the United States to that country, and 
 w lii-re a year or two ago he spent some time. I asked him 
 what was the connection between Egypt and the Sublime 
 1 nrte. He said the Sublime Porte only exercised a sover 
 eignty, so that when Turkey was engaged in war she could 
 call upon Egypt for a contingent of troops ; that she did that 
 tin- last time during the Crimean war, and that Egypt fur- 
 ni.-hed fifteen regiments of negroes of pure blood, unmixed 
 from the foundation of the world, and as good troops as 
 ever man-hed upon European soil. 
 
 MR. Cox. They were Abyssinians. [Laughter.] 
 
 MR. BLAINE. They were Abyssinians whom my friend 
 from Ohio found to be so surpassingly grand in their eccle- 
 .-ia-tical attainments, and they are equally grand in their 
 military attainments. 
 
 MR. MALLORY. I will resume the floor. 
 
 .Mi;. BI.AINK. One moment more. Those negroes, I am 
 reminded here, were not Abyssinians. The Abyssinians are 
 a race of a religious turn, but these were Nubians naked, 
 lilaek Nubians. But enough of that. Now I ask the gen 
 tleman from Kentucky if he believes that a thousand white 
 men, of the Kentucky race and I believe that no more gal 
 lant race than the Kentuekians ever lived unarmed and 
 undrilled, would have stood any better before the rebel mus 
 ketry than the negroes themselves did. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 143 
 
 Another interesting tilt in this same session, with the 
 Hon. S. S. Cox, was concerning the return of slaves to 
 their owners. It shows Elaine s peculiar expertness in de 
 bate, as well as his position on that question. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I want to ask the gentleman from Ohio a 
 question. I was not entirely satisfied with his response to 
 the question propounded by the gentleman from California 
 (Mr. Cole) . The gentleman is lecturing the House upon 
 his view of the Constitution, and the laws enacted under it, 
 and therefore I presume he will not, in the slightest degree, 
 refuse to give us his views upon any particular application 
 of law. The laws of the United States now allow the en 
 listment of negroes, and there are a great many slaves of 
 Union men in the service. 
 
 MR. Cox. Come to the question ; I want the question, 
 but do not make it too sharp. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Those negroes are regularly enlisted in 
 the army, and I want to know if the gentlemen would re 
 turn them to their alleged owners ? Do not dodge the ques 
 tion by saying that the commissioner will decide the case 
 when it arises. Here is a negro in the ranks of the army, 
 belonging to a loyal owner. Would he return that negro to 
 his master ? I do not want the gentleman to go off and say 
 that the commissioner would decide so and so ; I wish him 
 to give the House his own view of the law. 
 
 MR. Cox. The gentleman does not want me to answer 
 the question except just as he wishes I should. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I want you to answer yes or no. 
 
 MR. Cox. Learn to put your question directly, without 
 preface. 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. Would the gentleman return to a loyal 
 owner his slave, found in the ranks of the Union army, 
 fighting for the preservation of the Government ? Is that 
 direct enough for the impatient gentleman ? 
 
 MR. Cox. I would return any slave stolen from his le 
 gal master, and let that slave take the consequences of the 
 military law. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I hear the answer of the gentleman from 
 Ohio, but I cannot catch its meaning. 
 
144 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 MR. Cox. And I guess that very few people ever catch 
 their slaves under present circumstances. [Laughter.] 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Then I understand the gentleman to say- 
 that unless the slave be stolen he would not return him? 
 
 .MR. Cox. If I were a commissioner, under the law, I 
 would return every man whom the law required to be re 
 turned. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. But does the law require a man to be re 
 turned who is in the ranks of the Union army? The gen 
 tleman skillfully attempts to evade that question. 
 
 MR. Cox. The gentleman skillfully puts a question, and 
 doggedly shuts his ears to the answer. The law was never 
 made in view of a condition of things like the present. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Then I understand the gentleman to say 
 that he would return men to slavery from the ranks of the 
 Union army ? 
 
 MR. Cox. I would return any man now in arms who 
 has been wrongfully taken from his master, and then I would 
 let the proper tribunal decide whether he properly belonged 
 to the military service or not. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Are the men who are in the army wrong 
 fully taken? 
 
 MK. Cox. I ask the gentleman that. Were they wrong 
 fully taken? 
 
 MK. BLAINE. No sir. 
 
 MK. Cox. Then I have nothing more to say to the gen 
 tleman on that point. The answer is obvious. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Yes, but obvious as the answer may be, 
 tlir gentleman fails to give it. But I will put another ques 
 tion. Suppose a runaway slave, one not taken by law from 
 his master, enlists and is found in the ranks of the Union 
 Army, and is claimed as a fugitive slave, what does lie think 
 about that ? 
 
 Mr. Cox. I will tell the gentleman what I think about 
 it. I opposed putting the black men in the army in the first 
 place. I said there would be trouble about the exchange of 
 prisoners. I warned the House against that policy earnestly, 
 in the interest of our white soldiers, who have been kept in 
 prison by reason of th is infamous military policy as to black 
 soldiers. I do not believe the army has heen .strengthened 
 one jot or tittle by the black men. 1 believe tlu-v are a pos- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 145 
 
 itive weakness to the Union army, and the Union cause. 
 General Grant does not use them. He does not put them 
 in the front. He does not fight them. He knows their 
 worth or worthlessness. He uses them where he can, but 
 takes care where he places them. 
 
 MR. ELAINE. Let me tell the gentleman that there are 
 more than one hundred and fifty wounded negroes in one 
 hospital at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 MR. Cox. The gentleman may find one hundred and 
 fifty blacks wounded out of one hundred and fifty thousand 
 soldiers. They were with Butler. The wonder is that any 
 escaped. But General Grant is too skillful and able a gen 
 eral to put himself and black men against General Lee and 
 his white men. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I do not see the pertinency of that to my 
 question. 
 
 MR. Cox. I will show the gentleman. I would be will 
 ing to let the black soldiers in our army be taken home to 
 their loyal owners, and if the war must go on, leave to the 
 white men the honor and duty of carrying on the war for 
 the constitutional liberties of white men. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Precisely ; but I still fail to see the per 
 tinency of the gentleman s harangue. I recognize in it the 
 sentiment and the phrases of a stump speech, which I had 
 the pleasure of hearing from him more than once before. 
 But it has no relevancy to my question. 
 
 MR. Cox. The gentleman is mistaken. I never dis 
 cussed the subject-matter of his question before in my life. 
 He imagines it to be a stump speech, because, in his famil 
 iar parlance, it is a stumper to him. True, I gave him a 
 general answer. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Quite a general one. 
 
 MR. Cox. Then I will not yield any further. If I can 
 not make him understand, it is not my fault. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Not at all. 
 
 MR. Cox. I do not think the gentleman is so stupid as 
 that he cannot understand it. The trouble is, he does not 
 want to understand it. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I understand distinctly that the gentleman 
 does not wish to give me a direct answer. 
 
146 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER. XI. 
 
 The Thirty-Ninth Congress. Elaine s Renomination. His Letter 
 of Acceptance. His Position in the House of Representa 
 tives. His Influence Through the Country. Advocates Pay 
 ing the War Debts of the States. Speeches on Constitutional 
 Amendments. The Gold Bill. Basis of Representation in 
 Congress. Buying Ships Abroad. 
 
 In the fall of 18G4 Blaine was renominated by the Repub 
 licans of his district and elected by the people with but little 
 opposition. His letter of acceptance of the nomination that 
 year shows the issues before the people and his position in 
 ivgard to them. 
 
 AUGUSTA, AUG. 20th, 18G4. 
 < - 1 N. J. R. BACHELDER : 
 
 I ><ar Sir : I am in receipt of your favor formally advis 
 ing me that on the 10th inst., the Union Convention of the 
 Third District unanimously nominated me for re-election as 
 Representative in Congress. For this generous action, as 
 well as for the cordial manner attending it, and the very 
 complimentary phrase in which it is conveyed, I am under 
 profound obligations. It is far easier for me to find the in 
 spiring cause of such favor and such unanimity in the per 
 sonal partiality of friends, than in any merits or services 
 which 1 may justly claim as my own. 
 
 In nominating me as the Union candidate, and pledging 
 me to no other platform, you place me on the precise ground 
 I desire to occupy. The controlling and absorbing issue 
 In -tore the American people is whether the Federal Union 
 shall br saved or lost. In comparison with that, all other 
 issues and controversies are subordinate, and entitled to con- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 147 
 
 sideration just in the degree that they may influence the end 
 which Washington declared to be "the primary object of 
 patriotic desire." To maintain the Union a gigantic war 
 has been carried on, now in the fourth year of its duration, 
 and the resources of the country, both in men and money, 
 have been freely expended in support of it. The war was 
 not a matter of choice with the government, unless it was 
 prepared to surrender its power over one-half of its territory 
 and incur all the hazards of anarchy throughout the other 
 half. It was begun by those who sought to overthrow the 
 Federal authority. It should be ended the very day that 
 authority is recognized and re-established throughout its 
 rightful domain. 
 
 The desire for peace after the sufferings and trials of the 
 past three years is natural. Springing from the very in 
 stincts of humanity it is irrepressible. The danger to be 
 avoided is that in aiming to attain peace we shall be de 
 ceived by the shadow and thus fail to secure the substace. 
 Peace on the basis of disunion is a delusion. It is no peace 
 at all. It is but the beginning of war more wasteful, more 
 destructive, more cruel than we have thus far experienced. 
 Those who cry for the "immediate cessation of the war" are 
 the best advocates of its endless continuance. They mean 
 peace by the recognition of Rebel Independence, and Rebel 
 Independence is absolutely incompatible with peace. 
 
 Among the cherished errors of those who are willing to 
 acknowledge the Southern Confederacy as the basis of 
 peace, the most fatal is that which assumes the continued 
 union, harmony and power of the loyal States. This can 
 not be. Contentions and strifes without number would at 
 once spring up. The border States would be convulsed 
 with a fierce contest as to which section they would adhere 
 to. The Pacific slope, to escape the dangers and constant 
 embroilments which it could neither control nor avoid, 
 would naturally seek for independence ; and the North 
 west, if it did not follow the example, would demand such 
 a reconstruction of the government of the remaining States 
 as would make our further connection therewith undesirable 
 if not absolutely intolerable. In short disunion upon the 
 line of the revolted States would involve the total and 
 speedy disintegration of the Federal Government, and we 
 
148 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 would find ourselves launched on "a sea of troubles" with 
 no pilot capable of "holding the helm, and no chart to guide 
 us on our perilous voyage. 
 
 There is indeed but one path of safety, and that is like 
 wise the path of honor and of interest. We must preserve 
 the Union. Differ as we may as to the measures necessary 
 to that end, there shall be no difference among loyal men as 
 to the end itself. No sacrifice we can make in our efforts 
 to save the Union is comparable with that we should all 
 make in losing it. He is the enemy to both sections and to 
 the common cause of humanity and civilization, who is will 
 ing to conclude the war by surrendering the Union ; and the 
 most alarming development of the times is the disposition 
 manifested by leading journals, by public men and by polit 
 ical conventions in the loyal States to accept this conclu 
 sion. For myself, in the limited sphere of my influence I 
 shall never consent to such a delusive settlement of our 
 troubles. Neither at the polls as an American citizen, nor 
 in Congress as a Representative (should I again be chosen) 
 will I ever give a vote admitting even the possibility of 
 ultimate failure in this great struggle for Nationality. 
 Very respectfully, your obd t servant, 
 
 J. G. ELAINE. 
 
 During the succeeding 39th Congress he occupied a 
 subordinate position on the Committee on Military Affairs. 
 But his influence on that important committee or in the 
 House was not secondary. During the session of that 
 Congress Blaine reached that leading position as a states 
 man which he has held ever since. His position on the 
 basis of representation in Congress, claiming that the South 
 should be entitled to representatives only in proportion to 
 its enfranchised citizens, was one, which, when adopted com 
 pelled the vSouth for their own interest to grant the right ot 
 suffrage to the negro population. 
 
 The registry of vessels engaged in American trade ; the 
 appropriations for the army ; the still unsettled question of 
 paying to the States their expenditures for raising troops 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 149 
 
 in the war ; the West India telegraph ; reorganization of 
 the army ; the reconstruction of the Southern States ; equal 
 ization of taxes, and the celebrated controversy with Hon. 
 Roscoe Conkling over General Fry, called out his most 
 brilliant talents and fastened him to the hearts of the 
 people. 
 
 The exciting discussion with Conkling arose about the 
 Provost Marshal General, against whom Conkling, for some 
 reason sufficient to him, had taken a most bitter dislike. 
 Elaine defended General Fry boldly, persistently, and 
 sharply. The discussion became excitingly personal and 
 the wordy warfare was one of the most keen, sarcastic and 
 bold ever waged in the arena of daily conflict. 
 
 On the question of reimbursing the States for their war 
 expenses Elaine was the originator of the proposition, and 
 its champion to its successful issue. His speech upon that 
 matter given April 12th, 1864, will give the reader an ac 
 curate and official account of the measure and his manner 
 of sustaining it. 
 
 The House being in Committee of the Whole, on the Special 
 Order, Bill No. 117, "to reimburse the State of Pennsyl 
 vania for expenses incurred in calling out the militia dur 
 ing the invasion of said State." 
 MR. ELAINE said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman I move to amend the amendment. of the 
 gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Farnsworth) by adding there 
 to the following, which I design as a substitute for the bill re 
 ported by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) : 
 "Sec. 1. That a Board of three commissioners, to be ap 
 pointed by the President, is hereby established to ascertain 
 the total amount of indebtedness that has been incurred by 
 the loyal States, and by the towns, cities and counties 
 within those States, in their efforts to raise, organize and 
 equip troops for the present war ; and said commissioners 
 shall hold their sessions in the city of Washington from and 
 
150 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 after the 1 st day of October next, and shall have power tc 
 employ such number of clerks as they may find necessary, 
 not excccdiiii: lour one of each class. 
 
 "Sec. 2. Said commissioners shall give notice by adver 
 tisement in at least one paper in each loyal State, of the time 
 and place of their sessions, that all duly authorized agents 
 may attend and present their claims for debts incurred 1<n 
 the general or particular defense during the Avar, and on the 
 evidence thereof according to the principles of general equity 
 (although such claims may not have been sanctioned by the 
 laws of Congress) to allow the same as a charge against the 
 United States, subject to the approval of Congress, to be 
 liquidated and paid by the issuance to said claimants of bonds 
 
 of the United States, payable in years, with interesl 
 
 at the rate of per cent, per annum, or in lawful monej 
 of the United States, as may hereafter be elected by Con 
 gress : Provided always. That the rule for apportioning tc 
 States the amounts to be refunded under this act shall be 
 the same that is provided by the Constitution of the United 
 States for the apportionment of Representatives and direct 
 taxes. 
 
 4 Sec. 3. Said commissioners shall respectively take ar 
 oath before a judge of the United States Court that they wil! 
 faithfully discharge their duties. They shall each be paic 
 
 at the rate of dollars per day, and shall make n na! 
 
 report of their doings to Congress on or before the first Mon 
 day of December, A. D. 1865." 
 
 MR. STILES. I raise the point of order on that amend 
 ment, that it is not germane to the original bill. 
 
 MR. STEVENS. I hope the gentleman from Maine wil 
 withdraw it. It is upon a different subject altogether. 
 
 MR. ELAINE. I submit the question to the Chair. If ni) 
 amendment is out of order, of course I cannot press it. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN. The Chair decides the amendment t 
 be in order, as it relates to the general subject of the bill, 
 and in effect includes the pending measure. 
 
 MR. ELAINE. As early as the 7th of January last, Mr. 
 Chairman, I called the attention of the House by a simple 
 declaratory resolution to the subject of refunding to the loya! 
 States the amounts expeneled by them in the prosecution oi 
 the existing war. Instead of asking a vote on the resolu- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 151 
 
 tion then submitted, I desire the action of the House on the 
 bill which I have just offered as a substitute for that report 
 ed from the Committee of Ways and Means by the distin 
 guished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) . His 
 bill proposes to refund a certain amount of money claimed 
 to be due from the General Government to his own State 
 for expenses incurred during the Gettysburg campaign. My 
 bill proposes to establish a commission for the purpose of as 
 certaining the amounts due to all the loyal States for their 
 war expenditures, with the view of ultimately refunding the 
 same from the common treasury of the nation. 
 
 It is, of course, well known to all, that in addition to the 
 enormous outlay of the National Government in its effort to 
 suppress the Southern Rebellion, there has been a necessary 
 and legitimate expenditure in aid of the same great object 
 on the part of the loyal States. These expenditures arose 
 from absolute necessity ; they have not been made thought 
 lessly or wastefully, but with due consideration, and with a 
 prudent economy which compares most favorably with many 
 departments of the National disbursement. My proposition 
 is, that all expenditures thus made in good faith for the de 
 fense and preservation of the National life, should be re 
 funded by the National Government. And I shall proceed 
 to discuss, as briefly as may be, the justice and expediency 
 of refunding these amounts ; the precedents for so doing ; 
 and our ability to do so without impairing the National credit. 
 And of these in their order. 
 
 If the twenty-four loyal States, now striving, with patri 
 otic rivalry, to outdo each other in defending and rescuing 
 the nation from its perils, were hereafter to constitute the 
 entire Union, there might be nothing gained and nothing 
 lost to any one of them, by consolidating their respective 
 war debts into one common charge upon the aggregate re 
 sources of the nation. Under such circumstances each State 
 would be freed from an individual tax only to incur a bur 
 den of similar magnitude in meeting its component part of 
 the total national debt. But the actual case, presented for 
 our consideration and decision, is far different from this. 
 We are engaged in a struggle which must inevitably result 
 in restoring to loyalty, and to duty, eleven States now in 
 rebellion against the authority of the National Government. 
 
152 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 And beyond that, as a consequence of a restored Union, and 
 of the boundless prosperity which awaits the auspicious 
 event, our vast Western domain will be peopled with a ra 
 pidity exceeding all precedent, and States without number 
 almost will spring into existence, to add to the strength and 
 insure the perpetuity of our Government. Well-considered 
 estimates based on past progress, and the established ratio 
 of our advance in wealth and population, assure us that 
 within less than a century from this time we shall have 
 added forty new States to our Union, making, with the 
 number now composing it, a grand total of seventy-five 
 prosperous Commonwealths. Were it not for the blood so 
 freely poured out, and the treasure so lavishly expended by 
 the twenty-four loyal States represented on this floor, the 
 eleven States now in revolt would not be saved from self- 
 destruction, and the forty States so speedily to grow up in 
 the Mississippi valley and on the Pacific slope would never 
 come into existence. 
 
 Of the immense national debt which we are incurring in 
 this struggle, each State will, of course, have to bear a 
 share; but it. is quite manifest that for two generations to 
 come, owing to our established system of taxation, the pres 
 ent loyal States will have to endure vastly the larger propor 
 tion of the total burden. Is it fair or just, that in addition 
 to this they shall each be called upon to bear, unaided, a large 
 local debt, necessarily, and yet generously, incurred in aid 
 of the one common object of preserving the life of the whole 
 nation? The question which I present, therefore, is not 
 one for dispute or difference between any of the States here 
 represented, for they all have a common interest in adopting 
 the proposed measure. The financial issue is rather between 
 the twenty-four loyal States on the one hand, and the eleven 
 revolted States, together with all future new States, on the 
 other. We have it in our power to-day to determine the 
 matter upon principles of the highest equity, and at the 
 same time for the interest of the loyal States, who are bear 
 ing the heat and burden of the great contest. 
 
 From such data as I have been able to collect, I estimate 
 the war debts of the loyal States, and of the towns, cities, 
 Mini counties within those States, as amounting at least to 
 one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. The annual tax 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 153 
 
 to meet the interest on this sum must be raised by a direct 
 levy on the property of the people, without the intervention 
 of an excise system, or any other indirection to lighten or 
 disguise it. If this burden is to remain permanently on the 
 communities now sustaining it, we shall witness the anom 
 alous spectacle of less than one-third of the prospective 
 number of States bearing in its most oppressive form one 
 hundred and fifty millions of debt, every dollar of which 
 was contracted as much for the benefit of the other two- 
 thirds of the Union as for themselves. And the injurious 
 working of such a discrimination will be made odiously and 
 cruelly manifest in the emigration from the old to the new 
 States, and from the North to the South, for the purpose of 
 escaping the very tax which was incurred that the new 
 States might be born, and that the South might be saved 
 from suicide. I could not, by any argument, enhance the 
 force of such a fact as this, nor strengthen the plea which it 
 makes for the equalization of the entire debt created by the 
 war. 
 
 I anticipate an objection which will be made to the meas 
 ure on the score of expediency. Many gentlemen, while 
 admitting the abstract justice and equity of the proposition, 
 have suggested the danger of impairing the national credit 
 by adding to it a burden which need not be assumed. The 
 national treasury they fear is already overloaded by the in 
 evitable demands upon it, and they protest against incurring 
 any fresh obligation where it can possibly be avoided. I 
 shall, before closing my remarks, speak somewhat in detail 
 of our ability to bear the national debt which the suppres 
 sion of the rebellion will leave upon us. At this point I 
 desire only to say that it is a mistake, palpable and radical, 
 to assume that the adoption of the refunding measure which 
 I have proposed would in any degree add to the national 
 burden or actually increase the debt of the country. The 
 States and communities which owe the debts proposed to be 
 refunded, are precisely the same States and communities 
 upon which must rest the maintenance of the national credit 
 during the entire period that it may be said to be in doubt 
 or on trial before the world. If this $150,000,000 of local 
 indebtedness is upon them, it affects their resources and 
 their ability to carry the national debt by precisely that 
 
154 THE LIFE ANI> ITP.I.H SERVICES 
 
 amount. And if the national debt be increased $1. 50, 000,- 
 000 by refunding to the States, the local burdens are correl- 
 atively and proportionally reduced. Not only is this so, as 
 an actual fact, but it is so in its impression and its influence 
 in financial circles. You will find that the bankers in New 
 York and London maintain a close observation upon our 
 State and local indebtedness, and thence measure our ability 
 to carry a national debt. Should the refunding policy be 
 adopted, no class of men will appreciate it so thoroughly or 
 weigh its effect so clearly as those who so largely control 
 the loan market. The policy will need neither explanation 
 nor vindication with that sagacious and far-seeing class of 
 men. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that at the organization of the 
 Government, when the pjficy of refunding to the States 
 their outlays in the revolutionary struggle was under dis 
 cussion, the very objection which I have just been consider 
 ing was vehemently urged by those who were opposed to 
 the measure. Their whole argument was very quietly ovrr- 
 thrown by Mr. Hamilton in his celebrated report of January 
 9, 1790, when he summed up and disposed of the entire case 
 in these few words : 
 
 "Admitting that a provision must be made in some way 
 or other for the entire debt, it will certainly follow that no 
 greater revenues will be required, whether that provision be 
 made wholly by the United States or partly by them and 
 partly by the States separately." 
 
 Instead of having an injurious effect on the public credit, 
 Mr. Hamilton further maintained that the refunding policy 
 "would contribute, in an eminent degree, to an orderly, 
 stable, and satisfactory arrangement of the national finances." 
 
 Every measure of legislation having sufficient importance 
 to enlist the interest and challenge the scrutiny of the coun 
 try, is greatly strengthened if its policy can be sustained by 
 the practice of the past. Happily, in this instance we aiv 
 not without the most pertinent an;l BUggestive precedents 
 not only settling all questions of Constitutional power, but 
 vindicating by results the policy of refunding all war ex 
 penditures to the States. 
 
 I need not remind the House that one of the earliest and 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 155 
 
 one of the gravest questions that came up for adjustment 
 upon the organization of the Government was the payment, 
 from the common purse of the nation, of all debts contracted 
 by the States in their great struggle to achieve our inde 
 pendence. All the possible questions and issues involved in 
 such a policy were fully and freely discussed by the leading 
 statesmen of that day ; and the decision was in favor of 
 refunding a decision which was followed by the almost 
 instant revival and subsequent continued maintenance of the 
 public credit. The argument in favor of the policy was ad 
 mirably condensed by Mr. Hamilton in a single paragraph 
 which I quote from one of his ablest papers : 
 
 4 The equalizing of the condition of the citizens of every 
 State, and exonerating those of the States most indebted 
 from partial burdens which would press upon them in con 
 sequence of exertions in a common cause, is not completely 
 fulfilled until the entire debt of every State contracted in 
 relation to the war is embraced in one general and compre 
 hensive plan. The inconvenience to the United States of 
 disburdening the States which are still iricumbered with 
 considerable debts, would bear no proportion to the incon 
 venience which they would feel if left to struggle with those 
 debts unaided." 
 
 Following the views and recommendations of Mr. Ham 
 ilton, Congress, on the 5th of August, 1790, passed "An 
 act to provide more effectually for the settlement of accounts 
 between the United States and the individual States." By 
 this act, a board consisting of three commissioners was 
 appointed to hear and adjudicate all claims submitted to 
 them. The generous and comprehensive basis on which 
 claims were to be determined, may be seen from the third 
 section of the act, a part of which I will read : 
 
 "SEC. 3. It shall be the duty of said commissioners to 
 receive and examine all claims which shall be exhibited to 
 them before the 1st day of July, A. D. 1791, and to deter 
 mine on all such as shall have accrued for the general or 
 particular defense during the war, and on the evidence 
 thereof, according to the principles of general equity, although 
 
i:>l, THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 snch claims may not be sanctioned by the resolves of Congress, 
 nor supported by regular vouchers," etc. 
 
 By legislation contemporaneous with the foregoing, the 
 act indeed being approved one day in advance of that from 
 which I have read, Congress agreed to liquidate the claims 
 of States to a specified amount, with the simple proviso, 
 that the claims should be for "compensations and expendi 
 tures for service or supplies toward the prosecution of the 
 late war and the defense of the United States or some part 
 thereof during the same." The amounts for which United 
 States stocks were, in pursuance of this legislation, ex 
 changed for certificates of State indebtedness were as follows 
 in the various States, viz. : New Hampshire, $300,000 ; 
 Massachusetts, $4,000,000; Rhode Island, $200,000; 
 Connecticut, $1,000,000; New York, $1,200,000; New 
 Jersey, $800,000; Pennsylvania, $2,200,000; Delaware, 
 $200,000; Maryland, $800,000; Virginia, $3,500,000; 
 North Carolina, $2,400,000; South Carolina, $4,000,000; 
 Georgia, $300,000. Massachusetts, which furnished the 
 most men in- the revolutionary war, and South Carolina, 
 which furnished the least number, had the same amounts 
 liquidated ; and the aggregate sum thus refunded to all the 
 States for war expenditures was twenty-one and a half mil 
 lions of dollars ; immeasurably larger, in proportion to 
 the wealth and resources of the country at that time, than 
 one hundred and fifty millions would be for the nation as 
 it exists to-day. 
 
 The second precedent for refunding the expenditures made 
 by States was in the war with England in 1812-15. Every 
 dollar wa&repaid on the most liberal principles, the only limit 
 or qualification being that the money whose restitution was 
 claimed, "had been actually expended for the use and bene 
 fit of the United States during the late war with Great 
 Britain." And the principle was carried further than simply 
 refunding the amounts advanced, for interest also was sub 
 sequently allowed to every State, except Massachusetts, 
 upon all debts incurred on behalf of the common cause. The 
 payment of interest was a much-discussed and long-delayed 
 >u-t. and its accomplishment was finally due to the clear and 
 forcible presentation of the merits and rightfulness of the 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 157 
 
 policy by President Monroe, in a message to Congress dur 
 ing the session of 1824-25. In consequence of the argument 
 and influence of the President, interest was allowed to 
 Virginia "on all sums on which she had paid interest ;" and 
 subsequently, by separate acts, each State that had made 
 advances for war purposes was allowed interest in full there 
 on, with the exception just noted ; and a bill to refund in 
 terest to Massachusetts is now pending. Reference may be 
 had to United States Statutes at Large, volume 4, pages 
 161, 175, 192, 241, 499. 
 
 The third and freshest precedent for the policy now urged 
 was the course pursued by our Government with reference 
 to State expenses incurred during the war with Mexico. 
 The refunding to the States, in that instance was upon a 
 basis so comprehensive and broad as to be almost liable to 
 the charge of looseness and prodigality. Before the war 
 had continued a year, before the intelligence of Taylor s 
 victory at Buena Vista had reached this country, and before 
 Scott had even landed at Vera Cruz, Congress provided by 
 joint resolution of March 3, 1847, for refunding as follows : 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
 the United States of America in Congress assembled, That 
 the Secretary of War be and he is hereby authorized and 
 required to cause to be refunded to the several States or to 
 individuals, for services rendered, acting under the author 
 ity of any State, the amount of expenses incurred by them 
 in organizing, subsisting, and transporting volunteers pre 
 vious to their being mustered and received into the service 
 of the United States for the present war." 
 
 Under this resolution many claims were presented which 
 the auditing bureaus of the Treasury Department refused 
 to allow, because of the restriction contained in the phrase 
 "acting under the authority of any State." There was, 
 moreover, a class of claims presented by counties and mu 
 nicipal corporations which did not seem to be included 
 within the specific terms of the resolution. To remedy all 
 such defects, Congress the next year passed an act, ap 
 proved June 2, 1848, the first section of which was in 
 the following terms : 
 
 "Be it enacted, etc., That the provisions of the joint res- 
 
158 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 /jlutions approved March 3, 1847, entitled A resolution to 
 refund money to the States that have supplied volunteers, 
 etc. be and the same are hereby extended so as to embrace 
 all cases of expenses heretofore incurred in organizing, sub 
 sisting and transporting volunteers previous to their being 
 mustered and received into the United States service for the 
 piv.M iit war, whether by States, counties, corporations, or in- 
 dividual* ) either acting with or without the authority of any 
 State : Provided, however, That proof shall be made to the 
 satisfaction of the Secretary of War of the amount thus ex- 
 pi- n< led, and that the same was necessary and proper for the 
 troops aforesaid." 
 
 Sweeping and conclusive as was the general scope of this 
 resolution the simple proviso requiring satisfactory proof 
 that the expenditures were "necessary and proper for the 
 troops aforesaid," operated as a bar to the payment of cer 
 tain classes of claims. The auditing bureaus, under the 
 strict scrutiny applied by them, held a considerable amount 
 suspended for three or four years, until finally, in 1852, 
 Congress again came to the relief of the States by declaring 
 that their accounts should be allowed "as presented." This 
 legislation is contained in the tenth section of the Army ap 
 propriation bill, approved August 31st, 1852, as follows : 
 
 "And be it further enacted, etc., That there be appropri 
 ated as aforesaid for refunding to the State of Michigan the 
 amount advanced by said State in organizing, subsisting, 
 and transporting volunteers previous to their being mustered 
 into the United States service during the late war with 
 Mexico, $20,000, which said sum or so much thereof as 
 shall be necessary to pay and cancel the claim of said State, 
 r/s presented, and now on file in the office of the Third Au 
 ditor of the Treasury Department, shall be paid by the 
 Secretary of the Treasury to the Governor or other proper 
 officer of the said State of Michigan : Provided, That the 
 same principles be applied in the settlement of the claims of 
 the State of Alabama and all other States for money ad 
 vanced in raising, subsisting, and transporting troops for the 
 Mexican war." 
 
 In one of the instances which I have cited, the claims of 
 States were paid by substituting United States bonds for 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 159 
 
 certificates of local indebtedness. The bill which I have sub 
 mitted proposes a similar plan at this time, so that its 
 adoption involves no danger of an expanded circulation. 
 It neither adds to the currency by an issue of legal-tender 
 notes, nor does it increase the bonded debt of the loyal 
 States. It simply changes the form of the latter from a 
 local and diverse, to a general and uniform series of obli 
 gations. 
 
 Thus we find the precedents are ample, broad, and con 
 clusive. In the three wars in which our country has been 
 engaged, the policy of refunding to the States all their con 
 tributions to the common cause has been uniformly and rig 
 idly followed by Congress. It was so in our first war, which 
 was a struggle for independence ; it was so in our second 
 war, which was waged for maritime rights and for national 
 dignity ; it was so in our third war, which, in its spirit and 
 in its results, was mainly a war of conquest. We are now 
 engaged in war for the fourth time, and the struggle is for 
 national unity and self-preservation. Instead of narrowing 
 these precedents left us by former wars, every consideration 
 of justice and equity requires that we should give them their 
 widest application in the present instance. If it were just 
 to refund the expenditures heretofore made in a common 
 cause, it is so now in a ratio enhanced by the magnitude of 
 the issues involved in the pending contest. 
 
 In one aspect it is scarcely necessary to argue this ques 
 tion, for the simple reason, as already suggested, that if we 
 are not able to carry the war debts of the States as a com 
 mon charge upon the nation, we are not able to carry them 
 where they are now placed. The refunding policy which I 
 have proposed, neither adds to, nor subtracts from the debt 
 of the loyal people, who are now struggling for the Union 
 and for nationality. It simply equalizes the burden, and 
 places it impartially on the shoulders of those who are to be 
 benefited by the victorious issue of the war, for the support 
 of which the State debts have been contracted. 
 
 The real question of interest in this connection is whether 
 we are able, as a nation, to sustain the entire debt which the 
 close of the war will leave upon us, without oppressively 
 burdening the business, and crippling the energies of the peo 
 ple ? I propose to show by some simple facts and figures 
 
1GO THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 that we arc abundantly equal to the great trial, and that in 
 bearing it we are assuming far less responsibility in propor 
 tion to wealth, population, and prospective development, ilia n 
 has been successfully and triumphantly assumed in the past 
 by another great nation, and even by ourselves at the organ 
 ization of the Government. 
 
 In estimating the debt with which we are to be encum 
 bered, it is not wise, in my judgment, to adopt a too san 
 guine anticipation of the speedy close of the war. Very 
 many gentlemen, whose opinions the public are accustomed 
 to respect, predict the entire suppression of the rebellion 
 within the ensuing summer. For myself. I cannot indulge 
 in so pleasing a prospect. Whatever false reckonings we 
 may have made in the past in regard to the shortness of the 
 war, I have latterly been of those who believe that the lead 
 ing conspirators of the South intend at all events to prolong 
 the struggle until the contest for the Presidency is ended. 
 They have a hope baseless enough it seems to us that in 
 some way they are to be benefited by the result of that elec 
 tion, and hence they will hold out until it is decided, and 
 with a view, indeed, of affecting its decision. Let us not 
 then deceive ourselves with regard to the speedy reduction 
 of the enormous expenditures to which we are now sub 
 jected. It is wiser for us to look soberly at facts as they 
 are, and not beguile ourselves with rose-colored views of 
 facts as we wish they might be. Let us make our calcula 
 tions in regard to the national debt, therefore, on the as 
 sumption that the war will last until July, 18G5, instead of 
 closing in July, 1864, as has been so confidently assumed 
 by many. Should it come to a termination earlier, our 
 error will be the happiest feature in our entire calculation. 
 
 Heretofore the estimates of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 in regard to the amount of the national debt at any given 
 period, have proved astonishingly accurate. And the safest 
 feature of his estimates is seen in the fact that he has in no 
 instance understated the prospective amount of indebtedness 
 as actually ascertained, when the day for which the estimate 
 was made had arrived. For instance, in December, 1862, 
 the Secretary stated that the debt July 1st, 1863, would be 
 $1,122,297,403.24. In fact, when the time arrived, the 
 debt had only reached $1,098,793,181.37, or some twenty- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 161 
 
 four millions less than Mr. Chase estimated. With fuller 
 data for reckoning than when he made the calculation just 
 referred to, the Secretary now estimates that if the war shall 
 continue so long, at its current rate of cost, our debt in 
 July, 1865, will reach the large sum of $2,231,935,190.37. 
 To this vast amount let us add $150,000,000 to be incurred 
 by refunding to States as proposed in the measure I am ad 
 vocating, and $150,000,000 more to cover unforeseen ex 
 penses in closing up the great contest, and you have a grand 
 total of twenty-five hundred millions of dollars, the annual 
 interest and ultimate redemption of which must be provided 
 for by the nation. Besides contracting this enormous debt, 
 we shall have expended all the current receipts of the Treas 
 ury in conducting the war, amounting in the aggregate, for 
 the four years, to more than five hundred millions, making 
 thus a gross outlay of over three thousand millions as the 
 cost of subduing the rebellion an expenditure of two mil 
 lions per day from the inception to the close of the contest. 
 
 Let us see how, by the experience of our own country in 
 a former generation, as well as by the experience of another 
 great people, we may hope to meet this burden with confi 
 dence and courage bearing it without oppression when it is 
 heaviest, and coming in good season to its total discharge, 
 or by attainment of superior strength making it so light as 
 to be practically disregarded. 
 
 At the organization of our Government in 1789, the en 
 tire population, free and slave, was under four millions, 
 scattered along the seaboard from the St. Croix to the St. 
 Mary s, not fifty thousand in all living one hundred miles 
 distant from the flow of the Atlantic tide. Facilities for in 
 tercommunication were greatly restricted ; manufactures and 
 the arts were in feeble infancy ; agriculture was rude and 
 not highly remunerative, because commerce, its handmaid, 
 was languishing and waiting to be quickened to enterprise 
 arid vigor. The entire valuation of the thirteen States, ac 
 cording to the weight of authority, did not exceed six hun 
 dred millions of dollars three hundred millions less than 
 the valuation of Massachusetts to-day, and not one-half so 
 great as that of Pennsylvania. Property at that time was 
 ill adapted to bear taxation, profits were small, and to the 
 political economist, measuring the condition and capacity of 
 
162 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 the country, it seemed utterly unable to carry a dvbt of any 
 considerable magnitude. And yet our ancestors did not 
 he-itate to assume the burden of ninety millions of dollars 
 more than one-seventh of all the property they owned. Mr. 
 .Jefferson, who was the most distrustful of all the statesmen 
 of that day in regard to the ability of the nation to sustain 
 tin- load, was yet willing to say that it could be easily borne 
 if our annual increase of population and property could 
 maintain an average of five per cent. then the most san 
 guine estimate which any one dared to place on the future 
 growth of the country. Had we realized only the ratio of 
 increase assumed by Mr. Jefferson, our population in I860 
 would have been some fifteen instead of thirty-one millions, 
 and our wealth twenty-seven hundred millions instead of 
 sixteen thousand millions. Upon Mr. Jefferson s assumed 
 basis of increase, the debt would never have been oppres 
 sive ; but with the rate of growth actually realized, the 
 country paid the interest on the debt and accumulated a 
 fund for its redemption with such ease that the people never 
 felt they were taxed. And yet I hope to show that our 
 debt at the close of this war will be relatively lighter than 
 the debt which our Revolutionary fathers thus assumed, and 
 proceeded so early and so easily to discharge. 
 
 Look also at the case of Great Britain. At the close of 
 her gigantic struggle with Napoleon, in 1815, the national 
 debt of that kingdom amounted to 861,000,000 sterling, 
 or forty-three hundred millions of dollars; and for readier 
 comparison I shall speak of her debt in dollars rather than 
 in pounds. Her entire population at that time was less than 
 twenty millions, and the valuation of all her property was 
 about nine thousand five hundred millions of dollars. She 
 owed, indeed, nearly half of all she possessed. Her popu 
 lation was less than two-thirds of what ours is to-day. Her 
 entire property was not three-fifths of what ours was by the 
 census of 1860, while her debt was eighteen hundred millions 
 of dollars greater than ours will be in July, 1865. 
 
 And in contracting this debt she was compelled to sell her 
 bonds at the most enormous sacrifice. From 1792 to 1815 
 her debt was increased three thousand millions of dollars, 
 and yet in exchange for this amount of bonds she reeei\ed 
 in money but $1,730,000,000, thus submitting to a discount 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 163 
 
 of $1,270,000,000. In other words, England, during the 
 twenty-three years of continental war only realized on an 
 average for the whole period, $100 in money in exchange 
 for $173 of her bonds. This, be it remembered, was the 
 average for the whole time. As the contest waxed desper 
 ate, her sacrifices became desperate in proportion, and the 
 money which enabled her to fight the decisive campaign of 
 Waterloo, was obtained by selling her bonds to the European 
 bankers at less than fifty cents on the dollar. 
 
 Compared with this, our sacrifices on our National secu 
 rities have thus far been light, not averaging from the incep 
 tion of the war to the present day, with all elements of ex 
 penditure fairly estimated, more than from twenty to twenty- 
 five per cent., reckoning on the gold basis. 
 
 To meet their enormous debt, the British people had noth 
 ing but the commercial and industrial resources of the United 
 Kingdom, whose whole area is not double that of the single 
 State of Missouri. They had a population of but twenty 
 millions, as already stated, subject to no increase from im 
 migration, and growing in half a century no more than we 
 have added during the last decade. And yet, on this re 
 stricted area, the enterprise and energy of the British people 
 have increased their property, until it is valued at thirty-three 
 thousand millions of dollars; and in defiance of the large 
 expenditure resulting from several costly wars since 1815, 
 they have actually reduced their debt some three hundred 
 millions of dollars. Their steady progress in wealth under 
 their large debt, is comprehended in the statement that the 
 average property per capita in 1815 was less than five hun 
 dred dollars, and in 1861 about eleven hundred dollars. In 
 1815 some twenty-five per centum of all the earning and in 
 come of the people was absorbed in taxation, and in 1861 
 less than ten per centum was taken for the same object. In 
 1815 the proportion of taxes per head for the whole people 
 exceeded seventeen dollars, and in 1861 it had fallen below 
 ten dollars. 
 
 These brief details of British experience show how a great 
 debt, without being absolutely reduced to any considerable 
 extent, becomes relatively lighter by the increased capacity 
 to bear it. The wealth per capita of the entire population in 
 a period of forty-six years has more than doubled ; the ag- 
 
164 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 gregate property of the realm has more than trebled ; and 
 all this on a fixed area of one hundred and twenty thousand 
 square miles, and with a population increasing at the slow 
 rate of only one per cent, per annum. If such results can 
 be wrought out by a kindred people, against such obstacles 
 and hindrances, what may we not hope to accomplish under 
 the auspicious circumstances that surround our own nation ! 
 
 In the light of the National experiences we have been 
 glancing at, we may clearly read our own great future. It 
 is not, indeed, a matter of surmise or speculative query, but 
 of well-founded and confident calculation a calculation 
 which, however sanguine it maybe made, will have its only 
 error in falling short of results actually to be realized. 
 
 The war closing in July, 1865, will leave us in this con 
 dition : a nation numbering some thirty-three millions of 
 people, owning over sixteen thousand millions of property, 
 and carrying a debt of twenty-five hundred millions of dol 
 lars. The proportion between debt and property will be 
 just about the same that it was when the Union was formed, 
 while the ratio of our advance and the largely enhanced 
 productiveness of agricultural, manufacturing, and commer 
 cial pursuits, gives the present generation an advantage that 
 renders the debt far less burdensome at the very outset. 
 
 And if the revolutionary debt became in a very brief 
 period so light as to be unnoticed, why may we not, with a 
 va.-tly accelerated ratio of progress, assume a similar auspi 
 cious result with regard to the debt we are now contracting? 
 Wrre our future advance in wealth and population to be no 
 more rapid than Great Britain s has been since 1815, we 
 should at the close of the present century have a population 
 of forty-five million souls, and a property amounting to fifty 
 thousand millions of dollars. Even upont his ratio of prog 
 ress our entire debt would cease to be felt as a burden. 
 But upon the increase of population and development of 
 wealth to be so assuredly anticipated, the debt would be so 
 small, in comparison with the total resources of the nation, 
 as to become absolutely inconsiderable. Let us look at the 
 figures. 
 
 According to the estimates made in the report of the 
 Eighth census, and made with great care upon very com 
 plete data, our population in the year 1900 will be one him- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 165 
 
 dred millions. The property of the country during the last 
 decade increased one hundred and twenty-six per cent ; our 
 aggregate wealth in 1850 being a trifle over seven thousand 
 millions of dollars, and in 1860 exceeding sixteen thousand 
 millions. Some of the States exhibit an almost fabulous 
 progress Iowa, the highest in ratio, gaining nine hundred 
 and forty-two per cent. , or nearly one hundred per cent, per 
 annum ; and California, not far behind her, making a gain 
 of eight hundred and thirty-eight per cent. ; the average of 
 all the States being, as I have already stated, one hundred 
 and twenty-six per centum. The aggregate addition of 
 wealth for the ten years was thus absolutely larger than all 
 that had been accumulated in the country from the settle 
 ment of Jamestown and Plymouth down to the year 1850. 
 We can hardly hope to maintain this enormous ratio for 
 each successive decade, but it is assuming very much less 
 than the average of the past would justify, to say that our 
 property will increase in double the ratio of our population. 
 From 1790 to 1860 our population increased in all about 
 seven hundred per cent., while our property increased some 
 twenty-six hundred per cent., thus showing an increase in 
 property nearly fourfold greater than in population. A pop 
 ulation of one hundred millions in A. D. 1900 implies an 
 increase of two hundred and ten per cent. , on the census of 
 1860. Doubling the ratio, for increase in property, gives 
 us a gain of four hundred and twenty per cent., which would 
 give a total valuation at the time specified of eighty-five thou 
 sand millions of dollars, of which vast amount our estimated 
 national debt would constitute only the trifling proportion of 
 three per centum. The embarrassment to the country un 
 der such circumstances would prove as light as would a debt 
 of $3,000 to an individual who had an otherwise unencum 
 bered estate of $100,000, the estate all the while receiving 
 a steady increase of ten per cent, per annum. 
 
 All that I have said has been based on the supposition of 
 the debt remaining at a fixed sum, the country simply pay 
 ing the interest. As a matter of fact, however, it is per 
 fectly obvious that in the progress and prosperity of the fu 
 ture, one of our first acts will be to provide for the gradual 
 but absolute redemption of the principal. That this will be 
 consummated without oppressively adding to the annual 
 
166 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 burden of taxes, may be inferred, with certainty, from a 
 slight examination of our capacity to make increased pay 
 ments proportioned to our increased amount of consolidated 
 wealth. The time of redemption will depend wholly on the 
 will of the tax-payers ; but it is quite evident that the con 
 dition of the country may justify its being done as rapidly 
 as Mr. Hamilton proposed to redeem the debt which he 
 funded in 1 790. The period assigned by him was thirty- 
 five years, and so well based were his calculations, that the 
 entire debt, augmented largely and unexpectedly as it was 
 by the war of 1812, was paid in forty-four years from the 
 date of funding ; and in 1834 the United States found itself 
 owing but thirty-seven thousand dollars. 
 
 To those who may be disposed to doubt the future prog 
 ress of our country according to the ratio assumed, a few 
 familiar considerations in respect to our resources may be 
 recalled with advantage. We occupy a territory at least 
 three million square miles in extent ; within a fraction as 
 large as the whole of Europe. Our habitable and cultivable 
 aiva is indeed larger than that of all Europe, to say nothing 
 of the superior fertility and general productiveness of our 
 soil. So vast is our extent that though we may glibly re 
 peat its numerical measure, we find it most difficult to form 
 any just conception of it. The State of Texas alone is 
 equal in area to the Empire of France and the kingdom of 
 Portugal united ; and yet these two monarchies support a 
 population of forty millions, while Texas has but six hun 
 dred thousand inhabitants. Or, if we wish for a compara 
 tive measure nearer home, let me state that the area of 
 Texas is greater than that of the six New England States, 
 together with New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania 
 and Ohio and Indiana all combined. California, the second 
 Stale in size, is equal in extent to the kingdom of Spain 
 and the kingdom of Belgium together. Spain and Belgium 
 have twenty millions of people, while California has not 
 half a million. And we might pursue this species of com 
 parison almost indefinitely, clearly showing that in capacity 
 and assured destiny our individual States, if peaceful and 
 united, are to become as wealthy, as populous, and as pow 
 erful as the separate great nations of Europe. Mere terri 
 torial extent does not of course imply future greatness, 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 167 
 
 though it is one great requisite to it. And in our case it is 
 so vast an element that we may be pardoned for dwelling 
 on it with emphasis and iteration. The land that is still in 
 the hands of our government, not sold nor even pre-empted, 
 amounts to a thousand millions of acres an extent of ter 
 ritory thirteen times as large as Great Britain, and equal in 
 area to all the kingdoms of Europe, with Russia and Tur 
 key alone excepted. 
 
 Combined with this almost limitless expanse of territory 
 we have facilities for the acquisition and consolidation of 
 wealth varied, magnificent, and immeasurable. Our ag 
 ricultural resources, bounteous and boundless by nature, 
 are, by the application of mechanical skill and labor-saving 
 machinery, receiving a development each decade, which a 
 century in the past would have failed to secure, and which 
 a century in the future will place beyond all present power 
 of computation giving us so far the lead in the production 
 of those staple articles essential to life and civilization that 
 we become the arbiter of the world s destiny without aiming 
 at the world s empire. The single State of Illinois, culti 
 vated to its capacity, can produce as large a crop of cereals 
 as has ever been grown within the limits of the United 
 States ; while Texas, if peopled but half as densely as Mary 
 land even, could give an annual return of cotton larger than 
 the largest that has ever been grown in all the cotton States 
 together. Our facilities for commerce and exchange, both 
 domestic and foreign who shall measure them? Our 
 oceans, our vast inland seas, our marvelous and unlimited 
 flow of navigable streams, our canals, our network of rail 
 roads more than thirty thousand miles in extent, greater 
 than the railroads of all Europe and all the world besides 
 these give us avenues of trade and channels of communica 
 tion, both natural and artificial, such as no other nation has 
 ever enjoyed, and which* tend to the production of wealth 
 with a rapidity not to be measured by any standard of the 
 past. The enormous field for manufacturing industry in 
 all its complex and endless variety with our raw material, 
 our wonderful motive-power both by water and steam, our 
 healthful climate, our cheap carriage, our home consump 
 tion, our foreign demand foreshadows a traffic whose mag 
 nitude and whose profit will in no long period surpass the 
 
168 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 gigantic industrial system of Great Britain, where to-day 
 the canning hands of ten million artisans accomplish, with 
 mechanical aid, the work of six hundred millions of mm ! 
 Our mines of gold and silve& and iron and copper and lead 
 and coal, with their untold and unimaginable wealth, spread 
 over millions of acres of territory, in the valley, on the 
 mountain-side, along rivers, yielding already a rich har 
 vest, are deetined yet to increase a thousand-fold, until their 
 every-day treasures, 
 
 familiar grown, 
 Shall realize Orient s fabled wealth." 
 
 These are the great elements of material progress ; and 
 they comprehend the entire circle of human enterprise 
 agriculture, commerce, manufactures, mining. They as 
 sure to us a growth in property and population that will sur 
 pass the most sanguine deductions of our census tables, 
 framed as those tables are upon the ratios and relations of 
 our progress in the past. They give into our hands, under 
 the blessing of Almighty God, the power to command our 
 fate as a Natron. They hold out to us the grandest future 
 reserved for any people ; and with this promise they teach 
 us the lesson of patience, and make confidence and fortitude 
 a duty. With such amplitude and affluence of resources, 
 and with such a vast stake at issue, we should be unworthy 
 of our lineage and our inheritance if we for one moment 
 distrusted our ability to maintain ourselves a united people, 
 with "one country, one constitution, one destiny." 
 
 During this year his fame became such that his speech on 
 the taxing of exports agitated the country in a most extra 
 ordinary manner. It is so interesting as a matter of po- 
 litieal history that it is inserted, although the reasons which 
 called it out have long since ceased, through legislation 
 and economic changes. 
 
 - 
 
 Speech of Mr. Blame, of Maine, in favor of Ameiidmi. 
 the Federal Constitution, by striking out the clause which 
 prohibits the taxing of exports, delivered in the House of 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 1G9 
 
 Representatives, second session, Thirty-Eighth Congress, 
 Thursday, March 2d, 1805 : 
 
 Mn. SPEAKER : I am aware that it is a very grave step 
 for Congress to propose an amendment to the Constitution 
 of the United States. A change in that "great charter of 
 our liberties" should be made only after the most mature 
 deliberation, and under the conviction of an imperious pub 
 lic necessity. There has always been in the American mind 
 a well-founded and justifiable prejudice against tampering 
 with the provisions of our organic law a prejudice so set 
 tled, and so strong, that it has been overcome in but three 
 instances since the organization of our Government, in 1789. 
 I trust, and confidently believe, that the fourth instance will 
 be found in the adoption of that great amendment in the in 
 terest of impartial freedom which Congress has so recently 
 submitted to the States for their acceptance or rejection. 
 
 I speak now in advocacy of a fifth amendment one 
 which in my judgment is absolutely essential to the financial 
 success of the Government, and to the commercial, manu 
 facturing, and agricultural prosperity of our country in all 
 future time. It is an amendment which I had the honor to 
 propose during the last session of Congress, and which was 
 embodied in the following resolution, adopted by the House 
 on my motion, on the 24th of March, 1864 : 
 
 Resolved, That the Judiciary Committee be directed to in 
 quire into the expediency of proposing an amendment to the 
 Constitution of the United States, by striking out the fifth 
 clause of section nine, article one, which forbids the levying 
 of "a tax, or duty, on articles exported from the State." 
 
 The subject was referred anew, in December last, to the 
 Committee of Ways and Means, and it was expected, until 
 very recently, that it would be brought before the House for 
 definite action, before the expiration of the Thirty-Eighth 
 Congress. The pressure of public measures already on the 
 Calendar seems now to forbid all hope of securing a vote on 
 the proposition during this session ; but I cannot allow the 
 occasion to pass without saying a few words in defense and 
 support of the proposed amendment, and of the great change 
 which it contemplates in the future administration of our 
 system of taxation and finance. 
 
170 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 The subject of taxing exports, or rather of giving Con 
 gress the power to do it, was discussed at great length in 
 the Convention of 1787; and one of the marked errors of 
 subsequent times is the very general belief that the Conven 
 tion inserted the constitutional prohibition by a very decisive 
 vote. Another erroneous belief, quite as current as the fore 
 going, is that which attributes the advocacy of prohibitory 
 clause to the Southern or "staple States," as George Mason 
 termed them, and the opposition thereto to the Northern 
 States. The facts of history do not sustain either of these 
 assumptions, as I shall proceed to show, by a record that 
 is undisputed and indisputable. 
 
 Any one who will take the pains to peruse the synopsis of 
 the debates of the Constitutional Convention, as given in 
 the Madison papers, will be struck with the fact that many 
 of the strongest men of that august body the really far- 
 sighted statesmen among its members were opposed to the 
 insertion of the clause prohibiting a tax on exports ; and of 
 these there were even more conspicuous examples from the 
 South than from the North. 
 
 Mr. Madison himself, at one point of the discussion, ex 
 pressed himself thus : 
 
 1 As we ought to be governed by national and permanent 
 views, it is a sufficient argument for giving the power over 
 exports that a tax, though it may not be expedient at pres 
 ent, may be so hereafter. A proper regulation of exports 
 may, and probably will, be necessary hereafter, and for the 
 same purposes as the regulation of imports, namely, for 
 revenue, for domestic manufactures, and for procuring equi 
 table regulations of commerce from other nations." 
 
 At another stage of the debate, on the same important 
 subject, Mr. Madison spoke as follows: 
 
 "First, the power of laying taxes on exports is proper in 
 itself, and as the States cannot, with propriety, exercise it 
 separately, it ought to be vested in them collectively ; sec 
 ondly, it might, with particular advantage, be exercised 
 with regard to articles in which America is not rivaled in 
 foreign markets, as tobacco, etc. ; thirdlv, the Southern 
 States, being most in danger, and most needing naval pro- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 171 
 
 tection, could the less complain if the burden should fall 
 somewhat heaviest on them." 
 
 Mr. John Dickinson, of Delaware, said that : 
 
 "The power of taxing exports might be inconvenient at 
 present, but it must be of dangerous consequence to pro 
 hibit it with respect to all articles and forever." 
 
 Mr. Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania, in reply to 
 what he regarded as sectional arguments, remarked that : 
 
 "Local considerations should not impede the general in 
 terest. He considered the taxing of exports to be in 
 many cases highly politic. All countries having peculiar 
 articles, tax the exportation of them, as France her wines 
 and brandies." 
 
 And he added in another place : 
 
 "That the state of our own country would change, and 
 render duties on exports of peculiar raw materials politic 
 in view of encouraging American manufactures." And he 
 concluded by declaring that "taxes on exports would he often 
 more proper and easy than taxes on imports," and that "To 
 prohibit it altogether was so radically objectionable that it 
 might cost the whole system the support of some mem 
 bers." 
 
 Mr. James Wilson, from the same State, one of the pur 
 est and ablest men of the Convention, followed Morris in 
 support of the same position. He declared himself "de 
 cidedly against prohibiting general taxes on exports," and 
 in subsequently debating the question, he remarked that : 
 
 "In favoring the general power over exports he opposed 
 the particular interest of his own State. To deny this pow 
 er is to take from the common Government half the regu 
 lation of trade. It was his opinion that a power over 
 exports might be more effectual than over imports in 
 obtaining beneficial treaties of commerce." 
 
 Mr. Rufus King, of Massachusetts, opposed the pro 
 hibition as a measure "introducing a weakness which will 
 render common defense more difficult." 
 
172 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 But I need not multiply these quotations. I have cited 
 enough to show that their prohibitory clause was not in 
 serted in the Constitution without very serious opposition 
 from many of the leading minds of the Convention. The 
 citation I have made demonstrates also that their opposition 
 \\a- not based on narrow, local, and sectional grounds, but 
 that it sprang from great national considerations, overriding 
 all these. Neither the support nor hostility to the measure was 
 determined bv geographical lines. The statesmen from whom 
 I have quoted, represented alike the New England States, 
 the Middle States, and the Southern States the three great 
 divisions then comprising the whole country. So on the 
 other hand, among those who labored to deprive the General 
 Government of all power over exports, we find Gerry of 
 Massachusetts, Langdon of New Hampshire, and Ellsworth 
 of Connecticut, quite as zealous and resolute as Mercer of 
 Maryland, Mason of Virginia, and Rutledge of South 
 Carolina. 
 
 \VIien the Convention approached a vote on the question, 
 Mr. Madison, perceiving the probability of the prohibitory 
 clause being adopted, attempted to have it amended so that 
 an export tax might be laid by Congress "with the con 
 currence of two-thirds of the House." He stated that he 
 considered this "a lesser evil than total prohibition," and on 
 this proposition the test vote was taken. Eleven States were 
 present; five voted in favor of Mr. Madison s motion and 
 six against it. Of the six, Virginia was one, and her vote 
 was carried against it by a majority of one in her delega 
 tion it appearing on the record that Mr. Blair, Mr. 
 Ma-on, and Mr. Randolph voted no, while General \Ya.-li- 
 ington and Mr. Madison voted aye. A single member of 
 the Virginia delegation, against the wise and considerate 
 judgment of Washington and Madi.-on. is thus responsible 
 for the vote which deprived Congress of all power over the 
 exports of the country. No important provision in the en 
 tire Constitution was adopted by so slight a majority, and 
 against the strenuous opposition of leading men. 
 
 Thus much, Mr. Speaker, as to the origin of this pro 
 hibitory clause, with the circumstances attending its adop 
 tion. Stoutly as its introduction was resisted, it ha> re 
 mained in the Constitution without cavil or question from 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE 173 
 
 that day to this a proposition to strike it out never having 
 been submitted in Congress prior to the one I am now dis 
 cussing. Indeed, the perfect ease with which the National 
 treasury has been filled from tariff duties, up to the begin 
 ning of the present war, continually obviated the necessity 
 of looking to other sources of revenue, and hence very nat 
 urally little thought has been given to the immense sum that 
 might be derived from a judicious tax on exports. 
 
 But Mr. Madison and his distinguished associates, from 
 whom I have quoted, admonished the Convention that the 
 time might come when an export tax would be a necessity, 
 for the triple object of obtaining revenue of encouraging 
 domestic manufacturers, and for procuring equitable treaties 
 of commerce with foreign nations. The period thus antici 
 pated by the wise statesmen of 1787, has arrived, and for 
 the maintenance of our National credit in the trials and crisis 
 of the immediate and distant future, there is an absolute 
 necessity that Congress shall have the power to levy a tax 
 on exports. Of course, a wise and cautious discrimination 
 is to be exercised in selecting the articles and commodities 
 that will bear a tax of this character. The general and 
 obvious distinction is to tax such and such only as have no 
 competing product in foreign marts, or at all events such 
 weak competition as will give us the-command of the mar 
 ket after the commodity has paid its export dues in this 
 country. As an illustration, take cotton, which is our lead 
 ing export in time of peace. It is believed with confidence 
 that the American product can pay an export tax of five 
 cents per pound, and yet with ease maintain its pre-eminence 
 in the markets of England and the European continent. 
 Our export in a single year has reached three million two 
 hundred thousand bales of five hundred pounds each, and it 
 would rapidly run beyond that figure after peace is restored 
 and the competition of free labor is applied to its produc 
 tion. But if it should never go beyond the quantity named, 
 an export tax of five cents per pound would yield a revenue 
 of eighty million dollars from this single article, as any one 
 will see by a moment s calculation. 
 
 Tobacco and naval stores also afford a large margin for 
 an export tax, owing to the superior quality and quantity 
 of the American production of each article. Without at 
 
174 THE LIFE AND Tl I .I.K SERVICES 
 
 tempting to weary the House with a parade of statistics, it 
 may be sufficient to state that in the judgment of our best 
 economists, the three commodities to which I have referred 
 would jointly yield in time of peace a coin revenue of $100,- 
 000,000, without in any degree impairing their command of 
 the markets where they have always been purchased so readi 
 ly. Of tobacco alone, our export in a single year has ex 
 ceeded the enormous figure of two hundred million pounds, 
 and a very large proportion of the revenue of France, and 
 some other European governments is derived from the duty 
 laid upon its importation. Might we not, at all events, 
 share with foreign nations the advantage of the enormous 
 tax which this article of luxury will bear, making them pay 
 a moity into our coffers instead of monopolizing it all for 
 their own ? Should petroleum continue to be developed in 
 such immense quantities, without being found elsewhere, it, 
 too, will in due time bear a very considerable export tax, as 
 indeed will all articles (without attempting their specific 
 enumeration) whose production is peculiar to this country, 
 or whose quality may be greatly superior to products of sim 
 ilar kind in other countries, or, in the comprehensive phrase 
 of Mr. Madison, articles in which America is not rivaled 
 in foreign markets." 
 
 The tear that has often been expressed, that the Congres 
 sional power to tax exports might be used to oppress certain 
 sections, and to discriminate against particular commodities, 
 is manifestly groundless. It is always safe to trust to self- 
 interest in a nation as well as in an individual. The high 
 est National interest in the matter we are discussing, is to 
 encourage exports in every honorable and practicable way ; 
 and the moment that an export tax should tend to check or 
 decrease exportation, that moment it would be abolished or 
 reduced. Of course, then- must be exportation before rev 
 enue can be derived from an export tax, and hence I repeat 
 that the interest which underlies the whole design, affords 
 tin- most absolute guaranty against any oppressive attempt 
 to discriminate against any section or any particular com 
 modity. 
 
 Intelligent gentlemen will tell us, however, that Govern 
 ment can just as efficiently collect the tax on any given ar 
 ticle through the exei.-e syMem of our internal revenue as 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 175 
 
 by levying an export tax, and they hence argue against any 
 necessity for the proposed amendment to the Constitution. 
 I take issue upon this point, and I maintain that an excise 
 tax upon raw products intended to be shipped to foreign 
 countries will prove disadvantageous, if not absolutely dis 
 astrous, both to the producer and the Government, and that 
 the export tax is far preferable, viewed from any standpoint 
 whatever. 
 
 Let us analyze the process and effect in the case of cotton, 
 as an example, assuming that it is but fair to apply the same 
 arguments to all other articles of large export. 
 
 Practically, an excise tax should be as far removed from 
 the source of production as possible, the more remote the 
 less the burden ; the nearer it comes the more oppressive it 
 grows. Government derives to-day a very large revenue 
 from distilled spirits, malt liquors and wines ; but should an 
 attempt be made to tax the corn, the barley, and the grapes 
 out of which these articles are made, the effect would be 
 most disastrous. Tobacco in its manufactured state pays a 
 very large revenue with perfect ease ; but if a tax should 
 be laid on the leaf, I predict that production would be great 
 ly discouraged and the revenue correspondingly diminished. 
 So, Sir, if you lay an excise tax upon cotton, you increase 
 immensely the difficulties of production, and must of neces 
 sity diminish the amount produced. The export tax which 
 I have stated cotton would bear, amounts to twenty-five 
 dollars per shipping bale, and the attempt to collect that 
 amount by excise tax on each plantation before the cotton 
 could be removed for sale, would prove an intolerable bur 
 den to the producer. The small farmer, with a crop of only 
 forty bales, would be compelled to raise $1,000 in coin or 
 lawful money before he could send a pound of his cotton to 
 market ; and the large planter, with a thousand bales, 
 would have to make an advance of $2o,000, besides all 
 the cost of production, before he could realize a penny in 
 return . 
 
 Such a system of taxation would be destructive ; it would 
 place the enterprising producer, who most of all deserves 
 the patronage and protection of the Government, under a 
 perpetual mortgage, and would subject him to the exactions 
 and heavy charges of the speculative usurers, who would 
 
176 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 at once spring up to feast and fatten upon his capital and 
 his industry. The law which would permit that would In- 
 reckless of the highest interests of agriculture, commerce, 
 and the general prosperity of the country. 
 
 And now, Sir, a glance, very briefly, at the other side. 
 Let cotton he relieved from all excise tax, and let it he 
 bought and sold, and freely moved from point to point with 
 in our own country, without tax or charge, of any kind 
 whatever. Let the planter carry it to market without any 
 hindrance, and when it reaches the point of exportation, 
 having passed from the hands of the producer into the pos 
 session of the capitalist, or speculator, let the Government, 
 as it is placed on shiphoard for transportation to foreign 
 markets, exact its tax of five cents per pound. Collected 
 there and then, it comes from those who are able to pay it, 
 who pay it just on the eve of realizing its return on the other 
 side of the water, from the pockets of foreign buyers, and 
 who pay it in a way that does not embarrass or oppress the 
 producer, nor tend to decrease production. 
 
 Not the least advantage, Mr. Speaker, in this mode of 
 collecting the tax, is the cheapness with which it can be 
 done. The points of shipment of cotton are so few tli.it 
 you may count them on your fingers; and the tendency, 
 owing to the converging of water courses and railroad 
 lines, is against any increase in the number of these ports. 
 The same ollicers of customs, that are already there, to col 
 lect your tariff duties^ can perform the labor of collecting 
 the export duties, without a dollar s additional expense, be 
 yond the salaries of a few extra clerks that the increase of 
 business might demand. Compare with this the vast ex 
 pense of sending an army of excisemen throughout all the 
 cotton and tobacco plantations, and you will find that the 
 svstem of export duties would effect a saving of millions to 
 tlie (iovernment, simply in the mode of collection. And, 
 Sir, you could invent no more offensive system of taxation 
 than would be involved in sending your (Iovernment agents 
 to every rural home in the planting regions, to interrogate 
 the farmers as to the number of hales in his cotton crop, or 
 how many pounds of tobacco he had raised. The officials, 
 who >hould perambulate the country on such errands, would 
 acquire, in popular opinion, as bad a reputation as Dr. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 177 
 
 Johnson, in his dictionary, fastened on the English excise 
 man, "an odious wretch, employed to collect an unjust 
 tux." 
 
 The great statesmen whom I have quoted in the earlier 
 portion of my remarks as against the insertion of this pro 
 hibitory clause in the Constitution, among other grounds of 
 opposition to it, stated that an export tax might be neces 
 sary "for the encouragement of domestic manufactures." 
 Sir, this result would be realized in its fullest extent if cot 
 ton should be subjected to an export tax of five cents per 
 pound, leaving that consumed at home free of duty except 
 the excise tax, which would be levied upon it in the various 
 forms of its manufacture. With this vast advantage in the 
 raw material we should cease to wrangle here about tariffs, 
 for we could in our home markets undersell the fabrics of 
 Europe, and should soon compete with them in the markets 
 of the world. The export tax as compared with the excise, 
 would thus prove beneficent to all the interests of our 
 country, stimulating the production of the raw material and 
 developing the manufacturing enterprise of the land in a 
 ratio compared with which the accomplishments of the past 
 would seem tame and inconsiderable. 
 
 The amendment which I am advocating, Mr. Speaker, 
 is not a snap judgment against the interests of the Southern 
 States, to be hurried through here in the absence of their rep 
 resentatives for fear their presence might defeat it. If there 
 be any logical truth in the views I have so imperfectly pre 
 sented, it is the interest of the planting States to have an 
 export tax, and were those States fully represented on this 
 floor to-day I have no hesitation in saying that they would 
 from necessity and self-interest support this amendment. 
 And for this obvious reason, Sir : it is evident to every one 
 that when this war is over and the Eederal authority firmly 
 re-established, cotton and other Southern products must pay 
 their fair share of the national revenue, and the choice is 
 simply between an excise tax and an export tax. With 
 such an alternative no one can doubt that the South would 
 choose the export duty as the least burdensome and the 
 most advantageous to its peculiar local interests. The in 
 dustrial system, the financial ease, the vital prosperity of 
 the planting States, would demand an export tax in prefer- 
 
178 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 ence to anv other that could be laid on their products by the 
 Federal ( iovernment. 
 
 Jn the future of our country, Mr. Speaker, the great task 
 and test of statesmanship will be in the administration of 
 our finances and the wise distribution of the burdens of tax 
 ation. \Ye began our career as an independent Nation 
 without money, without credit, and with an oppressive load 
 of debt. But a great genius in the person of Hamilton 
 evoked order out of chaos, gave stability to tl\e government, 
 imparted confidence to the people, and established public 
 credit on so firm a basis that, until the breaking out of this 
 wicked rebellion, we had scarcely known an hour s serious 
 embarrassment to our National Treasury. Unless we are 
 guided by counsels of wisdom we may not be so fortunate 
 in the future as we have been in the past. An immense 
 amount of money will be required to meet the interest of 
 our National debt, to maintain our army and navy even 
 on a peace foundation, and to defray the ordinary expenses 
 of civil go\ eminent. The revenue for these objects may be 
 raised so injudiciously as to cripple and embarrass the com 
 mercial and industrial interests of the whole country; or on 
 the other hand the requisite tax may be so equitably distrib 
 uted and so skillfully assessed that the burden will be inap 
 preciable to the public. AV hoover, as Secretary of the 
 Treasury, shall accomplish the former and avoid the latter 
 result, must be armed with a plenitude of power in the 
 premiser. He must have open to him the three great a\e- 
 nues of taxation the tariff, the excise system, and the 
 duties on exports ; and must be empowered to use each in 
 it> appropriate place by Congressional legislation. At 
 present only two of these modes of taxation are available, 
 and the absence of the third, in the language of an eminent 
 statesman alreadv quoted, "takes from the general govern 
 ment half the regulation of trade." It is for Congress to 
 say whether the people shall have an opportunity to change 
 the organic law in this important respect, or whether with 
 a blind disregard of the future we -hall rush forward, reck- 
 le.-s of the financial disaster* that may result from a failure 
 to do our duty here. 
 
 lilaine s position with reference to the currency was ever 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 179 
 
 on the side of "an honest dollar," and most vigorously for 
 ten years did he assail the proposition for issuing an irre 
 deemable paper currency. During the Thirty-Ninth Con 
 gress, one phase of the question came up, and no descrip 
 tion of his manner or words will serve so well as the speech 
 itself. 
 
 * 
 
 In moving to call back from the Ways and Means Com 
 mittee and lay on the table the Gold Bill introduced by 
 Tluiddeus Stevens, which motion was carried by the deci 
 sive vote of 73 to 52, Mr. Elaine said : 
 
 "I move to reconsider the vote whereby the House yes 
 terday referred to the Committee of Ways and Means a bill 
 introduced by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stev 
 ens) to prevent gold and silver coin and bullion from be 
 ing paid or exchanged for a greater value than their real 
 current value, and for preventing any note or bill issued by 
 the United States, and made lawful money and a legal ten 
 der, from being received for a smaller sum than is herein 
 specified. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that this bill has been 
 productive of great mischief in the brief twenty-four hours 
 that it has been allowed to float before the public mind as a 
 measure seriously entertained by this House. And I be 
 lieve that still more mischief will ensue every day and every 
 hour the House stands committed to such legislation, even 
 by the motion of courtesy which refers the bill to a commit 
 tee. The provisions of the bill are very extraordinary, and 
 but for the respect I feel for the distinguished gentleman 
 who introduced it, I should say they were absurd and mon 
 strous. Let me read two or three of these provisions : 
 
 2. That a dollar note issued by the Government, de 
 clared lawful money and legal tender, is declared of equal 
 value for all purposes as gold and silver coin of like denomi 
 nation . 
 
 3. That a contract made payable in coin may be paya 
 ble in legal tender United States notes, and that no differ 
 ence in sale or value shall be allowed between them. 
 
 5. That no person shall, by any device, shift, or con 
 trivance, receive, or pay, or contract to receive or pay any 
 
180 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Treasury or other note issued by the United States for cir 
 culation as money, and declared legal tender, for less than 
 their lawfully expressed value ; and any offender, upon con 
 viction, shall suffer imprisonment not exceeding six months 
 and a fine equal to the full amount of the sum specified in 
 said note. 
 
 6. That if any person shall, in the purchase or sale of 
 gold or silver coin or bullion, agree to receive in payment 
 notes of corporations or individuals at less than par value, 
 he shall be deemed to have offended against the provisions 
 of this act, and shall be punished accordingly. 
 
 I forbear to recite the remainder of the bill. I have read 
 enough to show that if it should become a law the entire 
 population on the Pacific coast would be liable to indictment 
 and conviction for a criminal offense, simply because they 
 will persist in believing that in the present condition of our 
 currency a uold dollar is worth more than a paper dollar. 
 And still further, not limiting the scope of the bill to pro 
 tection of (iovernment currency, the gentleman from Penn 
 sylvania proposes to punish, as for a misdemeanor, any one 
 who shall agree to sell gold and receive in payment notes 
 of corporations or individuals at less than par value. 
 
 The whole bill, Sir, aims at what is simply impossible. 
 You cannot make a gold dollar worth less than it is, or a 
 paper dollar worth more than it is, by a Congressional dec 
 laration. I think we had experience enough in that direc 
 tion with the famous Gold Bill at the last session. We 
 pa--ed that measure after a very severe pressure and with 
 great promises as to the wonders it would work in Wall 
 Street. It continued on the statute book for some twelve 
 days, gold advancing at a frightful rate everv day until its 
 repeat] was effected. The bill now under consideration has 
 already had a most pernicious eli ect, and should it become a 
 law. no man can measure its fatal influence. It is for these 
 reasons that I desire to have its reference reconsidered" 
 
 It must have been a triumph indeed for Elaine, when 
 after years of study, work and opposition, he saw slavery 
 completely eradicated, and this land a land of the free in 
 fact as in name. It is almost fascinating to see how 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 181 
 
 by step he led on contending constantly until the institution 
 he hated in his boyhood was destroyed in his prime. Many 
 measures were proposed, many defeated, for the settlement 
 of this fearful question. But it is remarkable to note how 
 universally the measures he proposed or advocated, came 
 at last to be adopted by the nation. In the Thirty-Ninth Con 
 gress he made several short speeches on the several amend 
 ments to the Constitution, but only two of them can be in 
 serted here. Those were upon the basis of representation, a 
 question growing out of the enfranchisement of slaves. 
 
 MR. ELAINE. Mr. Speaker : If there had not been such an 
 evident indisposition on both sides of the House to proceed to 
 an immediate vote on this question, I should not have asked 
 any time ; although, as the original mover of the resolution, 
 which appears in another form, which form I do not like, 
 I might be supposed to have some little desire to say a word 
 in regard to it. I wish, in the first instance, to correct a 
 mere question of figures which I quoted yesterday from the 
 table prepared under the auspices of the gentleman who is 
 at the head of the Committee of Ways and Means (Mr. 
 Morrill), by which he showed that the suffrage basis of 
 white males over twenty-one would give to the State of New 
 York thirty-six members, and to the State of Pennsylvania 
 twenty-four. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Conk- 
 ling) controverted this proposition, and I now reassert it. 
 The gentleman s own table differs only a unit from mine. 
 It gives thirty-five to New York and twenty-four to Penn 
 sylvania, making a net gain to New York in the one case of 
 four members, in the other of five. Well, that is not a very 
 vast change in either case. It is not "so deep as a well 
 nor so wide as a church door ; but tis enough" for Penn 
 sylvania, I should think, and I hope, on the other side, it 
 would be enough for New York. It is a tremendous dislo 
 cation of the relative strength of those States upon the floor. 
 
 But as the gentleman from New York, in introducing his 
 figures, did not use them in support of the suffrage basis, of 
 course I have no issue with him, because they supported 
 nothing except a proposition on which both he and I agree ; 
 
1M mi; LIFE AND rir.Lic SKKVK BS 
 
 and so far as his argument went in that way it went against 
 the conclusion he \\as contending for, presenting anew the 
 spectacle of tin* waterman in the Pilgrim s Progress, who 
 i!nt his living by vigorously rowing in one direction while 
 steadily looking in the other. 
 
 Mi;. CONKMXG. I desire to answer not so much the ar 
 gument as the witticism of my friend from Maine. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Oh, no ; no wit, either perpetrated or in 
 tended. 
 
 MR. CONKLING. Well, Mr. Speaker, we consider it very- 
 witty over lie re ; but then we are so far off. 
 
 Mi;. ULAIXE. Glad the gentleman thinks my wit will 
 carry a long distance, but I cannot yield the floor now. 
 
 MR. KKLLEY. Will the gentleman permit me to offer an 
 amendment which I believe will remove much of the objec 
 tion which is made ? 
 
 MR. BLAIXE. I will yield for the purpose of having it 
 read. 
 
 The proposed amendment was read as follows : 
 
 Pror nli d, That this article shall not be construed to affect 
 the power of Congress to regulate the qualifications for elect 
 ors of the most numerous branch of the Legislatures of the 
 several States. 
 
 THE SPEAKER. The chair would state that there is an 
 amendment pending, offered by the gentleman from Penn- 
 svlvaniji (Mr. Stevens). Any amendment to the amend 
 ment must he germane to it. The only way in which the 
 resolution could be amended now would be by offering a 
 substitute embracing all its phraseology and any additional 
 language decided. 
 
 MR. BLAINK. I must decline to yield further unless for 
 the purpose of explanation. 1 was going on to remark that 
 an additional reason adverse to the suffrage basis will be 
 found in the fact tjnit the moment you make suffrage the 
 bn-is of distributing Representatives among the States, you 
 inevitably, by logical sequence, make it the basis of distrib 
 uting Representatives within the States. I want to be un 
 derstood on this point. If we distribute representation on 
 the ba>i> of voters, the States will take it up by logical se 
 quence, and within their own territory distribute their Rep- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 183 
 
 resentatives on the basis of voters, and a city or district of 
 country which might have a surplus or a deficiency of males 
 over twenty-one years of age, would either aggrandize itself 
 or lose its proper weight and power as the figures might go 
 up or down. 
 
 You cannot resist that conclusion. That is one of the 
 evils that will follow from the suffrage basis. Following 
 that by a slight paradox, I think this amendment, excluding 
 blacks from the basis of representation, will, by the opera 
 tion of the same principle, have precisely the opposite effect 
 in the South, namely : if you cut off the blacks from being 
 enumerated in the basis of representation in the Southern 
 States, the white population of those States will immedi 
 ately distribute representatives within their own territory on 
 the basis of white population. Therefore, the most densely 
 populated negro districts will not be allowed to offset the 
 most densely populated white districts. 
 
 It therefore becomes an immediate and pressing interest 
 with those districts to enfranchise the negroes. Do you sup 
 pose the upland districts of Georgia and South Carolina, in 
 habited largely by whites, will, in the event of the adoption 
 of this amendment, allow the distribution of Representatives 
 to be made on the basis of the whole population ? By no 
 means. They will at once insist on the white basis within 
 the State. There fore, you make it the imperative, and most 
 urgent interest of the late slave masters in the rice regions 
 and densely populated negro districts in the South, to en 
 franchise the black man. The upland and rice regions to 
 which I have referred, differ in soil, climate, air, sky, and 
 population, as much as the Tierra Caliente and the Tierra 
 Templada of Mexico do to-day, or as they did three hun 
 dred years ago. 
 
 While I shall vote for the proposition, I shall do so with 
 some reluctance unless it is amended, and I do not regret, 
 therefore, that the previous question w r as not sustained. I 
 am egotistic enough to believe that the phraseology of the 
 original resolution as introduced by me, was better than that 
 employed in the pending amendment. The phrase "civil 
 or political rights and privileges," which I employed, is broad 
 er and more comprehensive than the term "elective fran 
 chise," for I fear, with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
 
184 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Famsworth), that under the latter phrase the most vicious 
 evasion might t> practiced. As that gentleman haa well 
 
 said, they might make suffrage depend on ownership of fifty 
 acres of land, and then prohibit any negro holding real es 
 tate ; but no such mockery as this could be perpetrated under 
 the provisions of the amendment as I originally submitted it. 
 
 MR. BIN<;IIAM. Will the gentleman from Maine (Mr. 
 Blaine) allow me to make a suggestion? 
 
 MR. BLAIM:. Certainly. 
 
 MR. BIN*. HAM. I beg to notify the gentleman that this 
 amendment of itself does not and cannot execute the purpose 
 intended to be accomplished by it, unless Congress 
 
 MR. BLAINK. If the gentleman is going to reply to my 
 argument, 1 will not yield the floor. If he wants merely to 
 make an explanation, I will hear him. 
 
 MR. BINGHAM. I apprehend that no possible amendment 
 that can be suggested to the Constitution of theUnited States 
 on this subject, will answer the purpose unless it is followed 
 by further legislation. 
 
 MR. BLAINK. That may be so. But the man who 
 shoots at the sun will come nearer to it than the man who does 
 not draw the bow. I say the phraseology "civil or po 
 litical rights and privileges," is more inclusive than that 
 phrase "elective franchise." If you make it so that a State 
 shall not count in her basis of representation any race to 
 which civil or political rights and privileges" are denied or 
 abridged, then the objection of the gentleman from Illinois 
 (.Mr. Farnsworth) cannot stand, because the exclusion from 
 holding real estate would be a denial of civil rights and 
 privileges. . 
 
 MR. BROMW T.I.L. If the gentleman will permit me, I 
 will say that the objection to this resolution is not that it is 
 intended to provide for a representation based upon actual 
 voters, but upon the population of the classes or races per 
 mitted to vote. If the gentleman will allow me, I will 
 submit an amendment which I think will obviate the 
 difficulty. 
 
 Mi;. BLAINE. I cannot yield for any such purpose. 
 There is one other objection to the resolution as reported, 
 and that is a point to which I wish to call the attention of 
 the chairman of the committee reporting it (Mr. Stevens), 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 185 
 
 and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Conkling) , who 
 defended it. The proposed amendment reads : 
 
 Provided, That whenever the elective Franchise shall be 
 denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color, 
 all persons of such race or color therein shall be excluded 
 from the basis of representation. 
 
 Now, I contend that ordinary fair play and certainly we 
 can afford fair play where it does not cost anything calls 
 for this, namely, that if we exclude them from the basis of 
 representation they should be excluded from the basis of 
 taxation. Ever since this government was founded, taxa 
 tion arid representation have always gone hand in hand. If 
 we shall exclude the principle in this amendment, we will 
 be accused of a narrow, ill-liberal, mean-spirited, and money- 
 grasping policy. More than that, we do not gain anything 
 by it. What kind of taxation is distributed according to 
 representation? Direct taxation. Now we do not have 
 any direct taxation. There has been but twenty millions 
 of direct taxation levied for the last fifty years. That tax 
 was levied in 1861, and was not collected, but distributed 
 among the States and held in the Treasury Department as 
 an offset to the war claims of the States. So that as a 
 matter of fact, we are putting an offensive discrimination in 
 this proposition, and gaining nothing by it except obloquy. 
 We are asked to put in something that will enable the 
 Southern States to say, "you gouged us out of our fair pro 
 tection in the basis of taxation when you had the power, 
 and you gouged us so meanly in spirit that you gained noth 
 ing by it yourselves." I maintain that we should follow 
 the precedent of former years. And if we exclude any 
 portion of the population from representation, we should 
 pari passu exclude them from taxation. That is fair play, 
 and fair play is a jewel the w^orld over. 
 
 Let me say in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that my oppo 
 sition to the suffrage basis is not grounded on the fact that 
 Maine would lose by it. No statistics that have yet been 
 presented show any loss to Maine ; and on several theories 
 of calculation we should gain one member. My opposition, 
 therefore, is not grounded on local selfishness, but upon the 
 belief that the principle is a dangerous one, that it is an 
 abandonment of one of the oldest and safest landmarks of 
 
18G THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 the Constitution, and that it is a most perilous leap in the 
 dark. It introduces a new principle in our government, 
 whose evil tendency and results no man can measure to-day. 
 
 MR. BLAIXE. Since the beginning of the present session, 
 Mr. Chairman, we have had several propositions to amend 
 the Federal Constitution with respect to the basis of repre 
 sentation in Congress. These propositions have differed 
 somewhat in phrase, but they all embrace substantially the 
 one idea of making suffrage instead of population the basis 
 of apportioning Representatives ; or in other words, to give 
 to the States in future a representation proportioned to their 
 voters instead of their inhabitants. 
 
 The effect contemplated and intended by this change is 
 perfectly well understood, and on all hands frankly avowed. 
 It is to deprive the lately rebellious States of the unfair ad 
 vantage of a large representation in this House, based on 
 their colored population, so long as that population shall be 
 dr 11 led political rights by the legislation of those States. 
 The proposed constitutional amendment would simply say 
 to those States, while you refuse to enfranchise your black 
 population, you shall have no representation based on their 
 numbers ; but admit them to civil and political rights, and 
 they shall at once be counted to your advantage in the ap 
 portionment of Representatives. 
 
 The direct object thus aimed at, as it respects the rebellious 
 States, has been so generally approved that little thought 
 seems to have been given to the incidental evils which the 
 proposed constitutional amendment would inflict on a large 
 portion of the loyal States evils, in my judgment, so serious 
 and alarming as to lead me to oppose the amendment in any 
 form in which it has yet been presented. As an abstract 
 proposition, no one will deny that population is the true 
 basis of representation ; for women, children, and other 
 non-voting da.-ses may have as vital an interest in the legis 
 lation of the country as those who actually deposit the ballot. 
 Indeed, the very amendment we are discussing implies that 
 population is the true basis, inasmuch as the exclusion of 
 the black people of the South from political rights has 
 suggested this indirectly coercive mode of securing them 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 187 
 
 those rights. Were the negroes to be enfranchised through 
 out the South to-day, no one would insist on the adoption 
 of this amendment ; and yet if the amendment shall be in 
 corporated in the Federal Constitution, its incidental evils 
 will abide in the loyal States long after the direct evil which 
 it aims to cure, may have been eradicated in the Southern 
 States. 
 
 If voters instead of population shall be made the basis of 
 representation certain results will follow, not fully appre 
 ciated perhaps by some who are now urgent for the change. 
 I will confine my examination of these results to the nine 
 teen free States whose statistics are presented in the census 
 of 18GO ; and the very radical change which the new basis 
 of representation would produce among and between those 
 States forms the ground of my opposition to it. The ratio 
 of voters to population differs very widely in different sec 
 tions, varying in the States referred to from a minimum of 
 nineteen per cent, to a maximum of fifty-eight per cent., and 
 the changes which this fact would work in the relative rep 
 resentation of certain States would be monstrous. For ex 
 ample, California has a population of 358,110, and Ver 
 mont 314,369, and each has three representatives on this 
 floor to-day. But California has 207,000 voters and Ver 
 mont has 87,000. Assuming voters as the basis of appor 
 tionment, and allowing Vermont three Representatives, 
 California would be entitled to eight. The great State of 
 Ohio, with nearly seven times the population of California, 
 would have but little more than two and a half times the 
 number of Representatives ; and New York, with quite 
 eleven times the population of California, would have in the 
 new style apportionment less than five times as many mem 
 bers of this House. California, it may be said, presents an 
 extreme case, but no more so than will continually recur for 
 the next century under the stimulus to the emigration of 
 young voters from the older States to the inviting fields of 
 the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Slope. 
 
 But cases less extreme than California will present quite 
 as clearly the injurious working of the proposed change. 
 Take two States one in the East and one in the West 
 not greatly differing in aggregate population, for example, 
 Massachusetts and Indiana, the former with 1,221,432 in- 
 
188 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 habitants, the latter with 1,328,710. Massachusetts has 
 to-day ten Representatives on this floor and Indiana has 
 eleven, an exactly fair apportionment. But Massachusetts 
 has only 227,429 voters, while Indiana has 316,824, and 
 therefore on the new basis if Massachusetts should retain 
 her ten Representatives Indiana would be allowed about 
 fifteen, and if Indiana should be confined to her eleven, 
 Massachusetts would be reduced to seven. And I might 
 adduce many other instances showing the gross inequalities 
 of representation to which the proposed amendment would 
 subject the loyal States. 
 
 .Mi:. STKVKXS. AVill the gentleman allow me to ask him 
 a question. 
 
 Mi;. I i LA INK. Certainly. 
 
 MH. STKVKXS. What is the cause of the disparity of 
 men and women in Massachusetts and in the New England 
 States ? Is it not that the men go to the Western States 
 as emigrants ? 
 
 Mi;. Hi. \ INK. I suppose it is. 
 
 Mu. STKVKXS. Very well, is not Massachusetts repre 
 sented there, then? 
 
 MK. Hi. A INK. Not according to some harangues we hear 
 in this House, from gentlemen representing that section, on 
 tin- tarifl , as my distinguished friend on the Committee of 
 Ways and Means knows very well. They go there, be 
 come identified with what they term Western interests, and, 
 1 am sorry to say, attack New Kngland and New England 
 interests. 
 
 Mu. (JiMNNKLL. Not all of them. 
 
 Mi;. ULAINK. And there are other objections, Mr. Chair 
 man, to the proposed constitutional amendment. Basing 
 representation on voters, unless Congress should be empow 
 ered to deline their qualification) would tend to cheapen 
 suffrage everywhere. There would be an unseemly scramble 
 in all the States during each decade, to increase, by every 
 means, the number of voters, and all conservative restric 
 tions, such as the requirement of reading and writing, now 
 enforced in some of the Slates, would In- stricken down in a 
 rash and reckless effort to procure an enlarged representa 
 tion in the national councils. Foreigners would be invited 
 to vote on a mere preliminary "declaration of intention," 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 189 
 
 and the ballot, which cannot be too sacredly guarded, and 
 which is the great and inestimable privilege of the American 
 citizen, would be demoralized and disgraced everywhere. 
 
 And the worst feature of all is that there is no need, 
 whatever, of precipitating the evils I have referred to. The 
 great end of depriving the South of the representation which 
 is based on the colored population, until that popiiation is 
 enfranchised, can be very readily secured, without accom 
 panying it with these offensive inequalities of representation 
 among the loyal States. The Constitution may be amended 
 so as to prevent the one evil, without involving others of 
 greater magnitude, and I venture to express the belief that 
 the proposition submitted by me this morning, and, on my 
 motion, referred to the Committee on Reconstruction, will, 
 if adopted, secure the desired result. Let me briefly explain 
 that proposition. The Constitution of the United States, 
 article one, section two, clause three, reads as follows, to 
 the first period : 
 
 "Representatives and direct taxes shalU be apportioned 
 among the several Slates which may be included within this 
 Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall 
 be determined by (adding to the whole number of free persons, 
 including thos.e bound to service for a number of years, and 
 excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons) ." 
 
 The portion which I have included in parenthesis has be 
 come meaningless and nugatory, by the adoption of the con 
 stitutional amendment which abolishes the distinction be 
 tween "free persons" and all other persons," and being thus 
 a dead letter, might as well be formally struck out ; and in 
 its stead I propose to insert the words included in parenthe 
 sis, so that the clause, as amended, will read thus : 
 
 "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
 among the several States which may be included within the 
 Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall 
 be determined by (taking the whole number of persons, ex 
 cept those to whom civil or political rights or privileges are 
 denied or abridged, by the constitution or laivs of any State, 
 on account of race or color)." 
 
 This is a very simple and direct way, it seems to me, of 
 reachino- the result aimed at without embarrassment to any 
 
190 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SKKVK l> 
 
 other question or interest. It leaves population, as hereto 
 fore, the basis of representation, does not disturb, in any 
 manner, the harmonious relations of the loyal States, and it 
 conclusively deprives the Southern States of all representa 
 tion in Congress on account of the colored population so 
 long as those States may choose to abridge or to deny to 
 that population the political rights and privileges accorded 
 to others. The adoption of this amendment. a> a part of 
 the Federal Constitution would, I venture to predict, secure 
 the right of suffrage to the colored population throughout 
 the South in a very few years. And 1 doubt if in any other 
 mode that right can be secured so speedily, so certainly, and 
 so enduringly. 
 
 It cannot be said that all the measures Blaine advocated 
 concerning our shipping interests have been adopted. But 
 that they will be accepted wholly, there seems now to be 
 little doubt. The experience of the years since our com 
 merce fell so largely into the hands of other nations has 
 confirmed his position in many ways. It is interesting to 
 notice what he thought about it, and what he said in 18GG. 
 
 The quest inn concerning the right to buy ships abroad be 
 ing before the House, Blaine said : 
 
 "I think it important that the House should come back 
 to a distinct understanding of the question involved in this 
 bill, and I will state it as briefly as possible. At the begin 
 ning of the war, as I can show from reliable statistics in 
 my hand, we had twenty-five hundred thousand tons of 
 shipping engaged in the foreign trade. As the war grew 
 hot and dangers multiplied on the ocean, eight hundred 
 thousand tons of this shipping took refuge under a foreign 
 flag. The flag of our own nation was hauled down, and 
 protection was sought under the flag of our neutral enemy, 
 (ireat Britain. I do not question the right of the owners 
 of this shipping to act in this way. and many who did so 
 arc honorable and patriotic men. All I contend is that, 
 having made their election, they shall abide by it. They 
 (-raped all the haxards to which our flag was subjected ; 
 they gained all the profits of their alien connection ; and 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 191 
 
 for one I am not now willing to put them on the same 
 ground with those ship-owners who took all the risks of 
 standing by the American flag in good report and in evil 
 report, in our dark days as well as in our bright days. The 
 ship-owners who took British registers escaped the heavy 
 war risks to which American registers were subjected, and 
 now to place them on the same footing with those who 
 hazarded everything rather than sail under a foreign flag, 
 would be flagrantly unjust. To contend for such a policy 
 is as illogical and absurd as the position of those who 
 claimed for the Southern rebels all the advantages and im 
 munities of belligerents outside the Union and citizens 
 inside of it at the same time. The ship-owners who 
 changed their registers sought the protection of Great 
 Britain when there was danger at home ; and now they 
 wish, when that danger is over, to return to our flag and 
 share the profits that can be derived from American reg 
 istry. I think, Sir, it would be cruelly unjust for the 
 American Congress to permit this policy, and thus turn 
 their backs on those ship-owners who, under all the seduc 
 tions of profit and against all the perils of war, refused to 
 take refuge for a single hour under any other flag than that 
 which was floating over the armies of the Union, and which 
 protects us in this Capitol to day. I have said, Sir, that 
 many who sought these foreign registers were high-minded, 
 honorable, and patriotic men. I am personally acquainted 
 with some of them, and it gives me pleasure to speak of 
 them in this way. But, Sir, there is good reason to believe 
 that all of them were not of this class ; that some of them 
 were unpatriotic and even criminal, and that, while securely 
 concealed behind their British registers, they were sharing 
 in the enormous profits derived from running our blockade, 
 and engaging, to the detriment of the Union cause, in all 
 the illicit commerce which the English flag covered during 
 the four years of bloody war from which we have just 
 emerged. I think the American Congress should be slow 
 to allow even one man who has acted thus to bring his 
 property back under protection of our laws. We may not 
 be able to punish such men by criminal prosecutions but 
 we certainly should not go out of our way to show them 
 favors and confer benefits upon them. 
 
192 THE LIKE AND ITIILIC SERVICES 
 
 "Hut I do not put this question on the ground of simply 
 giving their just dues to those who took this course with 
 their shipping, much less do I base my action on a fe 
 of spite, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Garfield) ha.- 
 intimated. J conceive that it involves a point of future 
 interest and of far-reaching importance, because if we treat 
 these ship-owners who left our flag, with the same liberality 
 that we do those who stood by it, we offer a sort of pre 
 mium to our whole navigation interest to seek foreign reg 
 isters the moment we have a war with any power. And 
 should we allow the eight hundred thousand tons of ship 
 ping now under discussion to come back under our flag, you 
 will see double or triple that amount leave us if we should 
 unfortunately become engaged in another war. I think 
 that consideration should have great influence on our action 
 on this question. 
 
 "One word more, Mr. Speaker. The whole tone of the 
 speeches we have had from both the gentlemen from Ohio 
 ( M r. Spaulding and Mr. Garfield) was for free trade. They 
 urge that we shall buv our ships wherever we can get them 
 cheapest, and that all restrictions as to registry should lie 
 abolished. Well, Sir, if we are prepared to reduce thi< 
 free trade theory to practice, why not have it in everything? 
 There is no branch of American industry that is. to-day, so 
 little protected and so much oppressed by our revenue laws 
 as ship-building. It is taxed at all points and nearly taxed 
 to death ; and I submit to these new advocates of free trade 
 that it would be better to begin with some interest that is 
 essentially protected by our laws to-day. If we arc going 
 to have free trade, let us have it equally and impartiailv 
 applied to all the industrial interests of the land ; but for 
 myself, I am opposed to it altogether. In theory and in 
 practice, I am for protecting American industry in all its 
 forms, and to this end we must encourage American manu 
 factures and we must equally encourage American com 
 merce." 
 
 In 1867 Blaine visited Europe and spent several months 
 traveling for recreation and instruction, in Kngland and on 
 the Continent. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Elaine s renomin-ation for Congress. Popularity with both parties. 
 His great work in the 40th Congress. Elected Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives. Mentioned for a Candidate for 
 President. His Speech on the Gold Bill. Writer for Maga 
 zines. His views of Negro Suffrage. 
 
 Elaine was renominated for a third term in Congress in 
 1866, almost as a matter of course, having then the love of 
 his own party and the respect of the Democratic party. 
 With all his unflinching opposition to the measures of the 
 Democracy, his manner was so frank and his life so con 
 sistent and sincere, that they most honorably gave their com 
 mendation of his personal character. 
 
 After his nomination in 1866, the Rockland Democrat, an 
 opposition paper of considerable influence, published this 
 editorial : 
 
 "At the Convention of the Third Congressional District, 
 in Augusta, on Friday last, Hon. James G. Elaine was re- 
 nominated as the Union candidate for Congress by acclama 
 tion. This is an endorsement of Mr. Elaine s ability and 
 course in Congress of the most flattering character. His 
 constituents are second to none in the State for intelligence 
 and general political information, and understand thorough 
 ly the candidate they have placed before the people a third 
 time. In March next Mr. Elaine will have held his seat in 
 the House two terms, and in September will be elected to 
 take his third term. While he has been untiring in his 
 efforts to promote the interest in our State, Mr. Elaine has 
 not confined himself to local affairs, but has exerted himself 
 
19G THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 in the broader field of Statesmanship, and gained a national 
 reputation. The amendment to the Constitution now adopted 
 by Congress, which proposes to correct the basis of repre 
 sentation in the South, was originated by Mr. Blaine. It 
 has been somewhat changed from its original form, but its 
 purport and substance were taken from him, and it is now 
 one of the most important steps in the process of reconstruc 
 tion. It is not necessary to recall and review the many 
 measures with which his name is prominently connected, 
 for they are generally known, and his renomination is an 
 endorsement of his acts far beyond anything \ve might >ay. 
 As a ready, forcible debater, a clear reasoner, sound legis 
 lator, fearless advocate, and true supporter of the principles 
 and organixation of the party of Union and Hight. he, lias 
 made a mark in the annals of Congress of which he and 
 those who elected him may be proud. The Union voters of 
 the Third District have manifested good sense in renominat- 
 ing competent a candidate to represent them. In these 
 critical times the policy of changing experienced, tried and 
 true men, for new and inexperienced ones, is to be avoided 
 as much as pos.-ihle. In favorable times that policy will do, 
 but this is not the season. The Union men of the Third 
 I)i>trict will not fail to give Mr. Blaine a good support at 
 the polls." 
 
 In the House of Representatives, in 1867, there was a 
 wide diversity of opinion concerning the currency and finan 
 cial measures, and it was a season when the greatest of 
 thinkers were often misled. But when Blaine spoke upon 
 financial themes it was after mature thought and the most 
 careful rest-arch. It was a time when the national honor 
 and prosperity were among dangerous breakers. The fol 
 lowing speech upon the "Gold Bill" was made in one of the 
 open debates which marked the important discussions of that 
 period. 
 
 MR. BLAINE said : 
 
 AVithin the pa.-t few months, Mr. Chairman, some erro 
 neous and mischievous views have been put forward in re 
 gard to the nature of the public obligation imposed by the 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 197 
 
 debt of the United States. Without stopping to notice the 
 lesser lights of the new doctrine, and not caring to analyze 
 the various forms of repudiation suggested from irresponsible 
 sources throughout the country, I propose to review as 
 briefly as may be, the position contemporaneously assumed 
 by two able and distinguished gentlemen the one from the 
 West, the other from the East the one the late candidate of 
 the Democratic party for the Vice Presidency (Mr. Pendleton 
 of Ohio), the other a prominent member of this House 
 from one of the strongest Republican districts of Massachu 
 setts (Mr. Butler). 
 
 The position of these gentlemen I understand to be sim 
 ply this : That the principal of the United States bonds, 
 known as the Five-twenties, may be fairly and legally paid in 
 paper currency by the Government after the expiration of Jive 
 years from the date of issue. 
 
 A brief review of the origin of the Five-twenty bonds will 
 demonstrate, I think, that this position is in contravention 
 of the honor and good faith of the National Government; 
 that it is hostile to the spirit and the letter of the law ; that 
 it contemptuously ignore.? the common understanding be 
 tween borrower and lender at the time the loan was nego 
 tiated ; and that finally, even if such mode of payment were 
 honorable and practicable, jt_vvould prove disastrous to the 
 financial interests of the Government and the general pros 
 perity of the country. I crave the attention and indulgence 
 of the House while I recapitulate the .essential facts in sup 
 port of my assertion. - 
 
 The issue of the Five-twenty bonds was originally 
 authorized by the act of Feb. 25th, 1862, which provided for 
 the large amount of five hundred millions of dollars. It was 
 this series which was sold so successfully by Jay Cooke & 
 Co., in 1863, and of which so great a proportion was sub 
 sequently purchased by foreign capitalists. It will be borne 
 in mind that up to that time in all the loan bills passed by 
 Congress, not one word had ever been said in regard to gold 
 payment either of bond or coupon ; and it will be equally 
 borne in mind that gold payment, both of the principal and 
 interest of the public debt, had been the invariable rule from 
 the foundation of the Government. No instance to the 
 contrary can be found in our history. In the pithy language 
 
198 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 of Nathaniel Mticon, "our Government was a hard-money 
 Government, founded by hard-money men, and its debts 
 were hard-money debts." 
 
 And it will be still further borne in mind that when the 
 Bill authorizing the original issue of Five-twenties was un 
 der discussion in Congress, no man of any party either in 
 the Senate or in the House, ever intimated that these bonds 
 were to be paid in anything else than gold or silver. The 
 issue of legal tender notes of contemporaneous origin, was 
 regarded as a temporary expedient forced upon us by the 
 cruel necessities and demands of war, and it was universally 
 conceded that the specie basis was to be resumed long be 
 fore the bonds should mature for payment. And in order 
 that the public creditor might have the amplest assurance 
 of the payment of both principal and interest in coin it was 
 specially enacted that all duties on imports should be paid 
 in coin, and the amount thus raised was distinctly pledged 
 not only to the payment of the interest in coin, but to the 
 formation of a Sinking Fund for the ultimate redemption of 
 the principal in coin. This provision is so important that 
 I quote it entire. After providing that the duties shall be 
 paid in coin, the act devotes that coin to the following 
 purposes : 
 
 "First. To the payment in coin of the interest on the 
 bonds of the United States. 
 
 Second. To the purchase or payment of one per centum 
 of the entire debt of the United States to be made within 
 each fiscal year after the first day of July, 1862, which is 
 to be set apart as a sinking fund, and the interest of which 
 shall be in like manner applied to the purchase or payment 
 of the public debt, as the Secretary of the Treasury shall, 
 from time to time, direct. 
 
 Third. The residue thereof shall be paid into the Treas 
 ury of the United States." 
 
 ^QoDsiderablejearping and criticism have been expended 
 on the second clause of this provision, mainly by those who 
 seem desirous of wresting and distorting its plain and 
 obvious moaning. Brushing aside all fine-spun construct ion 
 and cunning fallacy, it is quite manifest that the Sinking 
 Fund herein authorized, was primarily to be formed from 
 gold ; and that it was only to be invested and re-invested in 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 199 
 
 securities whose interest was equally pledged and guaran 
 teed in gold ; that this process was not to be confined to any 
 specific number of years, but it was limited only by the 
 amount and the duration of the debt which was ultimately 
 to be redeemed by the Sinking Fund thus constituted. The 
 Sinking Fund was thus to receive an annual increment in 
 gold, amounting to the one-hundreth part of the entire debt 
 of the Government ; and this increment was to be invested 
 only in securities which would yield gold interest for the 
 further increment of the Fund. It would be difficult to 
 conceive how the language of an enactment could more dis 
 tinctly recognize and provide for the ultimate coin payment 
 of the entire Bonded debt of the nation. And instead of 
 the Government having the right at this late day to change 
 its gold obligation into one of paper, it seems to me that the 
 public creditors could with far more consistency allege that 
 the Government had not fully kept its faith with them in 
 failing, as it has, to provide the Sinking Fund which was 
 thus guaranteed at the outset as one of the special securities 
 of the loan. 
 
 But we do not rest merely on the after construction of a 
 statute to prove that the principal of the Five-twenties is 
 payable in coin. The declarations in Congress at the time 
 the measure was under consideration, were numerous, direct 
 and specific. Indeed, no other possible mode of payment 
 was ever hinted at, and Mr. Stevens, as Chairman of the 
 Ways and Means, was emphatic and repeated in his asser 
 tions to the effect that the bonds were redeemable in gold. 
 He stated this fact no less then three times in his speech of 
 February G, 1862 giving it all the prominence and empha 
 sis that iteration and reiteration could impart. He spoke 
 of the "redemption in gold in twenty years," as one of the 
 special inducements for capitalists to take the loan, and he 
 gave in every form that language could assume, the sanction 
 of his influential position and still more influential name to 
 the maintenance of the gold standard in the payment of the 
 bonds. 
 
 It may astonish even the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
 himself, to be reminded that within less than three years 
 from the date of these declarations, he asserted on this floor 
 referring to the Five-twenty bonds that ik it is just as 
 
200 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 clear as ani/fni>i is char thai flu- itit<-rrst IK payable in gold, 
 but thi- priiifijiul in lawful money." He made this startling 
 statement in answer to a question addressed to him by my 
 honorable friend from Ohio (Mr. Spaolding), and the gen 
 tleman from Massachusetts has quoted it in his argument 
 on tin s question as though it had been made when the five- 
 twenty bill was originally introduced, and was to be taken 
 as the authorized opinion of the Ways and Means Commit 
 tee at tliat time. I have shown that at the outset the gen 
 tleman from Pennsylvania was a firm advocate of gold pay 
 ment and a considerable period had elapsed before he expe 
 rienced his marvelous change on this question. But it is 
 due to the gentleman from Pennsylvania to say that late as 
 he was in his declaration, he was in advance of other gen 
 tlemen who have since figured so prominently as advocates 
 of the doctrine. And should this scheme of repudiation 
 over succeed, it is but just to give the gentleman from Penn- 
 M l\jinia tin honor of first proposing it. He announced it 
 on this floor while yet the gentleman from Massachusetts 
 wa> doinir honorable service on the tented field, and while 
 Mr. IVndK ton was still adhering to those hard-money 
 theories of which he was a conspicuous and eloquent de 
 fender during his service in this House. 
 
 Hut I IjjjPtB I was stilting that while the original Five- 
 twenty bill was pending, the declaration that the bonds 
 were redeemable in gold was constantly repeated. It was 
 the ground assumed by every member of the Committee of 
 Ways and Means, and it was likewise the ground taken by 
 the Finance Committee of the Senate Mr. Fessi -nden and 
 Mr. Sherman being on record in many ways to that effect. 
 And while so many gentlemen in both branches of Congress 
 were repeating that these bonds were redeemable in gold, it 
 is ;i very significant circumstance, as already intimated, that 
 no one ventured the opposite opinion. Tin- universality of 
 the understanding at that time- is that which renders a dif 
 ferent construction now so reprehensible. Mr. IVndlcton 
 was in his scat during the whole discussion of the measure, 
 and he was an active and frequent participant therein. 
 Then was his time to have enunciated his scheme of green 
 back payment if lie ever intended it in good faith. As a 
 gentleman of candor, however, I am sure that he will con- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 201 
 
 fess that he never dreamed of such an idea till long after the 
 bonds were purchased by the people, and possibly not until 
 some prospect of party advantage lured him to the adoption 
 of a theory which is equally at war with the letter of the 
 law and sound principles of finance. 
 
 After the bill became a law, Mr. Chase, the Secretary of 
 the Treasury, proceeded to place the loan formally on the 
 market, and following the uniform previous practice of the 
 government, and especially adopting the language used by 
 Mr. Stevens, and other gentlemen in both branches of Con 
 gress, he officially proclaimed through the loan agents of the 
 government that the Five-twenty bonds were "a six per 
 cent, loan, the interest and principal payable in coin." And 
 it was on this basis, with this understanding, and with this 
 public proclamation, that the people were asked to subscribe 
 to the loan. They had the assurance of an unbroken prac 
 tice on the part of the government, rendered still more sig 
 nificant by the provision for a Sinking Fund in coin ; they 
 had the general assurance of both branches of Congress, 
 especially expressed through the appropriate channels of the 
 Chairman of Finance in the Senate, and the Chairman of 
 the Ways and Means in the House ; and further and finally 
 enforced by a distinct declaration to that effect by the pub 
 lic advertisement proposing the loan to the people, issued by 
 the authority and under the direction of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury. If anything could constitute an honorable con 
 tract between borrower and lender between government 
 and people then was it a contract that the Five-twenty 
 bonds should be redeemed in coin. 
 
 I I have been thus minute, and possibly tedious, in regard 
 t\ the facts attending the issue of the first series of Five- 
 tranties, because in effect that established the rule for all 
 subsequent issues. \ Ex uno disce omnes. The principle laid 
 down so clearly in the proposal for the first loan was not 
 departed from afterwards. It is quite true that the Chair 
 man of Ways and Means (Mr. Stevens) , as I have already 
 said, changed his ground on the question, but he failed to 
 influence Congress, notwithstanding his parade of terrible 
 figures showing the utter impossibility of ever paying gold 
 interest, to say nothing of gold principal. The gentleman 
 can recall his statistics with amusement if not with advan- 
 
202 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 tage from that grave of unfulfilled prophecies to which he 
 in common with the rest of us have sent so many baseless 
 predictions. 
 
 The next Loan bill pa>-ed by Congress was that of 
 March ;. l*i >.". authorizing th.- borrowing of nine hunilred 
 millions. This is commonly known as the Ten-forty act, 
 and it contains the special provision that both principal and 
 interest shall be paid in coin. But this provision was never 
 inserted by way of discrimination against the Five-twenties 
 implying that they were to be paid in paper currency. 
 The origin of the provision palpably discredits any such 
 inference. It was moved as an amendment by Mr. Thomas 
 of Massachusetts, and it was moved to meet and repel the 
 first covert insinuation that any bond of the United States 
 was redeemable in anything else than coin. The Chair 
 man of the Ways and Means, in apparent forget fulness of 
 his declaration the preceding year, had for the first time 
 intimated that the principal of the United States bonds was 
 payable in paper money, and the amendment of Mr. Thoma<. 
 as the discussion reported in the Globe clearly discloses, 
 was intended as a sharp protest against the heresy of the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania ; and as such it was adopted 
 by the House by a majority so overwhelming that its oppo 
 nents did not call for a division. During the discussion, 
 Mr. Ilorton of Ohio, a distinguished member of the Ways 
 and Means, a gentleman of very high character in every 
 respect, said : 
 
 4 I wish to state here that the Committee of Ways and 
 Means, in framing this bill, never dreamed that thf<e 
 twenty-year bonds were to be payable in anything other 
 than gold, until the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
 Stevens) told it yesterday upon the floor of the House. 
 
 * * * I say to the gentleman and to this House, that 
 I never heard an expression by any member of the Com 
 mittee of Ways and Means of the possibility that these 
 bonds were to he payable in anything other than coin. * * 
 The form here proposed is the form always used by (iov- 
 ernment in the issue of these bonds, and they have al\vay< 
 been paid in coin up to this dav." 
 
 In this connection I desire the special attention of the 
 House to one fact of conclusive import and it is this : At 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 203 
 
 the time this Ten-forty Loan bill was passed, March 3, 
 1863, only twenty-five millions of the Five-twenty loan, 
 authorized the year before, had been disposed of. It was in 
 the succeeding summer and autumn of 1863, especially after 
 the triumph of the Union arms at Vieksburg and Gettys 
 burg, that those marvelous sales of five hundred millions 
 were effected through the government agency of Jay Cooke 
 & Co. And yet the gentleman from Massachusetts would 
 have us believe that the people subscribed for a loan of five 
 hundred millions, that was payable in five years in paper 
 currency, when another loan for a larger amount, to run 
 forty years, absolutely payable in gold, was already author 
 ized and about to be put on the market. Such a conclusion 
 cannot be reconciled even with the common sanity to say 
 nothing of the proverbial shrewdness, of those who invested 
 their money in the Five-twenty loan. Why, Sir, every 
 one sees, every one knows, that not one dollar of the Five- 
 twenty loan could have been disposed of on the understand 
 ing that the bonds were redeemable in currency when 
 another loan for a longer and more favorable period, possi 
 bly at the same rate of interest for the bill so allowed and 
 absolutely redeemable in gold was already authorized by 
 Congress, and immediately to be offered to the public. 
 
 The next Loan bill in the order of time was the Act of 
 March 3, 1864, which was merely suplemeiitary to the Ten- 
 forty bill, whose history I have just reviewed. It covered 
 the amount of two hundred millions, and, like the bill to 
 which it formed a supplement, it provided for both interest 
 and principal to be paid in coin. Under this bill, more than 
 $175,000,000 were negotiated, partly in Ten-forties, and 
 partly in Five-twenties by far the greater part in the 
 former. But as some Five-twenties were negotiated under 
 it, the gentleman from Massachusetts, even on the line of 
 logic which he has sought to travel, will be compelled to 
 acknowledge that they were payable in coin, and hence, 
 according to his theory, some of the Five-twenties are re 
 deemable in coin, and some in paper a distinction which 
 has never yet been proclaimed, and the equity of which 
 would hardly be apparent to the holders of the same de 
 scription of bonds, precisely identical in phrase, and differing 
 only in the subordinate and immaterial circumstances of date. 
 
204 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 The last Loan bill to which I need specially refer, is that 
 of June 30, l.SOl, under the provisions of which the Five- 
 twenties bearing that date wore issued. The Seven-thir 
 ties, authorized by the same act, as well as by the subsequent 
 Acts of January 2-S, and March 3, 1865, were convertible 
 into Five-twenties of the same tenor and description with 
 those whose issue was directly authorized ; so that in re 
 viewing the history of the Loan bill of June 30, 180 1 . I 
 i^hall, in effect, close the narrative of Congressional proceed 
 ings in regard to Five-twenty bonds. And the history of 
 that bill shall be brief. It was discussed in its various 
 provisions very elaborately in both branches of Congress. 
 As reported from the Ways and Means Committee, it was 
 worded like all previous bonds, promising to pay so many 
 dollars to the holder, without specifying that they were to be 
 anything else than gold dollars, in which United States 
 bonds had always been paid. Towards the close of the dis- 
 ru.-sion, Mr. Brooks of New York, then as now a member 
 of this House, moved to insert an amendment providing es 
 pecially that the bonds should be "payable in coin." Mr. 
 Brooks was answered by Mr. Hooper of Massachusetts, on 
 behalf of the Ways and Means Committee, as follows : 
 
 "The bill of last year, the $900,000,000 bill, contained 
 these words, but it was not deemed necessary or considered 
 expedient to insert them in this bill. I will send to the desk 
 and ask to have read as a part of my reply to the gentleman 
 from New York, a letter from the Secretary, giving his 
 views on this point." 
 
 The Clerk read as follows : 
 
 "TREASURY DEPARTMENT, May 18, 1884. 
 
 "SiR : Your letter of the l. ith insr., making inquiries 
 in regard to the kind of currency with which the Five- 
 twenty years six per cent, bonds, and the three years 
 Seven-thirty per cent, notes are to be redeemed, has been 
 received. 
 
 "It has been the constant usage of the Department to re 
 deem all coupon and registered bonds, forming part of the 
 funded or permanent debt of the United States, in coin, and 
 this usage has not been deviated from during my adminis 
 tration of its aifuirs. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 205 
 
 "All the Treasury notes and other obligations, forming 
 part of the temporary loan, are payable, and will be re 
 deemed in lawful money, that is, in United States notes, 
 until after the resumption of specie payment, when they also 
 will doubtless be redeemed in coin or equivalent notes. 
 
 "The Five-twenty sixes, payable twenty years from date, 
 though redeemable after five years, are considered as be 
 longing to the funded or permanent debt, and so also are the 
 twenty years sixes into which the three years Seven-thirty 
 notes are convertible. These bonds, therefore, according to 
 the usage of the Government, are payable in coin. 
 
 "The three years Seven-thirty Treasury notes are part 
 of the temporary loan, and will be paid in United States 
 notes, unless holders prefer conversion to payment. 
 
 "Very respectfully, 
 (Signed) S. P. CHASE, Secretary. 
 
 Mr. Brooks, apparently satisfied with this statement, 
 withdrew his amendment, regarding the point as conclusively 
 settled, not only by the uniform practice of the Government, 
 but by the special declaration of the Secretary of the Treas 
 ury, who immediately proceeded afterwards, on the basis of 
 that letter, to put the bonds on the market. Mr. Hooper 
 stated the case well when he said it was "not deemed neces 
 sary or considered expedient" to insert coin payment in this 
 bill "nor necessary," for the practice of the Government, 
 and the assurances of the Treasury Department, in its ad 
 vertisements in proposing for loans, conclusively settled the 
 point and not "considered expedient," for to specially in 
 sert gold payment in all the Loan bills except that of Feb 
 ruary 25, 1862, under which five hundred millions of Five- 
 twenties had been sold, might, in the end, by the exclusio 
 unius give some shadow of ground for the mischievous in 
 ference which is now sought to be drawn without any ground 
 whatever. 
 
 We thus find that the voice of Congress has been uniform 
 and consistent in support of the principle of paying the 
 bonded debt in gold. No vote in Congress, even implying 
 the opposite theory, has ever been given ; even the weighty 
 influence, and conceded ability, of the distinguished gentle 
 man from Pennsylvania failing to carry with him any sup- 
 
206 THE LIFE AND ITllLIO SERVICES 
 
 * 
 
 port whatever when he made his surprising and unprece 
 dented change on this question. But the public creditor did 
 not rely solely on the declarations of the leading men in 
 Congress in regard to gold payment, nor did they rest wholly 
 on the past practice and the good faith of the Government. 
 They had. in addition to both these strong grounds of confi 
 dence and assurance, the more direct and explicit guarantee 
 of the Treasury Department, the authorized agent of the 
 Government, speaking ex cathedra^ with the knowledge and 
 assent of Congress. I have already quoted Secretary 
 Chase s significant declarations in his public proposals for 
 loans, and I have now to quote one of his equally significant 
 acts. At the close of 18G2, the Twenty-year loan of IN 12, 
 amounting to nearly three millions of dollars, fell due. 
 Nothing was said in that loan about coin payment, and thus 
 a grand opportunity was afforded to test the theory of paper 
 payment. Circumstances all conspired to favor such a pol 
 icy if it could be honorably adopted. Gold was at a high 
 premium, and the Government was passing through the 
 darkest and most doubtful hours of the whole struggle. 
 Could there have been even a decent pretext to pay the debt 
 in paper currency, the temptation was surely great enough 
 to resort to it, if not to fully justify it. But in the face of 
 all the adverse circumstances ; with gold very high, and 
 daily rising ; with expenses enormous and daily increasing; 
 with resources already embarrassed, and daily growing more 
 so, and with a military situation rendered wellnigh desper 
 ate, by months of almost unbroken disaster, Secretary Cha>e 
 decided that the faith of the Government demanded that its 
 funded debt, falling due no matter when, and owned by no 
 matter whom, must be paid in coin. Ami it was paitl in 
 coin; and no voice, but the voice of approval, was raised in 
 either branch of Congress. The course of Secretary Chase 
 was not only honorable to himself and the country, but it 
 was in the highest degree wise, merely from the standpoint 
 of worldly wisdom, for it created such a profound confidence 
 in the good faith of our Government, that it aided us incal 
 culably in the negotiation of all our great loans for the war. 
 AVhen the Government paid its del.t to the uttermost farth 
 ing at such a time, capitalists at once argued that there never 
 could come a crisis when any invasion or denial of public 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 207 
 
 obligation would be resorted to. It has been reserved for 
 the gentleman from Massachusetts, and the gentleman from 
 Ohio, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania, jointly and 
 severally, to propose that our Government should adopt a 
 policy in the calm sunshine and prosperity of peace, which 
 it scorned to resort to in the terrible storms and dark adver 
 sities of war. 
 
 The course of Secretary Chase in guaranteeing gold pay 
 ment on all bonds of the United States, was followed, en 
 dorsed and repeated by his successors, Secretary Fessenden, 
 and Secretary McCulloch. The words of Mr. Fessenden 
 are entitled to great weight in the premises, for he had been 
 Chairman of Finance during the passage of all the Loan 
 bills, had elaborately discussed them in turn, and had as 
 largely as any single member of either branch of Congress 
 shaped their provisions. His views on the question at issue 
 may be briefly and conclusively presented by the following 
 extract from his Report as Secretary of the Treasury, made 
 to Congress in December, 18G4 : 
 
 Though forced to resort to the issue of paper for the 
 time, the idea of a specie basis was not lost sight of, as the 
 payment of interest on long loans in coin was amply secured. 
 Arid though in several of the acts authorizing the issue of 
 bonds at long periods, payment of the principal at maturity 
 in coin is not specifically provided, the omission it is believed 
 was accidental, as there could have been no intention to make 
 a distinction between the different classes of securities in this 
 regard." 
 
 It will be noted that this declaration of Mr. Fessenden, 
 made in his official report, was at the very time that the 
 Five-twenties of 1864 were being negotiated, and preceded 
 the large sale of Seven-thirties, which were convertible into 
 Five-twenties. So that in effect it was an additional guar 
 antee of gold payment on the part of the Government, op 
 erating at once as the condition and the inducement of the 
 loan. 
 
 It is well known that Secretary McCulloch entertains pre 
 cisely the same opinions that were so freely expressed by 
 Messrs. Chase and Fessenden, and he placed himself on 
 
JUS THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 record very pointedly on the question by his letter to L. P. 
 Morton & Co., of New York, wherein he says: 
 
 "Treasury Department, November 15th, 1866. 
 "Gentlemen : Your favor of the 13th inst. , is received. 
 I regard, as did also my predecessors, all bonds of the United 
 States as payable in coin. The bonds which have matured 
 since the suspension of specie payments, have been so paid, 
 and I have no doubt that the same will be true with all others. 
 This being, as I understand it to be, the established policy 
 of the Government, the Five-twenty bonds of 1862 will 
 either be called in at the expiration of five years from their 
 date, and paid in coin, or be permitted to run until the Gov 
 ernment is prepared to pay them in coin. 
 
 "I am very truly yours, 
 "(Signed) H. McCuLLOCH, Secretary." 
 
 In view of the uniform declarations of the Treasury De 
 partment, made through official reports, through public pro 
 posals for loans, and through personal letters of assurance, 
 all guaranteeing coin payment of the Five-twenty bonds, I 
 submit that the Government is bound thereto even if there 
 were no other obligation expressed or implied. These offi 
 cial and unofficial promulgations from the Treasury Depart 
 ment, were made with the full knowledge of Congress, and 
 without the slightest expression of dissent on the part of 
 Congress. It is too late for Congress to declare now that 
 the Government is not bound by the stipulations which the 
 Treasury Department proclaimed to all lenders of money 
 proclaimed with the full knowledge and the full assent of 
 Congress. Had Congress not believed or intended that the 
 Fi\v- twenty bonds were to be paid in coin, the Secretary 
 should not have been allowed with its evident assent to so 
 advertise and for Congress after this permission and war 
 rant, so significantly given, to step forward at this late day, 
 and declare itself not bound by the conditions published by 
 the Secretary, is simply to place the United States Govern 
 ment in the position of a man playing a confidence game" 
 of the meanest description, in which the Treasury Depart 
 ment and Congress are the coni ederate knaves and the whole 
 mass of bondholders the unfortunate victims. 
 
 "With these statements I conclude what I have to present 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 209 
 
 to the House in regard to the public obligation to pay the 
 principal of the Five-twenty bonds in coin. That obliga 
 tion is established, I may repeat, in very brief summary, by 
 the uniform and unbroken practice of the Government of 
 the United States to redeem all its funded debt in coin ; it 
 is established by the fact that in the first of the Five-twenty 
 Loan bills, Congress directed the formation of a Sinking Fund 
 in coin for the purchase and payment of the bonded debt of 
 the United States ; it is established by the general under 
 standing in Congress and in the country when the Five- 
 twenty Loan bills were passed ; and it is conclusively and ir 
 reversibly established by the plc dge of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury when the loan was negotiated a pledge made with 
 the knowledge and rendered binding by the assent of Con 
 gress. 
 
 But, now, Mr. Speaker, suppose for the sake of argu 
 ment, we admit that the Government may fairly and legally 
 pay, the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency, what then? I 
 ask the gentleman from Massachusetts to tell us, what then ? 
 It is easy, I know, to issue as many greenbacks as will pay 
 the maturing bonds, regardless of the effect upon the infla 
 tion of prices, and the general derangement of business. 
 Five hundred millions of the Five-twenties are now payable, 
 and according to the easy mode suggested, all we have to do 
 is to set the printing-presses in motion, and "so long as rags 
 and lampblack hold out" we need have no embarrassment 
 about paying our National Debt. But the ugly question re 
 curs, what are you going to do with the greenbacks thus put 
 afloat? Five hundred millions this year, and eleven hundred 
 millions more on this theory of payment by the year 1872 ; 
 so that within the period of four or five years we would only 
 have added to our paper money the trifling inflation of six 
 teen hundred millions of dollars. We should all have splen 
 did times doubtless ! Wheat, under the new dispensation, 
 ought to bring twenty dollars a bushel, and boots would not 
 be worth more than two hundred dollars a pair, and the 
 farmers of our country would be as well off as Santa Anna s 
 
 \rabble of Mexican soldiers, who were allowed ten dollars a 
 day for their services and charged eleven for their rations 
 and clothing. The sixteen hundred millions of greenbacks 
 added to the amount already issued, would give us some 
 
210 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 twenty-three hundred millions of paper money, and I sup 
 pose the theory of the new doctrine would leave this ma>- 
 permanently in circulation, for it would hardly be consistent 
 to advocate the redemption of the greenbacks in gold after 
 having repudiated and foresworn our obligation on the bonds. 
 
 But if it be intended to redeem the legal tenders in gold, 
 what will have been the net gain to the Government in the 
 whole transaction? If any gentleman will tell me, I .^liall 
 be glad to learn how it will be easier to pay sixteen hundred 
 millions in gold in the redemption of greenbacks, than to 
 pay the same amount in the redemption of Five-twenty 
 bonds? The policy advocated, it seems to me, has only two 
 alternatives the one to ruinously inflate the currency and 
 leave it so, reckless of results ; the other to ruinously inflate 
 the currency at the outset, only to render redemption in gold 
 far more burdensome in~tne end. 
 
 I know it may be claimed, that the means necessary to 
 redeem the Five-twenties in greenbacks may be realized by 
 a new issue of currency bonds to be placed on the market. 
 Of results in the future every gentleman has the right to his 
 own opinion, and all may alike indulge in speculation. But 
 it does seem to me that the Government would be placed in 
 an awkward attitude when it should enter the market to ne 
 gotiate a loan, the avails of which were to be devoted to 
 breaking faith with those who already held its most sacred 
 obligations ! What possible security would the new class of 
 creditors have, that when their debts were matured, some 
 new form of evasion would be resorted to by which they in 
 turn would be deprived of their just and honest dues? 
 
 Falsus in uno,falsus in nin/iilm* would supply the ready 
 form of protest against trusting a Government with a new 
 loan when it had just ignored its plain obligation on an old 
 one. 
 
 Payment of the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency 
 involves therefore a limitless issue of greenbacks, with at 
 tendant evils of gigantic magnitude and far-reaching conse 
 quence. And the worst evil of the whole is the delusion 
 which calls this a payment at all. It is no payment in any 
 proper sense, for it neither gives the creditor what he is 
 entitled to, nor does it release the debtor from subsequent 
 responsibility. lYou may get rid of the Five-twenty by 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 211 
 
 issuing the greenback, but how will you get rid of the 
 greenback except by paying gold? The only escape 
 from ultimate payment of gold is to declare that as a nation 
 we permanently and finally renounce all idea of ever attain 
 ing a specie standard that we launch ourselves on an 
 ocean of paper money without shore or sounding, with no 
 rudder to guide us and no compass to steer by. And this 
 is precisely what is involved if we adopt this mischievous 
 suggestion of "a new way to pay old debts." Our fate in 
 attempting such a course may be easily read in the history 
 of similar follies both in Europe and in our own country. 
 Prostration of credit, financial disaster, widespread distress 
 amTmg-all classes of the community, would form the closing 
 scenes in our career of gratuitous folly and national dishonor. 
 And from such an abyss of sorrow and humiliation, it 
 would be a painful and toilsome effort to regain as sound .a 
 position in our finances as we are asked voluntarily to 
 abandon to-day. 
 
 The remedy for our financial troubles, Mr. Speaker, will 
 not be found in a superabundance of depreciated paper cur 
 rency. It lies in the opposite direction and the sooner the 
 nation finds itself on a specie basis, the sooner will the pub 
 lic treasury be freed from embarrassment, and private busi 
 ness relieved from discouragement. Instead therefore of 
 entering upon a reckless and boundless issue c>f legal tend 
 ers, with their consequent depression if not destruction of 
 value, let us set resolutely to work and make those already 
 in circulation equal to so many gold dollars. When that 
 result shall be accomplished, we can proceed to pay our 
 Five-twenties either in coin or paper, for the one would be 
 equivalent to the other. But to proceed deliberately on a 
 scheme of depreciating our legal tenders and then forcing 
 the holders of Government bonds to accept them in pay 
 ment, would resemble in point of honor, the policy of a 
 merchant who, with abundant resources and prosperous 
 business, should devise a plan for throwing discredit on his 
 own notes with the view of having them bought up at a dis 
 count, ruinous to the holders and immensely profitable to 
 his own knavish pocket. This comparison may faintly 
 illustrate the wrongfulness of the policy, but not its consum 
 mate folly for in the case of the Government, unlike the 
 
212 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 merchant, the stern necessity would recur of making good 
 in the end, by the payment of hard coin, all the discount 
 that might be gained by the temporary substitution of paper. 
 
 Discarding all such schemes as at once unworthy and 
 unprofitable, let us direct our policy steadily, but not rash 
 ly, towards the resumption of specie payment. And when 
 we have attained that end easily attainable at no distant 
 day if the proper policy be pursued we can all unite on 
 some honorable plan for the redemption of the Five-twenty 
 bonds, and the issuing instead thereof, a new series of 
 bonds which can be more favorably placed at a lower rate 
 of interest. When we shall have reached the specie basis, 
 th- value of United States securities will be so high in the 
 money market of the world, that we can command our own 
 terms. We can then call in our Five-twenties according to 
 the very letter and spirit of the bond, and adjust a -new loan 
 that will be eagerly sought for by capitalists, and will be 
 free from those elements of discontent that in some measure 
 surround the existing Funded debt of the country. 
 
 As to the particular measures of legislation requisite to 
 hasten the resumption of specie payment, gentlemen equally 
 entitled to respect may widely differ ; but there is one line 
 of policy conducive thereto on which wo all ought to agree; 
 and that is on a serious reduction of the Government ex 
 penses and a consequent lightening of the burdens of taxa 
 tion. The interest-bearing debt of r the United States, when 
 permanently funded, will not exceed twenty-one hundred 
 millions of dollars, imposing an annual interest of about one 
 hundred and twenty-five millions. Ourother expenses, includ 
 ing War, Navy, the Pension list, and the Civil list, ought not 
 t> exceed one hundred millions ; so that if we raise two hun 
 dred and fifty millions from Customs and Internal Revenue 
 onnbiiu d, we should have twenty-live millions annual sur 
 plus to apply to the reduction of the Public debt. 15ut to 
 attain this end we must mend our ways, and practice an 
 croiiomy far more consistent and severe than anv we have 
 attempted in the past. Our Military peace establishment 
 must be reduced one-half at least, and our Naval appropria 
 tions correspondingly curtailed ; and innumeraMe leaks and 
 gaps and loose i-nds. that have so long attended ourGovern- 
 ment expenditure, must be taken up and stopped. If such 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 213 
 
 a policy be pursued by Congress,, neither the principal of 
 the debt, nor the interest of the debt, nor the annual ex 
 penses of Government, will be burdensome to the people. 
 We can raise two hundred and fifty millions of revenue on 
 the gold basis, and at the same time have a vast reduction 
 in our taxes. And we can do this without repudiation in 
 any form, either open or covert, avowed or indirect, but 
 with every obligation of the Government fulfilled and dis 
 charged in its exact letter and in its generous spirit. 
 
 And this, Mr. Speaker, we shall do. Our National honor 
 demands it ; our National interest equally demands it. AVe 
 have vindicated our claim to the highest heroism on a 
 hundred bloody battle-fields, and have stopped at no sacri 
 fice of life needful to the maintenance of our National 
 integrity. I am sure that in the peace which our arms 
 have conquered, we shall not dishonor ourselves by with 
 holding from any public creditor a dollar that we promised 
 to pay him, nor seek by cunning construction and clever 
 afterthought, to evade or escape the full responsibility of our 
 National indebtedness. It will doubtless cost us a vast sum 
 to pay that indebtedness but it would cost us incalculably 
 more not to pay it. 
 
 The work which Elaine performed in the Fortieth Con 
 gress, 18G7-8, was most astonishing. Bills, resolutions, 
 hearings, reports and speeches kept him in a state of con 
 stant activity. He w^as directly connected by committee- 
 work, or as the originator of measures concerning the army, 
 navy, post-offices, Congressional library, Indian reserva 
 tions, relief of individuals, common carriers between the 
 States, Treasury Department, cotton tax, issue of U. S. 
 bonds, Funding bill, Mexican treaties, foreign commerce, 
 election cases, river and harbor improvement, Funeral of 
 Ex-President Buchanan, Custom-house frauds, House Rules, 
 military laws, the re-arrangement of the rooms of the Capi 
 tol, and even matters concerning the messengers, pages and 
 restaurant-keeper. 
 
 He was not only the acknowledged leader of the Repub- 
 
214 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 lican party in the House, but almost equally so of the en 
 tire body in matters of business. Working diligently with 
 him, and daily uniting with him in important measures, was 
 a man much like Blaine in earnestness, patriotism and in 
 dustry James A. Garfield of Ohio. 
 
 March 4th, 1809, on the same day with the second inau 
 guration of General Grant, the President of the United 
 States, Blaine was elected Speaker of the House of Repre 
 sentatives. He was nominated by the Republican caucus 
 without material opposition, and was elected by a vote of 
 one hundred and thirty-five against fifty-seven votes for Hon. 
 Michael C. Kerr of Indiana. 
 
 His speech in accepting the office was short, modest and 
 clear. Probably no man since the organization of the Re 
 public, with perhaps the exception of Hon. Nathaniel P. 
 Banks, has been equally successful as Speaker of the House. 
 Blaine was cool, courteous, decided and most strictly impar 
 tial. None of his political enemies ever accused him of in 
 tentional unfairness when the heat of debate was passed. 
 
 All parties joined in doing him honor at the close of his 
 term. For six years he held that important position, to the 
 admiration of the whole country. So popular did he be 
 come as a Speaker, that he was considered by the people to 
 be the sure candidate for the Presidency in 1876, long be- 
 1 ore politicians or party leaders had defined their plans. 
 
 During this time of arduous labor he somehow found time 
 to prepare scores of political campaign speeches, and write 
 important addresses and magazine articles. In the North 
 American Review, 1870. appeared an interesting article from 
 his pen on the. subject, "Ought the Negro to be Disfran 
 chised?" In the same number of the magazine appeared 
 articles on the same topic by L. Q. C. Lainar, Wade Hamp 
 ton, James A. Garfield, Alexander II. Stephens, Wendell 
 Phillips, Montgomery Blair, and Thomas A. Ilendricks. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 215 
 
 Blaine had the opening and closing of the discussion. The 
 article received a world- wide attention, and it is here given 
 in full. 
 
 MR. BLAINE wrote : These questions have lately been 
 asked by many who have been distinguished as the special 
 champions of the negro s rights ; by many who have devoted 
 their lives to redressing the negro s wrongs. The questions 
 owe their origin not to any cooling of philanthropic interest, 
 not to any novel or radical views about universal suffrage, 
 but to the fact that, in the judgment of many of those hith 
 erto accounted wisest, negro suffrage has failed to attain the 
 ends hoped for when the franchise was conferred ; failed as 
 a means of more completely securing the negro s civil rights ; 
 failed to bring him the consideration which generally attaches 
 to power; failed, indeed, to achieve anything except to in 
 crease the political weight and influence of those against whom, 
 and in spite of whom, his enfranchisement was secured. 
 
 Those who have reached this conclusion, and those who 
 are tending toward it, argue that the important franchise 
 was prematurely bestowed on the negro ; that its possession 
 necessarily places him in inharmonious relations with the 
 white race ; that the excitement incident to its free enjoy 
 ment hinders him from progress in the rudimentary and es 
 sential branches of education ; that his advance in material 
 wealth is thus delayed and obstructed ; and that obstacles, 
 which would not otherwise exist, are continually accumulat 
 ing in his path rendering his progress impossible and his 
 oppression inevitable. In other words, that suffrage in the 
 hands of the negro is a challenge to the white race for a 
 contest in which he is sure to be overmatched ; and that the 
 withdrawal of the franchise would remove all conflict, re 
 store kindly relations between the races, place the whites on 
 their proper and honorable responsibility, and assure to each 
 race the largest prosperity attainable under a Government 
 where both are compelled to live. 
 
 The class of men whose views are thus hastily summa 
 rized do not contemplate the withdrawal of the suffrage from 
 the negro without a corresponding reduction in the repre 
 sentation in Congress of the" States where the negro is a 
 large factor in the apportionment. And yet it is quite prob- 
 
216 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 able that they have not -riven thought to the difficulty, or 
 rather tlie impossibility, of compassing that end. Under 
 the Constitution, as it is now construed, the diminution of 
 representative strength could only result from the States 
 passing such laws as would disfranchise the negro by some 
 educational or property test, as it is forbidden by the fif 
 teenth amendment to disfranchise him on account of his 
 race. But no Southern State will do this, and for two rea 
 sons : first, they will in no event consent to a reduction of 
 representative strength ; and, second, they could not make 
 any disfranchisement of the negro that would not at the 
 same time disfranchise an immense number of whites. 
 
 (,hiite another class mostly resident in the South, hut 
 witli numerous sympathizers in the North would be glad 
 to have the negro disfranchised on totally different grounds. 
 l>i ni and reared with the belief that the negro is inferior to 
 the white man in everything, it is hard for the class who 
 we iv masters at the South to endure any phase or form of 
 equality on the part of the negro. Instinct governs reason, 
 and with the mass of Southern people the aversion to equal 
 ity is instinctive and ineradicable. The general conclusion 
 with this class would be to deprive the negro of voting if it 
 could be done without impairing the representation of their 
 States, but not to make any move in that direction so long 
 as diminished power in Congress is the constitutional and 
 logical re-ult of a denial or abridgment of suffrage. In the 
 mean while, seeing no mode of legally or equitably depriv 
 ing the negro of his suffrage except with unwelcome penalty 
 to themselves, the Southern States as a whole differing in 
 degree but the same in effect have striven to achieve by in 
 direct and unlawful means what they cannot achieve direct 
 ly and lawfully. They have so far as possible made negro 
 suffrage of none effect. They have done this against law 
 and against justice. 
 
 I Ia\ ing stated the position of both classes on this question, 
 I venture now to give my own views in a series of state 
 ments in which I shall endeavor to embody both argument 
 and conclusion : 
 
 / //>-/. The two classes I have named, contemplating the 
 pn.->ilile or desirable disfraucni>cmcnt of the negro t r. in 
 entirely different standpoints, and with entirely different 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 217 
 
 aims, are both and equally in the wrong. The first is radi 
 cally in error in supposing that a disfranchisement of the 
 negro would put him in the way of any development or prog 
 ress that would in time lit him for the suffrage. He would 
 instead grow more and more unfit for it every day from the 
 time the first backward step should be taken, and he would 
 relapse, if not into actual chattel slavery, yet into such a de 
 pendent and defenseless condition as would result in only 
 another form of servitude. For the ballot to-day, imper 
 fectly enjoyed as it is by the negro, its freedom unjustly and 
 illegally curtailed, its independence ruthlessly marred, its 
 purity defiled, is withal and after all the strong shield the 
 race has against a form of servitude which would have all 
 the cruelty and none of the alleviations of the old slave sys 
 tem, whose destruction carried with it the shedding of so 
 much innocent blood. 
 
 The second class is wrong in anticipating even the remote 
 possibility of securing the legal disfranchisement of the ne 
 gro without a reduction of representation. Both sides have 
 fenced for position on this question. But for the clause 
 regulating representation in the Fourteenth Amendment to 
 the Constitution we should to-day have the South wholly 
 under the control, and legally under the control, of those 
 who rebelled against the Union and sought to erect the Con 
 federate Government enjoying full representation by rea 
 son of the negroes being counted in the apportionment with 
 out a pretense of suffrage being conceded to the race. The 
 Fourteenth Amendment was designed to prevent this, and, 
 if it does not succeed in preventing it, it is because of eva 
 sion and violation of its express provisions and of its clear 
 intent. Those who erected the Confederate Government 
 may be in exclusive possession of power throughout the 
 South, but they are not so fairly and legally ; and they will 
 not be permitted to continue in the enjoyment of political 
 power unjustly seized and seized in derogation and- in defi 
 ance of the rights not merely of the negro but of the whites 
 in all other sections of the country. Injustice cannot stand 
 before exposure and argument and the force of public opin 
 ion ; and no more severe weapons of defense will be required 
 against the wrong which now afflicts the South and is a 
 scandal to the whole country. 
 
218 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Second, But, while discussing the question of the dis- 
 franchisement of the negro, and settling its justice or ex 
 pediency according to our discretion, it may be worth while 
 to look at its impracticability, or, to state it still more strong 
 ly, its impossibility. Logicians attach weight to arguments 
 drawn ab inconvenienti. Arguments must be still more cogent, 
 and conclusions still more decisive when drawn ab impossibili. 
 The negro is secure against enfranchisement by two con 
 stitutional amendments, and he cannot be remanded to the 
 non-voting class until both these amendments are annulled. 
 And these amendments cannot be annulled until two-thirds of 
 the Senate and two-thirds of the House of Kepresentatives 
 of the United States shall propose, and a majority in the 
 Legislatures or conventions of twenty-nine States shall by 
 affirmative vote approve, the annulment. In other words, 
 the negro cannot be disfranchised so long as one vote more 
 than one-third in the United States Senate, or one vote 
 more than one-third in the House of Representatives, shall 
 be recorded against it ; and if these securities and safeguards 
 should give way, then the disfranchisement could not be ef 
 fected so long as a majority in one branch in the Legisla 
 tures of only ten States should refuse to assent to it, and 
 refuse to assent to a convention to which it might be referred. 
 No human right on this continent is more completely guar 
 anteed than the right against disfranchisement on account of 
 race, color, or previous condition of servitude, as embodied 
 in the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 Third. In enforcement and elucidation of my second 
 point, it is of interest to observe the rapid advance and de 
 velopment of popular sentiment in regard to the rights of 
 the negro as expressed in the last three amendments to the 
 Constitution of the United States. In 1865 Congress sub 
 mitted the Thirteenth Amendment, which merely gave the 
 iii irro freedom, without suffrage, civil rights, or citizenship. 
 In 18G6 the Fourteenth Amendment was submitted, declar 
 ing the negro to be a citizen, but not forbidding the States 
 to withhold suffrage from him yet inducing them to grant 
 it by the provision that representation in Congress should be 
 reduced in proportion to the exclusion of male citixrns twenty- 
 one years of age from the right to vote, except for rebellion 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 219 
 
 or other crime. In 1869 the decisive step was taken of de 
 claring that the right of citizens of the United States to vote 
 shall riot be abridged by the United States or by any State on 
 account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." 
 A most important provision in this amendment is the in 
 hibition upon the "United States" as well as upon "any 
 State" ; for it would not be among the impossible results of 
 a great political revolution, resting on prejudice and grasp 
 ing for power, that, in the absence of this express nega 
 tion, the United States might assume or usurp the right to 
 deprive the negro of suffrage, and then the States would not be 
 subjected to forfeiture of representation provided in the 
 Fourteenth Amendment as the result of the denial or abridg 
 ment of suffrage by State authority. In this stately pro 
 gression of organic enactments the will of a great people is 
 embodied, and its reversal would be one of those revolu 
 tions which would convulse social order and endanger the 
 authority of law. There will be no step backward, but 
 under the provision which specifically confers on Congress 
 the power to enforce each amendment by "appropriate leg 
 islation" there will be applied, from time to time, fitfully 
 perhaps and yet certainly, the restraining and correcting 
 edicts of national authority. 
 
 Fourth. As I have already hinted, there will be no at 
 tempt made in the Southern States to disfranchise the ne~ro 
 by any of those methods which would still be within the 
 power of the State. There is no Southern State that would 
 dare venture on an educational qualification, because by the 
 last census there were more than one million white persons 
 over fifteen years of age, in the States lately slave-holding, 
 who could not read a word, and a still larger number who 
 could not write their names. There was, of course, a still 
 greater number of negroes of the same ages who could not 
 read nor write ; but in the nine years that have intervened 
 since the census was taken, there has been a much greater ad 
 vance in the education of the negroes than in the education 
 of the poor whites of the South ; and to-day on an educa 
 tional qualification it is quite probable that, while the pro 
 portion would be in favor of the whites, the absolute exclu 
 sion of the whites in some of the States would be nearly as 
 great as that of the negroes. Nor would a property test 
 
220 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 operate with any greater advantage to the whites. The 
 .-lave States always had a large class of very poor and en- 
 tirelv uneducated whites, and any qualification of property 
 that would seriously diminish the negro vote would also cut 
 off a very large number of whites from the suffrage. 
 
 Thus far I have directed my argument to the first ques 
 tion propounded, "Ought the negro to be disfranchised?" 
 The second interrogatory, "Ought he to have been enfran 
 chised?" is not practical but speculative ; and yet, unless it 
 can be answered with confidence in the affirmative, the 
 moral tenure of his suffrage is weakened, and, as a conse 
 quence, his legal right to enjoy it is impaired. For myself 
 I answer the second question in the affirmative, with as 
 little hesitation as I answered the first in the negative. And, 
 if the question were again submitted to the judgment of 
 Congress, I would vote for suffrage in the light of experi 
 ence with more confidence than I voted for it in the light of 
 an experiment. Had the franchise not been bestowed upon 
 the negro as his shield and weapon of defense, the demand 
 upon the General Government to interfere for his protection 
 would have been constant and irritating and embarrassing. 
 ( - ivat complaint has been made for years past of the Gov 
 ernment s interference, simply to secure to the colored citi- 
 /rn his plainest constitutional right. But this intervention 
 has been trifling compared to that which would have been 
 required if we had not given suffrage to the negro. In the 
 Reconstruction experiment under President Johnson s plan, 
 before the negro was enfranchised, it was clearly foreshad 
 owed that he was to be dealt with as one having no rights 
 except such as the whites should choose to grant. The ne 
 gro was to work according to labor laws ; freedom of move 
 ment and transit was to be denied him by the operation of 
 vagrant laws ; liberty to sell his time and his skill at their 
 market value was to be restrained by apprentice laws ; and 
 the slavery that was abolished by the Constitution of a na 
 tion was to be revived by the enactment of a State. To 
 counteract these and {ill like efforts at re-enslavement, the 
 national authority would have been constantly invoked ; in 
 terference in the most positive and peremptory manner would 
 have been demanded, and angry conflict and possibly re- 
 Mstance to law would have resulted. The one sure mode 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 221 
 
 to remand the States that rebelled against the Union to their 
 autonomy was to give suffrage to the negro ; and that au 
 tonomy will be complete, absolute and unquestioned when 
 ever the rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution of 
 the Republic shall be enjoyed in every State as the admin 
 istration of justice was assured in Magna Charta "promptly 
 and without delay ; freely and without sale ; completely and 
 without denial." 
 
 In conclusion, MR. ELAINE said : 
 
 At the instance of the Editor of the North American 
 Review, and not by request or desire of mine, the brief 
 article which I wrote in regard to negro suffrage was sub 
 mitted to the gentlemen who have replied to it, and in turn 
 their articles have been submitted to me. I have now the 
 privilege of rejoinder, and the whole series of papers thus 
 assumes the phase of a connected discussion. 
 
 With the exception of Mr. Wendell Phillips and General 
 Garfield, the replies are from gentlemen identified with the 
 Democratic party, and distinguished and influential in its 
 councils. General Garfield is a Republican, and has taken 
 prominent and honorable parts in all the legislation respect 
 ing negro suffrage. His views are so entirely in harmony 
 with my own that nothing is left me but to commend his admi 
 rable statement of the case. Mr. Phillips is neither a Repub 
 lican nor a Democrat, but reserves to himself the right a 
 right most freely exercised to criticise and condemn either 
 party with unsparing severity, generally bestowing his most 
 caustic denunciation upon the party to which he most inclines. 
 It is by this sign that we feel occasionally comforted with the 
 reflection that Mr. Phillips still has sympathies with the 
 Republican party, and still indulges aspirations for its ulti 
 mate success. 
 
 The arraignment of the Republicans at this late day by 
 Mr. Phillips, because they did not reduce the Confederate 
 States to Territories and govern them by direct exercise of 
 Federal power, is causeless and unjust ; and it cannot cer 
 tainly influence the judgment of any man whose memory 
 goes back to 1866- 67. For I assume that if anything, not 
 capable of demonstration, is yet an absolute certainty, it is 
 that such an attempt by the Republican party would have 
 led to its utter overthrow at the initial point of its recon- 
 
222 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 struotion policy. The overthrow of the Republican party 
 at that time would have restored the Confederate State- m 
 full power in the Union without the imposition of a single 
 condition, without the exaction of a single guarantee. All 
 the inestimable provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment 
 would have been lost ; its broad and comprehensive basis of 
 citizenship ; its clause regulating representation in Congress 
 and coercing the States into granting suffrage to the negro ; 
 its guarantee of the validity of the war debt of the Union 
 and of pensions to its soldiers and their widows and orphans ; 
 its inhibition of any tax by General or State Government 
 for debts incurred in aid of the rebellion or for the emanci 
 pation of any slave ! These great achievements for libertv, 
 in addition to the Fifteenth Amendment, would have been 
 put to hazard and probably lost, could Mr. Phillips have 
 had his way, in a vain struggle to reduce eleven States 
 four of them belonging to the original thirteen to the con 
 dition of territories ; thus committing the General Govern 
 ment to a policy as arbitrary and as sure to lead to cor 
 rupt ion and tyranny as the proconsular system of Rome. 
 
 And as if the territorial policy were not enough to have 
 destroyed the Republican party at that time, Mr. Phillips 
 would have plunged us into the wild, visionary, and uncon 
 stitutional scheme of confiscating the land of the rebels and 
 giving it to the freedmen. Confiscation laws were passed 
 by Congress during the hottest period of the war ; but even 
 then, when passions were at the highest, no enactment was 
 proposed which did not recognize the express limitation of 
 the Constitution that in punishing treason there should be no 
 "forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." 
 The Republican party has been flippantly accused by its 
 opponents of disregarding the Constitution, but I venture to 
 say that there is no parallel in the world to so strict an 
 observance of written law during a critical and mighty war 
 as was shown by the Republicans throughout the protracted 
 and bloody struggle that involved the fate of free govern 
 ment on this continent. It is impossible, then-fore, that the 
 Republican party could have adopted the policy which Mr. 
 Phillips commends ; and impossible that it could have suc 
 ceeded it the attempt had heen made. 
 
 Of the replies made by the other gentlemen, identified as 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 223 
 
 they have been and are with the Democratic party, it is 
 noteworthy that, with the exception of Mr. Blair, they 
 agree that the negro ought not to be disfranchised. As all 
 of these gentlemen were hostile to the enfranchisement of 
 the race, their present position must be taken as a great 
 step forward, and as an attestation of the wisdom and cour 
 age of the Republican party at the time they were violently 
 opposing its measures. This general expression leaves Mr. 
 Blair to be treated as an exception, and for many of his 
 averments the best answer is to be found in the suggestions 
 and concessions of his Democratic associates. I need not 
 make an elaborate reply to Mr. Blair, when he is answered 
 with such significance and such point by those of his own 
 political household. It is one of the curious developments 
 of political history, that a man who sat in the cabinet of 
 Abraham Lincoln and was present when Emancipation was 
 decreed should live to write a paper against the enfranchise 
 ment of the negro, when the Vice-President of the Rebel 
 Confederacy and two of its most distinguished officers, are 
 taking the other side ! 
 
 Of Governor Hampton s paper it is fair to say that it 
 seems to have been written to cover a case ; its theory and 
 application being adapted to the latitude of South Carolina, 
 and to his own political course. Mr. Hampton is a man of 
 strong parts, possessing courage and executive force, but he 
 he has been in the thick of the fight, and has had personal 
 ambitions to gratify which may not place him in history 
 as an impartial witness. His personality protrudes at every 
 point, and his conception of what should be done and what 
 should be undone at the South, is precisely what is included 
 in his own career. When Mirabeau was describing all the 
 great qualities that should distinguish a popular leader, the 
 keenest of French wits said he "had forgotten to add that 
 he should be pock-marked." 
 
 Mr. Lamar offers a contrast to Governor Hampton. He 
 generalizes and philosophizes with great ability, and pre 
 sents the strange combination of a "refined speculatist," 
 and a trustful optimist embodying some of the character 
 istics of Mr. Calhoun, whom he devoutly followed, and of 
 Mr. Seward, whom he always opposed. Mr. Lamar is the 
 man in public life who can be praised in New England 
 
224 THE LIFE AND ITIJLIC SERVICES 
 
 for a warm eulogy of Charles Sumner, and immediately 
 afterward elected to the Senate as the representative of the 
 whiteline Democrats of Mississippi. And yet inconsistent 
 as these positions are, it is the dream of Mr. Lamar s life 
 to reconcile them. He is intensely devoted to the Soutli ; 
 he has generous aspirations for the Union of the States ; he 
 is shackled with the narrowing dogma of State rights, and 
 yet withal has boundless hopes for an imperial republic 
 whose power shall lead and direct the civilization of the 
 world. Hedged in by opposing theories, embarrassed by 
 forces that seem irreconcilable, Mr. Lamar, probably more 
 than any other man of the Democratic party, gives anxious 
 and inquiring thought to the future. 
 
 Of Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hendricks it may be said that 
 in their treatment of the question, one aims to vindicate the 
 course of his native Georgia ; the other to gain some advan 
 tage for the Democratic party of the nation. Mr. Stephens 
 has the mind of a metaphysician, led astray sometimes 
 in his logic and sometimes in his facts, but aiming always 
 to promote the interest of the State to which he is devoted. 
 Mr. Hendricks is an accomplished political leader, with 
 large experience, possessed of tact and address, and instinct 
 ively viewing every public question from its relation to the 
 fate and fortune of his party. Mr. Stephens argues from the 
 standpoint of Georgia ; Mr. Hendricks has in view the 
 Democracy of the nation. 
 
 These Democratic leaders unite in upholding the suffrage 
 of the negro under existing circumstances, but each with an 
 obvious feeling that some contradiction is to be reconciled, 
 some record to be amended, some consistency to be vindi 
 cated. They all unite, however, on the common ground of 
 denouncing the men who controlled the negro vote at the 
 outset in the interest of the Republican party ; and the un 
 derlying conclusion, not expressed but implied, is that if the 
 military force had been absent and the persuasion of the 
 Freedmen s Bureau had not been applied, the negroes would 
 have flocked, as doves to their windows, to the outstretched 
 and protecting arms of the Democratic party. This seems 
 to me to be sheer recklessness of assumption ; the very bra 
 vado of argument. Why should tin 1 IH <_T<> have been dis 
 posed to vote with the Democratic party? Mr. Hendricks 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 225 
 
 says he was made to feel that "he owed servitude to a party 
 through the agency of United States officials and the Freed- 
 men s Bureau." But can Mr. Hendricks give any possible 
 reason why the negro should have voted with the Democrat 
 ic party at that time? Does not the record of Mr. Hen 
 dricks himself as the leader of the Democratic party in the 
 Senate show the most conclusive reasons why the negro 
 should have voted with the Republicans ? 
 
 Mr. Hendricks argued and voted in the Senate against 
 emancipating the negro from helpless slavery ; when made 
 free, Mr. Hendricks argued and voted against making him 
 a citizen ; citizenship conferred, Mr. Hendricks argued and 
 voted against bestowing suffrage ; and he argued and voted 
 against conferring upon the negro the most ordinary civil 
 rights, even inveighing in the Senate against giving to col 
 ored men who were eligible to seats in Congress the simple 
 privilege of a seat in the horse-cars of Washington in com 
 mon with white men. Conceding to the negro the ordinary 
 instincts and prejudices of human nature, it must have re 
 quired the combined and energetic action of the United 
 States army, the Federal officers, and the Freedmen s Bu 
 reau, to hold him back from his impulsive and irrepressible 
 desire to vote with Mr. Hendricks and the Democratic party ! 
 
 I do not use this argumentum ad hominem in any personal 
 or offensive sense towards Mr. Hendricks. His position 
 was not different from his associates and his followers in 
 the Democratic party on all the questions where I have re 
 ferred to his votes and his speeches. Mr. Lamar occupied 
 the same ground practically, and so did Mr. Stephens and 
 Governor Hampton. Indeed, the entire Democratic party 
 opposed legislation for the amelioration of the negro s con 
 dition at every step, and opposed it not with the mere regis 
 try of negative votes, but with an energetic hostility that 
 too often assumed the phase of anger and acrimony. Eman 
 cipation from slavery, grant of citizenship and civil rights, 
 conferring of suffrage, were all carried for the negro by the 
 Republicans against a protesting and resisting Democracy. 
 Democratic Senators and Representatives in Congress fought 
 all these measures with unflagging zeal. In State Legisla 
 tures, on the stump, in the partisan press, through all the 
 agencies that influence and direct public opinion, the Demo- 
 
226 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 crats showed implacable hostility to each and every step that 
 was taken towards elevating the negro to a better condition. 
 So that it was inevitable that the negro who had sen.-e 
 enough to feel that he was free, who had perception enough 
 to know that he was a citizen, who had pride enough to 
 realize that he was a voter, felt and knew and realized that 
 these great enfranchisements had been conferred upon him 
 by the persistent energy of the Republican party, and in 
 spite of the efforts of an embittered and united Democracy. 
 Is further statement necessary to explain why the negro 
 should have cast his vote for the Republican party when a 
 free ballot was in his hands ? It can be readily understood 
 why he may now cast a vote for the Democratic party when 
 he is no longer allowed freedom of choice, when he is no 
 longer master of his own ballot. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the Republicans were urged 
 and hastened to measures of amelioration for the negro by 
 very dangerous developments in the Southern States look 
 ing to his re-enslavement, in fact if not in form. The year 
 that followed the accession of Andrew Johnson to the 
 Presidency was full of anxiety and of warning to all the 
 lovers of justice, to all who hoped for tk a more perfect 
 Union" of the States. In nearly every one of the Con 
 federate States the white inhabitants assumed that they were 
 to be restored to the Union with their State governments 
 precisely as they were when they seceded in 1861, and that 
 the organic change created by the Thirteenth Amendment 
 might be practically set aside by State legislation. In this 
 belief they exhibited their policy toward the negro. Con 
 sidering all the circumstances, it would be hard to find in 
 history a more causeless and cruel oppression of a whole 
 race than was embodied in the legislation of those revived 
 and unreconstructed State governments. Their membership 
 wa> composed wholly of the "ruling class," as they termed 
 ii. and in no small degree of Confederate officers below the 
 rank of brigadier-general, who sat in the Legislature in the 
 very uniforms which had distinguished them as enemies of 
 the Union upon the battle-field. Limited space forbids my 
 transcribing the black code wherewith they loaded their 
 statute-books. In Mr. Lamar s State the negroes were for 
 bidden, under very severe penalties, "to keep li rearms of 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 227 
 
 any kind" ; they were apprenticed, if minors, to labor ; 
 preference being given by the statute to their "former own 
 ers." Grown men and women were compelled to let their 
 labor by contract, the decision of whose terms was wholly 
 in the hands of the whites ; and those who failed to contract 
 were to be seized as "vagrants," heavily fined, and their 
 labor sold by the sheriff at public outcry to the highest bid 
 der. The terms "master" and "mistress" continually recur 
 in the statutes, and the slavery that was thus instituted was 
 a far more degrading, merciless, and mercenary type than 
 that which was blotted out by the Thirteenth Amendment. 
 
 "South Carolina, whose moderation and justice are so 
 highly praised by Governor Hampton, enacted a code still 
 more cruel than that I have quoted from Mississippi. Fire 
 arms were forbidden to the negro, and any violation of the 
 statute was punished by "a fine equal to twice the value of 
 the weapon so unlawfully kept," and, "if that be not im 
 mediately paid, by corporeal punishment." It was further 
 provided that "no person of color shall pursue or practice 
 the art, trade, or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shop 
 keeper, or any other trade or employment (besides that of 
 husbandry or that of a servant under contract for labor) , 
 until he shall have obtained a license from the Judge of the 
 District Court, which license shall be good for one year 
 only." If the license was granted to the negro to be a shop 
 keeper or peddler, he was compelled to pay one hundred 
 dollars per annum for it, and if he pursued the rudest 
 mechanical calling he could do so only by the payment of a 
 license fee of ten dollars per annum. No such fees were 
 exacted of the whites, and no such fee of free blacks during 
 the era of slavery. The negro was thus hedged in on all 
 sides ; he was down and he was to be kept down, and the 
 chivalric race that denied him a fair and honest competition 
 in the humblest mechanical pursuits were loud in their as 
 sertions of his inferiority and his incompetency. 
 
 But it was reserved for Louisiana to outdo both South 
 Carolina and Mississippi in this horrible legislation. In 
 that State all agricultural laborers were compelled to make 
 labor contracts during the first ten days of January, for the 
 next year. The contract once made, the laborer was not to 
 be allowed to leave his place of employment during the year 
 
228 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 except upon conditions not likely to happen and easily pre 
 vented. The master was allowed to make deductions of the 
 servants wages "for injuries done to animals and agricul 
 tural implements committed to his care," thus making 
 the negroes responsible for wear and tear. Deductions 
 w-re to be made for "bad or negligent work," the master 
 being the judge. For every act of "disobedience" a fine of 
 one dollar was imposed on the offender ; disobedience be 
 ing a technical term made to include, besides "neglect of 
 duty," and "leaving home without permission," such fear 
 ful offenses as "impudence," or "swearing," or "indecent 
 language in the presence of the employer, his family, or 
 agent," or "quarreling or fighting with one another." The 
 master or his agent might assail every ear with profaneness 
 aimed at the negro men, and outrage every sentiment of 
 def -y in the foul language addressed to the negro women ; 
 but if one of the helpless creatures, goaded to resistance and 
 cra/ed under tyranny, should answer back with impudence, 
 or should relieve his mind with an oath, or retort indecency 
 upon indecency, he did so at the cost to himself of one dol 
 lar for every outburst. The "agent" referred to in the 
 statute is the well-known overseer of the cotton region, and 
 the care with which the law-makers of Louisiana provided 
 that his delicate ears and sensitive nerves should not be 
 offended with an oath or an indecent word from a negro will 
 l)i- appreciated by all who have heard the crack of the whip 
 on the Southern plantation. 
 
 It is impossible to quote all the hideous provisions of these 
 statutes, under whose operation the negro would have re 
 lapsed gradually and surely into actual and admitted slavery. 
 Kindred legislation was attempted in a large majority of the 
 Confederate States, and it is not uncharitable or illogical to 
 assume that the ultimate re-enslavement of the race was the 
 fixed design of those who framed the laws, and of those who 
 attempted to enforce them. 
 
 I am not speculating as to what would have been done, or 
 might have been done, in the Southern States if the National 
 Government had not intervened. I have quoted what act-- 
 iially was done by Legislatures under the control of Southern 
 Democrats, and I am only recalling history when I say that 
 those outrages against human nature were upheld by the 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 229 
 
 Democratic party of the country. All the Democrats whose 
 articles I am reviewing were, in various degrees, active or 
 passive, principal or endorser, parties to this legislation ; 
 and the fixed determination of the Republican party to 
 thwart it and destroy it called down upon its head all the 
 anathemas of Democratic wrath. But it was just at that 
 point in our history when the Republican party was com 
 pelled to decide whether the emancipated slave should be 
 protected by national power or handed over to his late mas 
 ter, to be dealt within the spirit of the enactments I have 
 quoted. 
 
 To restore the union on a safe foundation, to re-establish 
 law and promote order, to insure justice and equal rights to 
 all, the Republican party was forced to its Reconstruction 
 policy. To hesitate in its adoption was to invite and con 
 firm the statutes of wrong and cruelty to which I have re 
 ferred. The first step taken was to submit the Fourteenth 
 Amendment, giving citizenship and civil rights to the negro, 
 and forbidding that he be counted in the basis of represen 
 tation unless he should be reckoned among the voters. The 
 Southern States could have been readily readmitted to all 
 their powers and privileges in the Union by accepting the 
 Fourteenth Amendment, and negro suffrage would not have 
 been forced upon them. The gradual and conservative 
 method of training the negroes for franchise, as suggested 
 and approved by Governor Hampton, had many advocates 
 among Republicans in the North ; and, though in my judg 
 ment it would have proved delusive and impracticable, it 
 was quite within the power of the South to secure its adop 
 tion or at least its trial. 
 
 But the States lately in insurrection rejected the Four 
 teenth Amendment with apparent scorn and defiance. In 
 the Legislatures of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida, it 
 did not receive a single vote ; in South Carolina only one 
 vote ; in Virginia only one ; in Texas five votes ; in Arkan 
 sas two votes ; in Alabama ten ; in North Carolina eleven ; 
 and in Georgia, where Mr. Stephens boasts that they gave 
 the negro suffrage in advance of the Fifteenth Amendment, 
 only two votes could be found in favor of making the negro 
 even a citizen. It would have been more candid in Mr. 
 Stephens if he had stated that it was the Legislature assem- 
 
230 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 bled under tin- Reconstruction Act that gave suffrage to the 
 negro in Georgia, and that the unreconstructed LenMaiiire, 
 
 which had his endorsement and sympathies, and which 
 elected him to the United States Senate, not only refused 
 suffrage to the negro, but loaded him with grievous disabili 
 ties, and passed a criminal code of barbarous severity for 
 his punishment. 
 
 It is necessary to a clear apprehension of the needful 
 facts in this discussion to remember events in the proper 
 order of time. The Fourteenth Amendment was submitted 
 to the States, June 13, 1866. In the autumn of that year, 
 or very early in 1867, the Legislatures of all the insurrec 
 tionary States except Tennessee, had rejected it. Thus and 
 then the question was forced upon us, whether the Congress 
 of the United States, composed wholly of men Wio had been 
 loyal to the Government, or the Legislatures cf the Rebel 
 States, composed wholly of men who had been di -loyal to the 
 Government, should determine the basis on whic i their rela 
 tions to the Union should be resumed. In such a crisis the 
 Republican party could not hesitate ; to halt, indeed, would 
 have been an abandonment of the principles on which the 
 war had been fought ; to surrender to the rebel Legislatures 
 would have been cowardly desertion of its loyal friends, and 
 a base betrayal of the Union cause. 
 
 And thus, in March, 1867, after and because of the re 
 jection of the Fourteenth Amendment by Southern Legis 
 latures, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act. This was 
 the origin of negro suffrage. The Southern whites know 
 ingly and willfully brought it upon themselves. The Recon 
 struction Act would never have been demanded had the 
 Southern States accepted the Fourteenth Amendment in good 
 faith. But that amendment contained so many provisions 
 demanded by considerations of great national policy, that 
 its adoption became an absolute necessity. Those who con 
 trolled the Federal Government would have been recreant 
 to their plainest duty, had they permitted the poAver of these 
 States to be wielded by disloyal hands against the measure* 
 deemed essential to the security of the I uion. To have de 
 stroyed the rebellion on the battle-field, and then permit it 
 to seize the power of eleven States and cry check on all 
 changes in the organic law necessary to prevent future re- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 231 
 
 bellions, would have been a weak and wicked conclusion to 
 the grandest contest ever waged for human rights and for 
 constitutional liberty. 
 
 Negro suffrage being thus made a necessity by the ob 
 duracy of those who were in control of the South, it be 
 came a subsequent necessity to adopt the Fifteenth Amend 
 ment. Nothing could have been more despicable than to 
 use the negroes to secure the adoption of the Fourteenth 
 Amendment, and then leave them exposed to the hazard of 
 losing suffrage whenever those who had attempted to re- 
 enslave them should regain political power in their States. 
 Hence the Fifteenth Amendment which never pretended to 
 guarantee universal suffrage, but simply forbade that any 
 man should Jose his vote because he had once been a slave, 
 or because his face might be black, or because his remote 
 ancestors came from Africa. 
 
 It is a matter of sincere congratulation that, after all the 
 contests of <ihe past thirteen years, four eminent leaders of 
 the Democratic party should unite in approving negro suf 
 frage. It will not, I trust, be considered cynical, certainly 
 not offensive, if I venture to suggest that this Democratic 
 harmony on the Republican side of a long contest has been 
 developed just at the time when many causes have con 
 spired to render negro suffrage in the South powerless 
 against the Democratic party. Even in districts where the 
 negro vote is four to one, compared with the whites, the 
 Democrats readily elect the Representatives to Congress. I 
 do not recall any warm approval of negro suffrage by a 
 Democratic leader so long as the negro was able to elect one 
 of his own race or a white Republican. But when his 
 numbers have been overborne by violence, when his white 
 friends have been driven into exile, when murder has been 
 just frequent enough to intimidate the voting majority, and 
 when negro suffrage as apolitical po\ver has been destroyed, 
 we find leading minds in the Democratic party applauding 
 and upholding it. So lately as February 19, 1872, years 
 after negro suffrage was adopted and while it was still a 
 power in the Southern States, such influential and promi 
 nent Democrats as Mr. Bayard of Delaware, and Mr. 
 Beck, of Kentucky, united in an official report to Con 
 gress, wherein they declared, regarding negro suffrage, 
 
232 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 that "there can be no permanent partition of power 
 nor any peaceable joint exercise of power among such 
 discordant bodies of men. One or the other must have 
 all or none. . . . Pseudo-philanthropists," continued Mr. 
 Bayard and Mr. Beck, "may talk never so loudly about 
 equality before the law," where equality is not found in the 
 jrroat natural law of race ordained by the Creator." Mr. 
 lurk and Mr. Bayard made this report when fresh from 
 protracted intercourse with Southern Democratic leaders, 
 and it will not be denied that in their expressions they fully 
 represented the opinions of their party at that time. Will 
 it be offensive, if I again ask, what has changed the views 
 of Democrats except the overthrow of free suffrage? So 
 long as the negro can furnish thirty-five Representatives and 
 thirty-five Electors to the South, his suffrage will be upheld 
 in name, and so long as the Democratic party is dominant 
 it will be destroyed in fact. 
 
 Mr. Hendricks is a conspicuous convert. The negro is 
 washed and made white in his eyes as soon as he votes the 
 Democratic ticket. He is greatly affected by the fact that 
 negroes "helped to bury a Democratic Congressman whom 
 they had helped to elect." In this simple incident Mr. 
 Hendricks finds great evidence of restored kindness between 
 the races. Was there ever a time when the colored people 
 refused to show respect to the whites, living or dead? The 
 evidence would have been stronger if an instance had been 
 quoted of white men paying respect to a deceased negro. 
 But, unhappily, if funeral incidents are to be cited, Mr. 
 Hendricks will find more than he cares to quote. Almost 
 at the moment of his writing testimony was given before a 
 Senate Committee in Louisiana not only of the murder of 
 two negroes for the sin of being Republicans, but of their 
 being left without sepulture, and actually devoured by hogs 
 on the highway ! Their remains the phrase is doubly sig 
 nificant in this case were finally covered with earth by some 
 negro women, the negro men having all fled from their 
 white persecutors. 
 
 Mr. Hendrick s high praise of the governments of South 
 Carolina and Louisiana, since they fell under Democratic 
 control, is not justified by the facts. Where he speaks of 
 Republicans connected with the government of South Caro- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 233 
 
 lina "meeting their punishment in prison and seeking their 
 safety in flight," he provokes an easy retort. One of these 
 men, an ex-Congressman, was sent to prison on disgrace 
 fully insufficient evidence, the Judge delivering a bitter 
 partizan harangue when he charged the jury to convict. 
 Governor Hampton, to his credit be it said, pardoned him, 
 and it would have been still more to his credit had he 
 pardoned him more promptly. In another case the Execu 
 tive of a great Commonwealth refused Governor Hampton s 
 requisition, on the ground that the man was not w r anted for 
 the cause and crime alleged. These criminal charges have 
 in many cases borne the appearance of mere political perse 
 cutions, in which the victims are not the persons most 
 dishonored. 
 
 On the other hand, when South Carolinians by the hun 
 dred were indicted for interfering with the freedom of 
 elections, in killing negroes by the score, it was found impos 
 sible to convict one of them. Against the clearest and most 
 overwhelming evidence, these murderers were allowed to go 
 free, and the prosecutions were abandoned. South Caro 
 lina courts appear to be "organized to convict" when a 
 Republican is on trial, and South Carolina juries impaneled 
 to acquit when Democrats are charged with crime. 
 
 In the opinion of Mr. Hendricks, Louisiana under 
 Republican control, was the very worst of all Southern gov 
 ernments. A change was made in April, 1877, and since 
 then the Democratic party has held undisputed power in that 
 State. When the Republicans surrendered the State, there 
 was a surplus of $300,000 in its treasury ; taxes were col 
 lected, credit maintained, and interest on its public securi 
 ties promptly and faithfully paid. To-day, after twenty-one 
 months of Democratic government, according to public and 
 undenied report, the State is bankrupt ; its taxes uncollected ; 
 its treasury empty ; nearly half a million overdrawn on its 
 fiscal agent ; the interest on its public debt unpaid, and its 
 most sacred obligations protested and dishonored. Had 
 such decadence happened in a State under Republican rule 
 succeeding a prosperous Democratic administration the 
 denunciations of Mr. Hendricks might have been fittingly 
 applied. 
 
 My conclusions on the topic under discussion are : 
 
234 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 First. Slavery having been constitutionally abolished by 
 the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, the question of 
 suffrage was unsettled. But it may be safely affirmed that 
 the Republicans had no original design of interfering with 
 the control which the States had always exercised on that 
 question. 
 
 Second. The loyal men who had conducted the war to a 
 victorious end were not willing that those who had rebelled 
 against the Union should come back with political power vast 
 ly increased beyond that which they had wielded in the days 
 of pro-slavery domination ; and hence they proposed the 
 Fourteenth Amendment, practically basing representation 
 in Congress upon the voting population the same for 
 North and South. 
 
 Third. Instead of accepting the Fourteenth Amend 
 ment, the insurrectionary States scornfully rejected it, and 
 claimed the right to settle for themselves the terms on which 
 they would resume relations with the Union. And they 
 forthwith proceeded to nullify the Thirteenth Amendment 
 by adopting a series of black laws which remanded the 
 negro to a worse servitude than that from which he had 
 been emancipated. 
 
 Fourth. When the Government, administered by loyal 
 hands, found it impossible to secure the necessary guaran 
 tees for future safety from the "ruling" or rebel class of 
 the South, they demanded and enforced a Reconstruction in 
 which loyalty should assert its rights. Hence the negro 
 was admitted to suffrage. 
 
 Fifth. The negro having aided by loyal votes in secur 
 ing the great guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment, the 
 Republicans declared that he should not afterward be 
 deprived of suffrage on account of race or color. Hence 
 the Fifteenth Amendment. 
 
 Sixth. So long as the negro vote was effective in the South 
 in defeating the Democracy, the leaders of that party de 
 nounced and opposed it. They withdraw their opposition 
 just at the moment when, by fraud, intimidation, violence 
 and murder, free suffrage on the part of the negro in the 
 South is fatally impaired ; by which I mean that the nt-gro 
 is not allowed to vote freely where his vote can defeat and 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 235 
 
 elect. As a minority voter in Democratic districts, he is 
 not disturbed. 
 
 Seventh. The answer so often made, that, compared 
 with the whole number of Congressional districts in the 
 South, only a small number are disturubed, is not apposite, 
 and does not convey the truth. For it is only in the dis 
 tricts where the negroes make a strong and united effort 
 that violence is needed, and there it is generally found. 
 Thus it is said that only in a comparatively few parishes of 
 Louisiana was there any disturbance at the late election. 
 But the Democrats contrived to have a disturbance at the 
 points where it was necessary to overcome a large Repub 
 lican vote, and of course had none where there was no 
 resistance. It will generally be found that the violence 
 occurs in the districts where the Republicans have a rightful 
 majority. 
 
 Eighth. As the matter stands, all violence in the South 
 inures to the benefit of one political party. And that party 
 is counting upon its accession to power and its rule over the 
 country for a series of years by reason of the great number 
 of electoral votes which it wrongfully gains. Financial 
 credit, commercial enterprises, manufacturing industries, 
 may all possibly pass under the control of the Democratic 
 party by reason of its unlawful seizure of political power in the 
 South. Our institutions have been tried by the fiery test of 
 war, and have survived. It remains to be seen whether 
 the attempt to govern the country by the power of a "Solid 
 South," unlawfully consolidated, can be successful. 
 
 No thoughtful man can consider these questions without 
 deep concern. The mighty power of a republic of fifty mil 
 lions of people with a continent for their possession can 
 only be wielded permanently by being wielded honestly. 
 In a fair and generous struggle for partisan power let us not 
 forget those issues and those ends which are above party. 
 Organized wrong will ultimately be met by organized re 
 sistance. The sensitive and dangerous point is in the cast 
 ing and the counting of free ballots. Impartial suffrage is 
 our theory. It must become our practice. Any party of 
 American citizens can bear to be defeated. No party of 
 American citizens will bear to be defrauded. The men who 
 
236 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 arc interested in a dishonest count are units. The mm 
 who arc interested in an honest eount are millions. I wish to 
 >]>ruk tor the millions of all political parties, and in their 
 name to declare that the Republic must be strong enough, 
 and shall be strong enough, to protect the weakest of its 
 citizens in all fheir rights. To this simple and sublime 
 principle let us, in the lofty language of Burke, ki attest the 
 retiring generations, let us attest the advancing generations, 
 between which, as a link in the great chain of eternal order, 
 we stand !" 
 
 JAMES G. BLAIXE. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 237 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Elaine Again in his Seat. His Acknowledged Leadership. 
 Elaine s Speecli on Irredeemable Currency. His Celebrated 
 Debate with Hill of Georgia. Elaine and Garfield. Elaine s 
 Speech on Jeff Davis. Democratic Hatred. Eitter Personal 
 Attacks. Schemes to Prevent his Nomination at Cincinnati. 
 Accused of Speculating in Railroad Eonds. The Pacific and 
 the Arkansas and Little Rock Railroad. Elaine s defeat of 
 his Accusers. 
 
 In the political campaign of 1874 the elections through 
 out the country resulted in placing a majority of Democrats 
 in the House of Representatives, and Elaine again took his 
 seat among the members. This change was not so great a 
 loss as it at first appeared. Such a leader and such a work 
 er was greatly needed on the floor of the House, for the 
 general interests of national legislation. It was great good 
 fortune to his party that when the Democrats had so large a 
 working majority and so many unusually talented men, they 
 had such a skilled debater and such a bright parliamenta 
 rian to warn, encourage and protect them, as well as one 
 who could hinder and defeat their opponents. 
 
 It was also of great advantage to the Republicans that 
 they had a man who was universally acknowledged to be 
 the leader and one in whom all had been taught to have 
 implicit trust. 
 
 Every word he spoke, every motion he made, and every 
 speech he delivered, were made the common subject of edi 
 torial comment and social discussion in every town and city 
 in the nation. 
 
238 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 His labor was incessant. He had not a moment for rec 
 reation. If he tried to escape for an hour from the load he 
 carried, men or dispatches forced themselves in some way 
 upon his privacy. Louder and clearer came the demand 
 from all classes and from all parts of the country, that he 
 should be a candidate for the Presidency. 
 
 But there were competitors and there were enemies. The 
 greater the man the more certain he is to have both. 
 Blaine had them, but he worked on leaving all questions of 
 ambition to the decision of others. He would not "trim" 
 or compromise with any one or any measure, for personal 
 gain. He was great enough and wise enough to see that 
 the Nation s ultimate good should be a statesman s only 
 aim. 
 
 In 1876 the agitation of questions concerning the cur 
 rency became very serious and alarming. Financial dis 
 tress throughout the Nation was laid at the door of legisla 
 tion, rather than at the threshold of universal individual 
 speculation and extravagance. Wild schemes of finance, 
 equal in absurdity to the air castles of French financier 
 ing during the inflation of Law, captured the frightened 
 masses. Even statesmen having many years of experience, 
 w-iv found to advocate the most foolish schemes concern- 
 inir paper money and banking business. Some in Congress 
 urgfd the nation to sell all its gold, issue "paper promises 
 never to pay" and compel the people to receive it for mer 
 chandise and labor. 
 
 How true to unchanging principle and how wise Blaine 
 showed himself to be, can be seen by reading the following 
 -jM fch in the light of subsequent experience and deliberate 
 judgment. It was delivered in the House, Feb. 10th, 1876 : 
 
 Mr. Chairman : The honor of the National Government 
 and the prosperity of the American people are alike menaced 
 by those who demand the perpetuation of an irredeemable 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 239 
 
 paper currency. For more than two years the country lias 
 been suffering from prostration in business ; confidence re 
 turns but slowly ; trade revives only partially ; and to-day, 
 with capital unproductive and labor unemployed, we find 
 ourselves in the midst of an agitation respecting the medium 
 with which business transactions shall be carried on. Until 
 this question is definitely adjusted it is idle to expect that 
 full measure of prosperity to which the energies of our peo 
 ple and the resources of the land entitle us. In the way of 
 that adjustment one great section of the Democratic party 
 possibly its controlling power stubbornly stands to-day. 
 The Republicans, always true to the primal duty of sup 
 porting the Nation s credit, have now cast behind them all 
 minor differences and dissensions on the financial question, 
 and have gradually consolidated their strength against infla 
 tion. The currency, therefore, becomes of necessity, a 
 prominent political issue, and those Democrats who are in 
 favor of honest dealing by the Government, and honest 
 money for the people, may be compelled to act as they did 
 in that still graver exigency when the existence of the Gov 
 ernment itself was at stake. 
 
 While this question should be approached in no spirit of 
 partisan bitterness, it has yet become so entangled with 
 party relations that no intelligent discussion of it can be had 
 without giving its political history, and if that history bears 
 severely on the Democratic party, its defenders must answer 
 the facts, and not quarrel with their presentation. Firmly 
 attached to one political party myself, firmly believing that 
 parties in a free government are as healthful as they are in 
 evitable, I still think there are questions about which parties 
 should agree never to disagree ; and of these is the essential 
 nature and value of the circulating medium. And it is a 
 fact of especial weight and significance that up to the paper- 
 money era, which was precipitated upon us during the 
 rebellion as one of war s inexorable necessities, there never 
 was a political party in this country that believed in any 
 other than the specie standard for our currency. If there 
 was any one principle that was rooted and grounded in the 
 minds of our earlier statesmen, it was the evil of paper- 
 money ; and no candid man of any party can read the Con 
 stitution of the United States and not be convinced that its 
 
240 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 framers intended to protect and defend our people from the 
 manifold perils of an irredeemable currency. Nathaniel 
 Maron, one of the purest and best of American statesmen, 
 himself a soldier of the Ke volution and a member of 
 Congress continuously during the administration of our 
 first six Presidents, embracing in all a period of nearly forty 
 years, expressed the whole truth when he declared in the 
 Senate that "this was a hard-money Government, founded 
 by hard-money men, who had themselves seen and felt the 
 evil of paper money and meant to save their posterity 
 from it." 
 
 To this uniform adherence to the specie standard the 
 crisis of the rebellion forced an exception. In January, 
 1862, with more than a half million of men in arms, 
 with a daily expenditure of nearly two millions of dollars, 
 the Government suddenly found itself without money. Cus 
 toms yielded but little, internal taxes had not yet been 
 levied, public credit was feeble, if not paralyzed, our arm 
 ies had met with one signal reverse and nowhere with 
 marked success, and men s minds were filled with gloom 
 and apprehension. The one supreme need of the hour was 
 money, and money the Government did not have. "What. 
 then, should be done rather, what could be done? The 
 ordinary Treasury note had been tried and failed, and those 
 already issued were discredited and below the value of the 
 bills of country banks. The Government, in this great and 
 perilous need, promptly called to its aid a power never be 
 fore exercised. It authorized the issue of one hundred and 
 fifty millions of notes, and declared them to be a legal 
 tender for all debts, public and private, with two ex 
 ceptions. 
 
 The ablest lawyers who sustained this measure did not 
 find warrant for it in the text of the Constitution, but, like 
 the late Senator Fessenden, of my own State, placed it on 
 the ground of "absolute, overwhelming necessity;" and 
 that illustrious Senator declared that, "the necessity exist 
 ing, he had no hesitation." Indeed, Sir, to hesitate was to 
 be lost, for the danger was that, if Congress prolonged the 
 debate on points of constitutional construction, its delibera 
 tion might be interrupted by the sound of rebel artillery on 
 the opposite shore of the Potomac. The Republican Sena- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 241 
 
 tors and Representatives, therefore, dismissing all doubts and 
 casuistry, stood together for the country, and if taunted, as 
 they were, by the Democracy and disloyalty of that day, 
 with violating the Constitution, they pointed to that law 
 which is older than constitutions. Adopting the sentiment, 
 as they might have quoted the imputed language of John 
 Milton, they believed that "there is the law of self-preser 
 vation, written by God himself, on our hearts ; there is the 
 primal compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, 
 nor sealed with wax, nor put down on parchment, nor set 
 forth in any express form of word by men when of old they 
 came together, but implied in the very act that they so came 
 together, presupposed in all subsequent law, not to be re 
 pealed by any authority, not invalidated by being omitted in 
 any code, inasmuch as from thence are all codes and all 
 authority." 
 
 But the promptings of patriotism, the pressure of neces 
 sity, the "despotism of duty," which thus decided the course 
 of the Republicans, failed to influence the Democrats in Con 
 gress. Marshaled and led by Mr. Pendleton, since become 
 the great advocate of inflation, the Democratic Representa 
 tives voted in well-nigh solid column against the legal ten 
 der bill. Bankruptcy in the Treasury was impending ; 
 eighty millions of unpaid requisitions lay on the Secretary s 
 desk ; a large part of the army had not received a dollar for 
 six months ; supplies were failing ; recruiting halted ; the 
 spirits of the people drooped ; while the Executive Depart 
 ment, charged with tae conduct of the war, urged that crit 
 ical campaigns, then in progress, would necessarily end in 
 disaster unless relief could be afforded in this way. But 
 Democratic consciences were too tender, and Democratic 
 scruples too intense, at that time, to permit such a fearful 
 infraction of the Constitution as the passage of a legal-ten 
 der bill, even to save the Union of our fathers, and thus 
 preserve the Constitution itself. 
 
 The necessities of the Government were so great, and ex 
 penditures so enormous, that another hundred and fifty mil 
 lions of legal-tender notes were speedily called for, and 
 granted by Congress, the Democrats again voting, under 
 Mr. Pendleton s lead, against the measure. With varying 
 fortunes, the last year of the war was reached, with three 
 
242 TIIK I.IFK AND IMT.LIC SERVK I> 
 
 hundred millions of legal-tender in circulation. With the 
 strain of our public credit, and the doubts and vicissitudes 
 of the struggle, these notes had fallen far below par in gold, 
 and it became apparent, to every clear-headed observer, that 
 the continued issue of legal tenders, with no provision for 
 their redemption, and no limit to their amount, would utter 
 ly destroy the credit of the Government, and involve the 
 Union cause in irretrievable disaster. But, at that moment, 
 the military situation, with its perils and its prospects, was 
 such that the Government must have money more rapidly 
 than the sale of bonds could furnish it, and the danger was 
 that the sale of bonds would be stopped altogether, unless 
 some definite limit could be assigned to the issue of legal- 
 tender notes. Accordingly, Congress sought, and successfully 
 sought, to accomplish both ends at the same time, and they 
 pas.-cd a bill granting one hundred millions additional legal- 
 tender circulation making four hundred millions in all 
 and then incorporated in the same law the solemn assurance- 
 anil pledge that "the total amount of United States notes, 
 issued and to be issued, shall never exceed four hundred 
 millions of dollars." And to this pledge every Democratic 
 Senator and Representative assented, either actively or si 
 lently, as the Journals of both Houses will show. The 
 subsequent readiness of many of these gentlemen to tram 
 ple on it must be upon the broad principle of ethics that the 
 Government should keep those pledges which are profitable, 
 and disregard those which it will pay to violate. 
 
 When the war was over, and the Union saved, one of the 
 first duties of the Government was to improve its credit and 
 restore a sound currency to the people ; and here we might 
 have reasonably expected the aid of the Democratic party. 
 I ut we did not receive it. Irreconcilably hostile to the issue 
 of legal tenders when that form of credit was needed for 
 the salvation of the country, the Democracy, as soon as the 
 country was saved, conceived a violent love for these note-. 
 and demanded an almost illimitable issue of them. Mr. 
 Seymour, as the Democratic candidate for President in 18G8, 
 . ing the four hundred million pledge, stood on a plat 
 form demanding that sixteen hundred millions of Five-twen 
 ties In- paid oil in legal-tenders; and he so heartily apprmed 
 this policy, that in his letter of acceptance he declared that 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 243 
 
 "he should strive to carry it out in the future, wherever he 
 might be placed in political or private life." His position at 
 that time was approved by every Democrat, of high or low 
 degree in New York, was unanimously reaffirmed in their 
 State Convention, was sustained by all their newspaper or 
 gans, and was the recognized creed of the party, East as 
 well as AYest. Mr. Seymour and his political associates in 
 New York have changed their ground, and now proclaim 
 an honest financial creed ; and after the manner of the Phar 
 isee, they broaden their phylacteries, make loud professions 
 of superior zeal, and thank God reverently that they are not 
 as their sinful brethren of the Ohio Democracy those 
 financial Sadducees, who continue to reject all idea of resur 
 rection or redemption for the legal tender. 
 
 I have thus briefly referred to the past, Mr. Chairman, 
 only because I think it has an important bearing on the pres 
 ent and the future. I do not assume that the Republican 
 party can possibly discharge its pending responsibilities by 
 merely pointing to its former grand achievements. "Let 
 not virtue seek remuneration for the thing it was." But I 
 do claim that on this financial question the course of the 
 Republican party in the past is a guarantee for the future, 
 and that equally the course of the Democratic party, of both 
 wings and all shades, is a menace and a warning to the 
 people. 
 
 If, however, the New York school of Democrats, repent 
 ing of their former course and seeking better ways for the 
 future, are ready to give honest help in the restoration of a 
 sound currency, they will be gladly welcomed and their faith 
 will be tested by works before this session of Congress closes. 
 They will not, however, deem it strange or harsh if, remem 
 bering their past record, we feel an uncomfortable sense of 
 distrust as to their entire sincerity in the future. This dis 
 trust is increased when we witness the brazen boldness with 
 which, in full view of their repudiation record of but yester 
 day, they assume a stilted tone of superior honesty on the 
 financial question, and affect patronizing language toward the 
 Republicans who saved the nation from the lasting blight of 
 Mr. Seymour s triumph in 1868. Still further deepened 
 and strengthened is the distrust when we remember the 
 formal alliance which the New York Democrats have re- 
 
244 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 newed with the Democrats of the South, to whom our whole 
 financial system is but a reminder of what they themselves 
 term their subjugation, and who from past action and pres 
 ent tendency are unfitted to be the safe repository of the 
 nation s pledges for the payment of its war debt. We have 
 passed into a new era, and to recall the Southern Democra 
 cy, with their appalling record, to their ancient control in 
 this country would be as decisive a step backward and ni<rht- 
 ward as it would have been for the English people to sur 
 round William of Orange with a Parliament made up of 
 adherents to the lost house of Stuart, or as it would be to 
 day for the French Assembly to thrust on McMahon a cabi 
 net devoted to the fortunes of Henry the Fifth. 
 
 As I said at the outset of my remarks, Mr. Chairman, 
 the country is suffering under one of those periodical revul 
 sions in trade common to all commercial nations, and which 
 thus far no wisdom of legislation has been able to avert. 
 The natural restlessness of a people so alive and alert as 
 ours, looks for an instant remedy, and the danger in such a 
 condition of the public mind is that something may be adopt 
 ed that will ultimately deepen the disease rather than lay the 
 groundwork for an effectual cure. Naturally enough, in 
 such a time the theories for relief are numerous, and we 
 have marvelous recipes offered whereby the people shall be 
 enabled to pay the dollar they owe with less than a hundred 
 cents; while those who are caught with such a delusion 
 seemingly forget that, even if this be so, they must like 
 wise receive less than a hundred cents for the dollar that is 
 due them. Whether the dollar that they owe to-day or the 
 dollar that is due them to-morrow will have the greater or 
 less number of cents, depends on the shifting of causes 
 which they can neither control nor foresee ; and, therefore, 
 all certain calculation in trade is set at defiance, and those 
 branches of business which take on the form of gambling 
 are by a financial paradox the most secure and most promi>- 
 ing. 
 
 Uncertainty as to the value of the currency from day to 
 day is injurious to all honest industry. And while that 
 which is known as the debtor interest should be fairly and 
 generously considered in the shaping of measures for specie 
 resumption, there is no justice in asking for inflation on its 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 245 
 
 behalf. Rather, there is the gravest injustice ; for you must 
 remember that there is a large class of most deserving per 
 sons who would be continually and remorselessly robbed by 
 such a policy. I mean the labor of the country, that is com 
 pelled to live from and by its daily earnings. The savings- 
 banks, which represent the surplus owned by the laborers of 
 the nation, have deposits to-day exceeding eleven hundred 
 millions of dollars more than the entire capital stock and 
 deposits of the national banks. The pensioners, who rep 
 resent the patriotic suffering of the country, have a capital 
 ized investment of six hundred millions of dollars. 
 
 Here are seventeen hundred millions of money incapable 
 of receiving anything but instant and lasting injury from in 
 flation. Whatever impairs the purchasing power of the dol 
 lar, correspondingly decreases the resources of the savings- 
 bank depositor and pensioner. The pensioner s loss would 
 be absolute, but it would probably be argued that the laborer 
 would receive compensation by his nominally larger earn 
 ings. But this would prove totally delusive, for no possible 
 augmentation of wages in a time of inflation will ever keep 
 pace with the still greater increase of price in the commodi 
 ties necessary to sustain life, except and mark the excep 
 tion under the condition witnessed during the war, when 
 the number of laborers was continually reduced by the de 
 mand for men to serve in the army and navy. And those 
 honest-minded people who recall the startling activity of 
 trade and the large profits during the war, and attribute both 
 to an inflated currency, commit the error of leaving out the 
 most important element of the calculation. They forget 
 that the Government was a customer for nearly four years 
 at the rate of two or three millions of dollars per day buy 
 ing countless quantities of all staple articles ; they forget 
 that the number of consumers was continually enlarging as 
 our armed force grew to its gigantic proportions, and that 
 the number of producers was by the same cause continually 
 growing less, and that thus was presented, on a scale of un 
 precedented magnitude, that simple problem, familiar alike 
 to the political economist and the village trader, of the de 
 mand being greater than the supply, and a consequent rise 
 in the price. 
 
 Had the Government b^en able to conduct the war on a 
 
246 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 gold basis, and provided the coin for its necessarily large 
 and lavish expenditure, a rise in the price of labor and a 
 rise in the value of commodities would have been inevitable. 
 And the rise of both labor and commodities in gold would 
 have been for the time as marked as in paper, adding, of 
 course, the depreciation of the latter to its scale of prices. 
 
 While the delusion of creating wealth by the issue of ir 
 redeemable paper currency may lead to any number of ab 
 surd propositions, the advocates of the heresy seem to have 
 settled down on two measures or, rather, one measure com 
 posed of two parts namely : To abolish the national banks, 
 and then have the Government issue legal-tenders at once 
 to the amount of the bank circulation, and add to the vol 
 ume from time to time thereafter "according to the wants 
 of trade." The two propositions are so inseparably con 
 nected that I shall discuss them together. 
 
 The national-bank system, Mr. Chairman, was one of the 
 results of the war, and the credit of its origin belongs to the 
 late Salmon P. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury. And 
 it may not be unprofitable just here to recall to the House 
 the circumstances which at the time made the national banks 
 a necessity to the Government. At the outbreak of the war 
 there were considerably over a thousand State banks of 
 various degrees of responsibility, or irresponsibility, scat 
 tered throughout the country. Their charters demanded 
 the redemption of their bills in specie, and under the pres 
 sure of this requirement their aggregate circulation was kept 
 within decent limits, but the amount of it was in most in 
 stances left to the discretion of the directors, and not a few 
 of these banks issued ten dollars of bills for one of specie 
 in their vaults. With the passage of the legal-tender act, 
 however, followed by an enormous issue of Government 
 notes, the State banks would no longer be required to re 
 deem in specie, and would therefore at once flood the coun 
 try with their own bills and take from the Government its 
 resource in that direction. To restrict and limit their cir 
 culation, and to make the banks as helpful as possible in the 
 great work of sustaining the Government finances, the na 
 tional-bank act was passed. 
 
 This act required, in elfect, that every bank should loan 
 its entire stock to the Government ; or, in other words, to 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 247 
 
 invest it in Government bonds ; and then, on depositing 
 these bonds with the Treasurer of the United States, the 
 bank might receive not exceeding ninety per cent, of their 
 amount in circulating notes, the Government holding the 
 bonds for the protection of the bill-holder in case the bank 
 should fail. And that, in brief, is precisely what a nation 
 al bank is to-day. I do not say the system is perfect. I 
 do not feel called upon to rush to its advocacy or its defense. 
 I do not doubt that as we go forward we may find many 
 points in which the system can be improved. But this I 
 am bold to maintain, that, contrasted with any other system 
 of banking this country has ever had, it is immeasurably 
 superior ; and whoever asks, as some Democrats now do, 
 for its abolition, with a view of getting back any system of 
 State banks, is a blind leader ; and a very deep ditch of dis 
 order and disaster awaits the followers, if the people should 
 ever be so blinded as to take that fatal step. 
 
 It is greatly to be deplored, Mr. Chairman, that many 
 candid men have conceived the notion that it would be a 
 saving to the people if all banks could be dispensed with 
 and the circulating medium be furnished by the Govern 
 ment issuing legal- tenders. I do not stop here to argue 
 that this would be in violation of the Government s pledge 
 not to issue more than four hundred millions of its own 
 notes. I merely remark that that pledge is binding in hon 
 or until legal-tenders are redeemable in coin on presenta 
 tion, and when that point is reached there will be no desire, 
 as there will certainly be no necessity, for the Government 
 issuing additional notes. 
 
 The great and, to my mind, unanswerable objection to 
 this scheme is that it places the currency wholly in the pow 
 er and under the direction of Congress. Now, Congress 
 always has been and always will be governed by the parti- 
 zan majority, representing one of the political parties of the 
 country ; and the proposition therefore reduces itself to this 
 that the circulating medium, instead of having a fixed, 
 determinate character, shall be shifted, and changed, and 
 manipulated according to the supposed needs of "the party. * 
 I profess, Mr. Chairman, to have some knowledge of the 
 American Congress; its general character, its personnel, its 
 scope, its limit, its power. I think, on the whole, that it is 
 
248 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 a far more patriotic, intelligent, and upright body of men 
 than it jreuerally gets credit for in the country ; but at the 
 samr time, I can possibly conceive of no assemblage of re- 
 sjieetable gentlemen in the United States more utterly un 
 fitted to determine from time to time the amount o circula 
 tion required by "the wants of trade." But, indeed, no body 
 of men could be intrusted with that power. Even it it wi-iv 
 possible to trust their discretion, their integrity would be 
 constantly under suspicion. If they performed their duties 
 with the purity of an angel of light, they could not success 
 fully repel those charges which always follow where the 
 temptation to do wrong is powerful and the way easy. Ex 
 perience would very soon demonstrate that no more corrupt 
 or corrupting device, no wilder or more visionary project, 
 ever entered the brain of the schemer or the empiric. 
 
 If the people of the United States were fully awake and 
 aroused to their interests, and could see things as they are, 
 instead of increasing the power of Congress over the cur 
 rency, they would by the shortest practicable process divorce 
 the two, completely and forever. And this can only be done 
 finally, effectually, irreversibly, by the resumption of specie 
 payment. Why, Mr. Chairman, it is hardly an exaggera 
 tion to say that, ever since the Government was compelled 
 to resort to irredeemable currency during the war, the as 
 sembling of Congress and its continuance in session have 
 been the most disturbing elements in the business of the 
 country. It is literally true that no man can tell what a 
 <lay may bring forth. One large interest looks hopefully to 
 contraction and the lowering of the gold premium ; another 
 is ruined unless there is such a movement toward expansion 
 as will send gold up. Each side, of course, endeavors to 
 influence and convince Congress. Both sides naturally have 
 their sympathizing advocates on this floor, and hence the 
 substantial business interests of the country are kept in 
 a feverish, doubtful, speculative state. Men s minds are 
 turned from honest industry to schemes of financial gam 
 bling, the public morals suffer, old-fashioned integrity is for 
 gotten, and solid, enduring prosperity, with honest gains 
 and quiet contentment, is rendered impossible. We ha\e 
 suffered thus far in perhaps as light a degree as could be ex 
 pert ed under the circumstances ; but once adopt the insane 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 249 
 
 idea that all currency shall be issued directly by the Gov 
 ernment, and that Congress shall be the judge of the amount 
 demanded by the "wants of trade," and you have this coun 
 try adrift, rudderless, on a sea of troubles, shoreless and 
 soundless. 
 
 It is a singular coincidence, Mr. Chairman one of those 
 odd happenings some times brought about by political muta 
 tions that those who urge this scheme upon the Govern 
 ment are Democrats, every one of whom would doubtless 
 claim to be a true disciple of Andrew Jackson. And yet 
 all the evils of which Jackson warned the country in his 
 famous controversy with the United States Bank, are a 
 thousand-fold magnified and a thousand-fold aggravated in 
 this plan of making the Treasury Department itself the bank, 
 with Congress for the governing board of directors. I com 
 mend to gentlemen of Democratic antecedents a careful pe 
 rusal of Jackson s great message of July 10, 1832, and I 
 wish them to frankly tell this House how they think Jack 
 son would have regarded the establishment of a great na 
 tional paper money machine, to be located for all time in 
 the Treasury Department, the bills of which shall have no 
 provision for their redemption, and the amount of those bills 
 to be determined by a majority vote in a party caucus. 
 
 And then, after Jackson s veto message shall have been 
 diligently perused and inwardly digested by the Democratic 
 advocates of irredeemable paper money, I will ask them if 
 the present national-bank system dpes not fully meet all of 
 Jackson s objections, and if it is not, indeed, as nearly as 
 the difference of time and circumstances will permit, such a 
 system of banking as Jackson indirectly commended and as 
 he professed himself ready to submit a plan for if Congress 
 should desire it? Disclaiming, as I have done, any special 
 championship of the national banks, but merely referring to 
 facts of record, I would be glad further to ask if the present 
 system, in its entire freedom from monopoly, being equally 
 open to all ; if in the absolute protection it affords to that 
 innocent third party, the billholder (no man ever having 
 lost a dollar by the bills of national banks during the thir 
 teen years the system has been in operation, whereas in the 
 preceding thirteen years the losses to the people by bills of 
 State banks exceeded fifty millions of dollars) ; if in that uni- 
 
250 THE LIFE AN1> ITP.UO SERVICES 
 
 versal credit attached to its bills, saving the people all losses 
 from exchange or discount wherever payment is to be made 
 within the United States; if in its protection of the rights of 
 depositors ; if in its strength and solvency in time of finan 
 cial disaster ; if in its subjection to taxation, both by the 
 General and State Governments, until it confessedly pays a 
 heavier tax than any other species of property ; if in its 
 capacity to measure by the unvarying law of supply and 
 demand, the precise amount of circulation required by the 
 wants of trade," I would be glad, I repeat, to ask any 
 Democratic opponent of the system if it does not in each and 
 all these features fill the ideal requirements of a bank as 
 foreshadowed by Jackson, and if it does not indeed far 
 transcend any ideal Jackson had, in its freedom for all to 
 engage in it, in its resolute security to the public, and in its 
 singular adaption to act as a regulator of the currency, pre 
 venting undue expansion and undue contraction with equal 
 and unfailing certainty, and adjusting itself at once to the 
 specie standard wherever the Government shall place its own 
 notes at par with coin? 
 
 It is urged by the opponents of the banking system that 
 the three hundred and twenty millions of bank circulation 
 can be supplied by legal-tenders and the interest on that 
 amount of bonds stopped ! How? Does any gentleman 
 suppose that the bonds owned by the banks, and on deposit 
 in the Treasury, will be exchanged for legal-tenders of a 
 new and inflated issue? Those bonds, are payable, princi 
 pal and interest, in gold ; and, with the present amount of 
 legal-tender notes, they are worth in the market from $1.16 
 to $1.25. What will they be worth in paper money when 
 you double the amount of legal-tenders and postpone the day 
 of specie resumption far beyond the vision of prophet or 
 seer? And this enormous issue of legal-tenders to take the 
 place of bank-notes is only the beginning of the policy to be 
 inaugurated. The wants of trade" would speedily 
 demand another issue, for the essential nature of an irre 
 deemable currency is that it has no limit till a reaction is 
 born of crushing disaster. A lesson might be learned (by 
 those willing to be taught by fact and experience) from the 
 course of events and during the war. When we had one 
 hundred and fifty millions of legal-tender in circulation, it 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 251 
 
 stood for a long time nearly at par with gold. As the issue 
 increased in amount the depreciation was very rapid, and 
 at the time we fixed the four-hundred-million limit, that 
 whole vast sum had less purchasing power in exchange for 
 lands, or houses, or merchandise than the hundred and fifty 
 millions had two years before. In the spring of 1862, 
 $150,000,000 of legal-tender would buy in the market 
 $147,000,000 in gold coin. In June, 1864, $400,000,000 
 of legal-tender would buy only $140,000,000 in gold 
 coin. 
 
 And if we had not fixed the four-million limit, but had 
 gone on issuing additional amounts according to the "wants 
 of trade," as now argued and urged by the modern Demo 
 cratic financiers, the result would have been that at each suc 
 cessive inflation the purchasing power of the aggregate mass 
 would have been made less, and the value of the whole would 
 have gone down, down, till it reached that point of utter 
 worthlessness which so many like experiments have reached 
 before ; and the legal-tender, with all its vast capacity 
 for good in a great national crisis, would have taken its 
 place in history alongside of the French assignat and the 
 Continental currency. The four-hundred-million limit hap 
 pily saved us that direful experience, and at once caused 
 the legal-tender to appreciate ; but, unwilling to -learn by 
 this striking fact, the inflationists insist upon a scheme of 
 expansion which would speedily raise the price of bonds to 
 unprecedented figures, and by the time they should succeed in 
 purchasing those that now stand as security for national 
 bank circulation they would have increased the national 
 debt by countless millions, and instead of making a saving 
 for the Treasury they would end by depriving it of the 
 eight millions of tax annually paid by the banks, and the 
 people would have lost the additional eight millions of local 
 tax derived from the same source. 
 
 I have not spoken of the confusion, the distress, the ruin 
 that would result from forcing twenty-one hundred banks 
 suddenly to wind up their affairs with nearly a thousand 
 millions of dollars due them, which in some form must needs 
 be liquidated and paid. The commercial fabric of the 
 country rests upon the bank credits, and nothing short of 
 financial lunacy could demand their rude disturbance. \Vho- 
 
252 THE LIFE AND riT.LIC SERVICES 
 
 ever would strike down the banks, under the delusion that 
 thev can be driven to surrender their bonds for inflated 
 legal-tenders, knows little of the laws of finance and still 
 less of the laws of human action. 
 
 Among the anomalies presented in the currency discus 
 sion, Mr. Chairman, is that the West and South should have 
 so large an (.-lenient clamorous for inflation. Of all sec 
 tions interested in the specie standard the West and the. 
 South stand first. The great staples produced in those vast 
 and fertile regions, wheat, corn, flour, beef, pork, hides, 
 tobacco, hemp, cotton, rice and sugar, are inevitably and 
 peremptorily subjected to the gold standard when sold. 
 The price of cotton sent to Lowell is just as much deter 
 mined by the gold standard as that which is exported to Man 
 chester, and the breadstuff s sold in New York are daily 
 equated with the prices of the Liverpool Corn Exchange. 
 And so of all the other commodities. And yet we hear repre 
 sentatives of the great interests that are thus compelled to 
 M-ll at gold prices, resolute and determined in their demands 
 that they shall be allowed to purchase their supplies on the 
 paper basis. When it is remembered that the whole 
 of the annual crop in this country, reckoning all pro 
 ducts, readies the enormous amount of three thousand mil 
 lions on the gold basis, and that the surplus not consumed 
 by the producers is many hundreds of millions of dollars, 
 and that the value of the whole is estimated by the gold 
 standard, the farmers of the country may find profitable food 
 for reflection in calculating what the agricultural interest 
 loses every year by an irredeemable paper currency. 
 
 One great and leading interest of my own and other 
 States has suffered, still suffers, and will continue to suffer, 
 so long as the currency is of irredeemable paper. I mean 
 the ship-building and navigation interest one that does 
 more for the country and asks less from it than any other, 
 except the agricultural ; an interest that represents our dis 
 tinctive nationality in all climes and upon all seas; an in 
 terest more essentially and intensely American than any 
 other that falls under the legislative power of the Govern 
 ment, and which asks only to-day to be left where the foun 
 ders of the Republic placed it a hundred yeais ago. 
 
 Give us the same basis of currency that our great com- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 253 
 
 petitors of the British Empire enjoy, and we will, within 
 the lifetime of those now living, float a larger tonnage 
 under the American flag than was ever enrolled by one na 
 tionality since the science of navigation has been known 
 among men. Aye, more, sir ; give us the specie basis, and 
 the merchant marine of America, sailing into all zones and 
 gathering grain from all continents, will bring back to our 
 shores its golden profits and supply to us that coin which 
 will steady our sytem and offset the drains that weaken us 
 in other directions. But ships built on the paper basis 
 cannot compete with the lower-priced ones of the gold basis, 
 and whoever advocates a perpetuity of paper money in 
 this country confesses his readiness and willingness to sacri 
 fice the navigation and commercial interest for all time. 
 
 It is often made the subject of reproach by the opponents 
 of the Republican party that ten years have elapsed since 
 the war closed and nothing effective has been done toward 
 the resumption of specie payment. Even if this were true 
 the Democrats are not justified in making the charge, for 
 their party organization has been the principal obstacle and 
 stumbling-block in the way of resumption. But, in fact, a 
 great deal has been done towards specie payment by pre 
 venting inflation and keeping the government thus far with 
 in the four-hundrecl-million limit. To do this it has been 
 necessary to wage a very sharp war with the Democrats, 
 and against their demands that the national debt be paid in 
 legal tender notes, the Republicans have had their hands 
 full thus far to maintain the demands and dues of common 
 honesty. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, I am quite willing to ad 
 mit that during these ten years no positive and vigorous 
 steps have been taken toward specie payment. So long as 
 the business of the country was progressing reasonably well, 
 it was not practicable or possible to set to work deliberately 
 without the pressure of necessity, to force specie resump 
 tion. Every man of affairs knows instinctively, without 
 argument, that this was so, and he knows why it was so. 
 Though not having the same moral issue involved, we were 
 situated very much as Mr. Pitt found himself when asked 
 why he did not bring in a bill for the suppression of the 
 slave-trade. He said: "The Bristol merchants are too 
 
254 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 strong for the ministry, becciuse so many interests in the 
 kingdom are connected with them." 
 
 But now the case is changed. Over-trading, the wild 
 spirit of speculation, the undue expansion of credits, the 
 enormous investments in premature enterprises, have worked 
 out their legitimate and inevitable results, and with a full 
 volume of paper money the crash came ; prices have fallen, 
 settling dav has arrived, painful liquidation proceeds, and 
 the whole commercial and financial fabric is settling down 
 on a solid foundation. Experience convinces where precept 
 lulls only on deaf ears, and to-day we have men by the 
 thousand longing and asking for a return to specie, who 
 three years ago would have violently opposed it. To at 
 tempt now to build up business by further inflation of the 
 currency involves a theory so wild and destructive that it 
 requires a man of great nerve or of great ignorance to pro 
 pose it. Indeed, the shock to confidence by the panic of 
 1873 was so great that many commodities, and especially 
 ma:iy fabrics, are below their normal price, and a firm, 
 clear, decisive step in the direction of a sound, redeemable 
 currency, imparting stability to our financial system and 
 confidence to the people, would, in the judgment of our best 
 merchants and manufacturers, be followed by a rise in 
 prices, by a quick and wide-spread demand for labor, and 
 by a generous and general revival of trade and business 
 throughout the country. And beyond that we should enter 
 upon an export trade in our fabrics such as we have not 
 dreamed of in the past. 
 
 The time is ripe for it, outward circumstances are all pro 
 pitious, and it only remains for Congress to give to the 
 country a steady currency? and the bounding energy and 
 enterprise of our people will do the rest. 
 
 There is not a cotton plantation in the South, not a grain 
 or grazing farm in the West, not a coal-pit or iron-furnace 
 in Pennsylvania or Ohio, not a manufactory in New 1 . 
 land, not a shipyard on the Atlantic coast, not a lumber 
 camp from the Penobscot to the Columbia, not a mile of 
 railway between the two oceans, that would not feel the 
 quickening, gainful influence of a final and general acquies 
 cence in measures looking to specie payment. The Kepub- 
 licans meditate no harsh, or hasty, or destructive policy on 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 255 
 
 this question but one that shall be firm, considerate and 
 conclusive. The Democracy., by refusing to co-operate in 
 the good work, can keep the matter in agitation and pro 
 long the era of dullness and inactivity in the country. Hav 
 ing stubbornly refused to vote for legal-tenders when the 
 salvation of the Union demanded them, that party can now 
 fittingly complete its financial record by resisting all honest 
 efforts to restore the specie standard to the people. 
 
 We are told, however, Mr. Chairman, in tones of most 
 solemn warning, that this countrv is not able to maintain its 
 paper money at par with coin. Sir, I reject the suggestion 
 with scorn, and it seems to me if I could be persuaded of 
 its truth I should be ashamed to rise in the American Con 
 gress and proclaim it. Here is California, one of our 
 youngest States (thirty members of the Union being senior 
 to her) with a vast territory and a sparse population, able 
 to maintain coin payment, and maintaining it through a 
 financial storm of terrific force, and by reason of it, gain 
 ing a position of solvency and safety with a rapidity and a 
 certainty to which the paper basis affords no parallel but 
 only a contrast. Here to the North of us lies the Domin 
 ion of Canada, stretching from Newfoundland to the bor 
 ders of Alaska, with an inhospitable climate, and a soil in 
 great part inferior to ours, commerce checked and suspended 
 half the year by frozen rivers*, manufactures scant, crude and 
 undeveloped, with a population throughout the whole terri 
 tory not so large as that of New York, and with wealth 
 greatly inferior to that of the Empire State ; with a debt as 
 large in proportion to people and product and property, as 
 our own ; and yet Canada finds no difficulty in maintaining 
 specie payment. And at Toronto, Montreal and Halifax 
 the American tourist is mocked and made ashamed by the 
 sight of coin dollars and gold eagles from our own mint, 
 circulating freely as currency among a people whose wealth 
 and resources are but an inconsiderable fraction of our own 
 magnificent inheritance and possessions. 
 
 When the National Government was organized in 1789, 
 the most liberal estimate of the property of the entire thir 
 teen States placed it at six hundred millions of dollars less 
 than the wealth of Boston or of Chicago to-day. The pop 
 ulation was four millions, showing a property of one hun- 
 
256 THE LIFE AND ITIILIC SERVICES 
 
 divd and fifty dollars to each inhabitant. By the census of 
 1870 our population had increased to thirty-fight millions, 
 and our wealth to thirty thousand millions, showing eight 
 hundred dollars per capita for the whole people. Our pop 
 ulation had increased in the eighty intervening years not 
 quite tenfold, but our wealth had increased fifty-fold. 
 
 The patriots of 1790, with their slender resources, did 
 not hesitate to assume a national debt of ninety millions of 
 dollars, being more than one-seventh of their entire posses 
 sions ; and it never occurred to them that an abandonment 
 of the specie basis would make their burden lighter. They 
 knew from their terrible experience with continental cur 
 rency that all their evils would be painfully increased by a 
 resort to paper money. And in their poverty, with no ac 
 cumulated capital, with manufactures in feeblest infancy, 
 with commerce undeveloped, with low prices for their agri 
 cultural products, they maintained the gold and silver stand 
 ard, tliev paid their great debt, they grew rich in the prop 
 erty which we inherited, but far richer in that bright, unsul 
 lied honor which they bequeathed to us. 
 
 To-day the total debts of the American people, national 
 State and municipal, are not so large in proportion to al 
 ready acquired property as was the national debt alone in 
 17 .(). And when we take into the account the relative pro 
 ductive power of the two periods, our present burdens are 
 absolutely inconsiderable. When we reflect what the rail 
 way, the telegraph, the cotton-gin, and our endless mechani 
 cal inventions and agencies have done for us in the way of 
 increasing our capacity for producing wealth, we should be 
 ashamed to pretend that we cannot bear larger burdens than 
 our ancestors. And remember, Mr. Chairman, that our 
 wealth from 1790 to 1870 increased more than five times as 
 rapidly as our population, and that the same development is 
 even now progressing with a continually accelerating ratio, 
 licmember, also, that the annual income and earnings of 
 our people are larger than those of any European country, 
 larger than those of England, or Erance, or Russia, or the 
 German Empire. The English people stand next to us, 
 but we are largely in advance of them. The annual income 
 of our entire people exceeds six thousand millions in gold, and 
 despite financial reverses and revulsions is steadily increasing. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 257 
 
 In view of these facts, it would be an unpardonable moral 
 Weakness in our people always heroic when heroism is 
 demanded to doubt their own capacity to maintain specie 
 payment. I am not willing, myself, to acknowledge that as 
 a people we are less honorable, less courageous, or less 
 competent than were our ancestors in 1790 ; still less am I 
 ready to own that the people of the entire Union have not 
 the pluck and the capacity of our friends and kinsmen in 
 California ; and last of all would I confess that the United 
 States of America, with forty-four millions of inhabitants, 
 with a territory surpassing all Europe in area, and I might 
 almost say all the world in fertility of resources, are not 
 able to do what a handful of British subjects, scattered from 
 Cape Race to Vancouver s Island, can do so easily, so 
 steadily, and so successfully. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, one great trouble in this whole financial 
 question has been the general and for many years the grow 
 ing disposition of our people not to regard the legal-tender 
 note as a debt of the Government, but rather as something 
 which is never to be paid. Such was not the feeling among 
 the people when the legal-tenders first appeared, and I think 
 this erroneous and injurious conception resulted from an act 
 of Congress, which is a most vital point changed the char 
 acter of the notes. When the first three hundred millions of 
 legal-tenders were issued, they could be funded at the option 
 of the holder in Five-twenty bonds in sums of $50 and any 
 multiple thereof. This provision gave a fixed, determinate 
 character to the legal-tender, connected it with other Gov 
 ernment issues by an equated value, made it an integral 
 part of our whole system of public credit, and established it, 
 in short, as a sort of a balance-wheel to our somewhat com 
 plicated financial machinery. So long as that provision 
 was in force the money of the people was precisely as good 
 and just the same as the money of the bondholder. By a 
 mistaken policy, as I venture to affirm, this section of the 
 law, on the request of Secretary Chase, was repealed after 
 due notice given, and the moment that was done the 
 legal-tender became a sort of financial orphan among us ; it 
 had thenceforward no connection or relationship with any 
 other issue by the Government ; it measured nothing itself 
 and was measured by nothing, and ever since that day it 
 
258 THE LIFK AND 1TKLIC SERVICES 
 
 lias had to fight its own battle, not merely unaided by other 
 form- of public credit. but in a sense constantly hindered by 
 them. To establish a fixed, steady value for it under tin - 
 circumstances was as impossible as to determine a pound 
 avoirdupois without reference to the law of gravitation. 
 
 Congress having taken away the provision for redemption, 
 the public have naturallv come to regard the legal-tender as 
 perpetually irredeemable ; and one of the first steps toward 
 resumption is to change that impression, by reviving the 
 funding privilege, in a bond of lower rate, with extended 
 time, and a limitation on the amount that could be funded 
 in any given period. As an amelioration to the debtor cla><, 
 the suggestion has been made that the bonds into which the 
 legal-tenders should be thus converted, might themselves be 
 made a legal-tender for all debts contracted prior to the pas 
 sage of the act. This feature may have merit, but I should 
 dr.-ire to consider it very fully in all its bearings before as 
 senting to it, and especially to its effect on the value of 
 legal-tender notes, and also as to its constitutionality. 
 
 We have done much to maintain our public credit, but I 
 think we began at the wrong end when we made special ex 
 ertion to raise the price of our bonds and left the legal-ten 
 der to take care of itself. Had we devoted our energies to 
 bringing the legal-tender to par with coin, the bond would 
 have followed ; but, unfortunately, we have found that the 
 reverse is not the case. For myself, I confess I always feel 
 a.-hnined to see our bonds quoted at a large premium, while 
 our legel-tenders are at a heavy discount ; and while there 
 has been no little demagoguery about the bond-holding cla-s 
 getting their pay in coin as the law directs, I have wonder 
 ed that the mass of our people so quietly endure being de 
 prived of gold for their legal-tenders, as the law in its spirit 
 equally guarantees. 
 
 But whether we shall succeed or shall fail in restoring to 
 the United States notes the funding privilege with which 
 thev were originallv endowed, J must here record mv earn 
 est protest against the policy of repealing the legal-tender 
 clause which has given to these notes their great strength 
 circulating medium. I cannot see how the Government can 
 consistently deprive these notes of their legal-tender quality 
 until it is ready to redeem them in coin on presentation ; 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 259 
 
 and wlien it is so ready to redeem them, what need or advan 
 tage will there be in raising the question ? And I have 
 never heard any argument at all satisfactory to my mind 
 that the repeal of the legal-tender clause would tend to make 
 resumption easier. On the contrary, it seems to me that it 
 would render resumption far more difficult than it will other 
 wise prove ; that it w r ould throw an undue share of the bur 
 den on the banks ; that it would force them into the most 
 rigid contraction and needlessly cripple their power of dis 
 count ; thus plunging the whole country into confusion, dis 
 turbing credits, embarrassing payments, fatally deranging 
 business, and creating widespread distress among the people. 
 It would be a peculiarly severe blow to the debtor class, and 
 would make resumption to them the signal of bankruptcy 
 and ruin. All wise legislation toward resumption will take 
 care that no needless burden be thrown on those who have 
 debts to pay, and that in the transition the banks shall be 
 kept in such a condition as will make them as helpful as pos 
 sible to the business community. But this policy would 
 drive the banks into a struggle for self-preservation in which 
 debtors would necessarily be sacrificed. 
 
 If I correctly apprehend the sound public judgment on 
 this question, there is no desire to destroy the legal-tender 
 character of the note, but a settled determination to bring 
 it to par with coin, and by this means bring every bank-note 
 to the same standard. This policy will restore the coin of 
 the country, of which we are producing over eighty millions 
 per annum, to active circulation in the channels of trade, 
 and will result not only in making our money better, but as 
 suredly more plentiful among the people. It is a humili 
 ating fact that, producing as we do a far larger amount of 
 precious metal than all the rest of the world beside, we drive 
 it into export because we will not create a demand for it at 
 home. And the miners of the Pacific slope are furnishinjr 
 the circulating medium for every country of the civilized 
 world except their own, whose financial policy to-day out 
 laws and expatriates the product of their labor. 
 
 The act providing for resumption in 1879 requires, in the 
 judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury, some additional 
 legislation to make it practicable and effective. As it stands, 
 it fixes a date, but gives no adequate process ; and the para- 
 
260 TIIK LIFE AND ITHLIC SERVICES 
 
 mount duty of Congress is to provide a process. And in 
 all legislation looking to that end it must be borne in mind 
 that unless we move in harmony with the great business in 
 terests of the country, we shall assuredly fail. Specie pay 
 ment can only be brought about by wise and well-considered 
 legislation, based on the experience of other nations, em- 
 bodyin.ir the matured wisdom of the country, healthfully 
 promoting all legitimate business, aud carefully avoiding 
 i 1 very thing that may tend to create fear and distrust among 
 the people. In other words, what we most need, as the out 
 growth of legislation, is confidence, public and private, gen 
 eral and individual. To-day we are suffering from the 
 timidity of capital, and so long as the era of doubt and un 
 certainty prevails, that timidity will continue and increase. 
 Steps toward inflation will make it chronic ; unwise steps 
 toward resumption will not remove it. We shall have dis 
 charged our full duty in Congress if we can mature a meas 
 ure which will steadily advance our currency to the specie 
 standard, and at the same time work in harmony with the 
 reviving industries and great commercial wants of the 
 country. 
 
 In any event, Mr. Chairman, whatever we may do, or 
 whatever we may leave undone on this whole financial ques 
 tion, let us not delude ourselves with the belief that we can 
 escape the specie standard. It rules us to-day, and has 
 ruled us throughout the whole legal-tender period, just as 
 absolutely as though we were paying and receiving coin 
 daily. Our work, our fabrics, our commodities are all 
 measured by it, and so long as we cling to irredeemable pa 
 per we have all the burdens and disadvantages of the gold 
 standard, with none of its aids and gains and profits. "The 
 tiling which hath been is that which shall be." The great 
 law-giver of antiquity records in the very opening of Gen T 
 f-is that "the gold of the land of Ilavilah is good." And, 
 with another precious metal, it has maintained its rank to 
 this day. No nation has ever succeeded in establishing any 
 other standard of value ; no nation has ever made the expe 
 riment except at great cost and sorrow ; and the advocates 
 of irredeemable money to-day are but asking us to travel the 
 worn and weary road, traveled so many times before a road 
 that has always ended in disaster and often in disgrace. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 261 
 
 Iii January, 187G, occurred one of the most remarkable 
 contests ever known in the history of Congress. The de 
 bate began upon the proposition to grant a general amnesty 
 to all the rebels against the Government who took part hi 
 the war of 1861-5. This included, of course, a pardon for 
 Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Southern Con 
 federacy. The Democratic House of Representatives seemed 
 on the point of passing it, when Blaine and Garfield set 
 themselves to defeat it. Hon. Benjamin II. Hill of Geor 
 gia, one of the ablest Southern Congressmen, undertook to 
 advocate the measure, and meet Blaine in debate. The 
 discussion lasted through several sittings of the House, and 
 created an intense excitement throughout the country. 
 Blaine was at home with that question, as he had been one 
 of the foremost originators and advocates of the Fourteenth 
 Amendment to the Constitution. The following is the offi 
 cial report of Blaine s part in that hot debate : 
 
 MR. SPEAKER : I rise to a privileged question. I move 
 to reconsider the vote which has just been declared. I pro 
 pose to debate that motion, and now give notice that if the 
 motion to reconsider is agreed to it is my intention to offer 
 the amendment which has been read several times. I will 
 not delay the House to have it read again. 
 
 Every time the question of amnesty has been brought be 
 fore the House by a gentleman on that side for the last two 
 Congresses, it has been done with a certain nourish of mag 
 nanimity which is an imputation on this side of the House, 
 as though the Republican party which has been in charge of 
 the Government for the last twelve or fourteen years, had 
 been bigoted, narrow, and illiberal, and as though certain 
 very worthy and deserving gentlemen in the Southern States 
 were ground down to-day under a great tyranny and oppres 
 sion, from which the hard-heartedness of this side of the 
 House cannot possibly be prevailed upon to relieve them. 
 
 If I may anticipate as much w r isdom as ought to charac 
 terize that side of the Houe, this may be the last time that 
 amnesty will be discussed in the American Congress. I 
 
262 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 therefore desire, and under the rules of the House, with no 
 thanks to that side for the privilege, to place on record just 
 what the Republican party has done in this matter. I wish 
 to place it there as an imperishable record of liberality and 
 large-mindedness, and magnanimity, and mercy far beyond 
 any that has ever been shown before in the world s history 
 by conqueror to conquered. 
 
 "With the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Randall,) I 
 entered this Congress in the midst of the ho t t flame of war, 
 when the Union was rocking to its foundation, and no man 
 knew whether we were to have a country or not. I think 
 the gentleman from Pennsylvania would have been surprised 
 when he and I were novices in the Thirty-eighth Congress, 
 if he could have foreseen before our joint service ended we 
 should have seen sixty-one gentlemen then in arms against 
 us, admitted to equal privileges with ourselves, and all by 
 the grace and magnanimity of the Republican party. When 
 the war ended, according to the universal usage of nations, 
 the Government, then under the exclusive control of the 
 Republican party, had the right to determine what should 
 be the political status of the people who had been defeated 
 in war. Did we inaugurate any measures of persecution? 
 Did we set forth on a career of bloodshed and vengeance ? 
 Did we take property ? Did we prohibit any man all his 
 civil rights ? Did we take from him the right he enjoys to 
 day to vote? 
 
 Not at all. But instead of a general and sweeping con 
 demnation the Republican party placed in the Fourteenth 
 Amendment to the Constitution only this exclusion ; after 
 considering the whole subject it ended it simply coming 
 down to this : 
 
 "That no person shall be a Senator or Representative in 
 Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold 
 any office, civil or military, under the United States or un 
 der any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a 
 member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, 
 or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive 
 or judicial officer of any State, Jo support the Constitution 
 of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or 
 rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 263 
 
 enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two- 
 thirds of each House, remove such disability." 
 
 It has been variously estimated that this section, at the 
 time of its original insertion in the Constitution, included 
 somewhere from fourteen to thirty thousand persons ; as 
 nearly as I can gather together the facts of the case, it in 
 cluded about eighteen thousand men in the South. It let 
 go every man of the hundreds of thousands or millions if 
 you please who had been engaged in the attempt to destroy 
 this Government, and only held those under disability who 
 in addition to revolting had violated a special and peculiar 
 and personal oath to support the Constitution of the United 
 States. It was limited to that. 
 
 Well, that disability was hardly placed upon the South 
 until we began in this hall and in the other wing of the 
 capitol, when there were more than two-thirds Republicans 
 in both branches, to remit it, and the very first bill took 
 that disability off from 1,5 78 -citizens of the South ; and the 
 next bill took it off from 3,526 gentlemen by wholesale. 
 Many of the gentlemen on this floor came in for grace and 
 amnesty in those two bills. After these bills, specifying 
 individuals, had passed, and others, of smaller numbers, 
 which I will not recount, the Congress of the United States 
 in 1872, by two-thirds of both branches, still being two- 
 thirrls Republican, passed this general law : 
 
 "That all political disabilities imposed by the third sec 
 tion of the fourteenth article of amendments of the Consti 
 tution of the United States are hereby removed from all 
 persons "whomsoever, except Senators and Representatives 
 of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, officers 
 in the judicial, military and naval service in the United 
 States, heads of departments, and foreign ministers of the 
 United States." 
 
 Since that act passed a very considerable number of the 
 gentlemen which it still left under disability have been re 
 lieved specially, by name, in separate acts. But I believe, 
 Mr. Speaker, in no single instance since the Act of May 22, 
 1872, have the disabilities been taken from any man except 
 upon his respectful petition to the Congress of the United 
 States that they should be removed. And I believe in no 
 instance except one, have they been refused upon the peti- 
 
264 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 tion being presented. I believe in no instance, except one, 
 has there has been any other than a unanimous vote. 
 
 Now, I find there are widely varying opinions in regard 
 to the number that are still under disabilities in the 
 South. 
 
 I have had occasion, by conference with the Department 
 of War and of the Navy, and with the assistance of some 
 records which I have caused to be searched, to be able to 
 state to the House, I believe with more accuracy than it has 
 been stated hitherto, just the number of gentlemen in the 
 South still under disabilities. Those who were officers of 
 the United States army, educated at its own expense 
 at West Point and who joined the rebellion, and are 
 still included under this act, number, as nearly n- 
 the War Department can figure up, 325 ; those in the Navy 
 about 2 .!."). Those under the other heads, Senators and 
 Representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh 
 Congresses, officers in the judiciary service of the United 
 States, heads of departments and foreign ministers of the 
 United States, make up a number somewhat more difficult to 
 -late accurat"ly, but smaller in the aggregate. The whole 
 sum of the entire list is about it is probably impossible to 
 state it with entire accuracy, and I do not attempt to do 
 that is about 750 persons now under disabilities. 
 
 I am very frank to say that in regard to all these gentle 
 men, save one, I do not know of any reason why amnesty 
 should not be granted to them as it has been to many oth 
 ers of the same class. I am not here to argue against it. 
 The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Kasson) suggests "on 
 their application. 1 I am coming to that. But as I have 
 -aid, seeing in this list, as I have examined it with some 
 care, no gentleman to whom I think there would be any 
 objection, since amnesty has already become so general 
 and I am not going back of that question to argue it I am 
 in favor of granting it to them. But in the absence of this 
 respectful form of application, which since .May 22d, 1<S72, 
 has become a sort of common law as preliminary to am 
 nesty, I simply wish to put in that they shall go before a 
 United States Court, and in open court, with uplifted hand, 
 .-wear that they mean to conduct themselves as good citi 
 zens of the United States. That is all. 
 
"TY 
 
 OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 265 
 
 Now, gentlemen may say that this is a foolish exaction. 
 Possibly it is. But somehow or other I have a prejudice 
 in favor of it. And there are some petty points in it that 
 appeal as \\ell to prejudice as to conviction. For one, I do 
 not want to impose citizenship on any gentleman. If I am 
 correctly informed, and I state it only on rumor, there are 
 some gentlemen in this list who have spoken contemptously 
 of the idea of their taking citizenship, and have spoken still 
 more contemptously of the idea of their applying for citizen 
 ship. I may state it wrongly, and if I do, I am willing to 
 be corrected, but I understand that Mr. Robert Toombs has, 
 on several occasions, at watering places both in this country 
 and in Europe, stated that he would not ask the United 
 States for citizenship. 
 
 Very well, we can stand it about as well as Mr. Robert 
 Toombs can. And if Mr. Robert Toombs is not prepared 
 to go into a court of the United States and swear that he 
 means to be a good citizen, let him stay out. I do not think 
 that the two Houses of Congress should convert themselves 
 into a joint convention for the purpose of embracing Mr. 
 Robert Toombs and gushingly request him to favor us by 
 coming back to accept of all the honors of citizenship. 
 That is the whole. All I ask is that each of these gentlemen 
 shall show his good faith by coming forward and taking the 
 oath which you on that side of the House and we on this 
 of the House and all of us take, and gladly take. It is a 
 very small exaction to make as a preliminary to full restor 
 ation to all the rights of citizenship. 
 
 4 In my amendment, Mr. Speaker, I have excepted Jeffer 
 son Davis from its operation. Now I do not place it on the 
 ground that Mr. Davis was, as he has been commonly 
 called, the head and front of the rebellion, because, on that 
 ground, I do not think the exception would be tenable. Mr. 
 Davis was just as guilty, no more so, no less so, than thou 
 sands of others who have already received the benefit and 
 grace of amnesty. Probably he was far less efficient as an 
 enemy of the United States ; probably he was far more use 
 ful as a disturber of the councils of the Confederacy than 
 many who have already received amnesty. It is not because 
 of any particular and special damage that he, above others, 
 did to the Union, or because he was personally or especially 
 
266 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 of consequence, that I except him. But I except him on 
 this ground: that he was the author, knowingly, deliberate 
 ly, guiltily, and willfully, of the gigantic murders and 
 crimes at Andersonville. 
 
 A MEMBER. And Libby. 
 
 MR. ELAINE. Libby pales into insignificance before An 
 dersonville. I place it on that ground, and I believe to-day, 
 that so rapidly does one event follow on the heels of another 
 in the rapid age in which we live, that even those of us who 
 were contemporaneous with what was transpiring there, and 
 still less those who have grown up since, fail to remember 
 the gigantic crime then committed. 
 
 Sir, since the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Ban- 
 dall) introduced this bill last mouth, I have taken occasion 
 to reread some of the historic cruelties of the world. I 
 have read over the details of those atrocious murders of the 
 Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, which are always 
 mentioned with a thrill of horror throughout Christendom. 
 I have read the details of the massacre of Saint Bartholo 
 mew, that stand out in history as one of those atrocities be 
 yond imagination. I have read anew the horrors, untold 
 and unimaginable, of the Spanish Inquisition. /And I here 
 before God, measuring my words, knowing their full extent 
 and import, declare that neither the deeds of the Duke of 
 Alva, in the Low Countries, nor the massacre ot St. Bar 
 tholomew, nor the thumb-screws and engines of torture of 
 the Spanish Inquisition begin to compare in atrocity with 
 the hideous crime of Andersonville. [Applause on the floor 
 and in the galleries.] 
 
 MR. BOBBINS, of North Carolina. That is an infamous 
 slander. 
 
 THE SPEAKER. If such demonstrations are repeated in 
 the galleries, the Chair will order them to be cleared. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Thank God. Mr. Speaker, that while this 
 Congress was under different control from that which exists 
 here to-day, with a committee composed of both sides, and 
 of both brandies, that tale of horror was placed where it 
 cannot be denied or gainsaid. 
 
 I hold in my hand the story written out by a Committee 
 of Congress. I state that Winder, who is dead, was sent 
 to Audersonville with a full knowledge of his previous 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 267 
 
 atrocities ; that these atrocities in Richmond were so fearful, 
 so terrible, that Confederate papers, the Richmond Exam 
 iner for one, stated when he was gone that, "Thank God, 
 Richmond is rid of his presence." We in the North knew 
 from returning skeletons what he had accomplished at Belle 
 Isle and Libby, and fresh from those accomplishments he 
 was sent by Mr. Davis, against the protests of others in the 
 Confederacy, to construct this den of horrors at Anderson- 
 ville. 
 
 Now, of course it would be utterly beyond the scope of 
 the occasion, and beyond the limits of my hour, for me to 
 go into details. |"^ut, in arraigning Mr. Davis, I undertake 
 here to say that*! will not ask any gentleman to take the 
 testimony of a single Union soldier. I ask them to take 
 only the testimony of men who themselves were engaged 
 and enlisted in the Confederate cause. And if that testi 
 mony does not entirely carry out and justify the declaration 
 I have made, then I will state that I have been entirely in 
 error in my reading. 
 
 After detailing the preparation of that prison, the ar 
 rangements made with hideous cruelty for the victims, the 
 report which I hold in my hand, and which was concurred 
 in by Democratic members as well as Republican members 
 of Congress, states this, and I beg members to hear it, for 
 it is far more impressive than anything I can say. After, 
 I say, giving full details, the report states : 
 
 "The subsequent history of Andersonville has startled and 
 shocked the world with a tale of horror, of woe, and death 
 before unheard and unknown to civilization. No pen can 
 describe, no painter sketch, no imagination comprehend its 
 fearful and unutterable iniquity. It would seem as if the 
 concentrated madness of earth and hell had found its final 
 lodgment in the breasts of those who inaugurated the rebel 
 lion and controlled the policy of the Confederate govern 
 ment, and that the prison at Andersonville had been selected 
 for the most terrible human sacrifice which the world has 
 ever seen. Into its narrow walls were crowded thirty-five 
 thousand enlisted men, many of them the bravest and best, 
 the most devoted and heroic of those grand armies which 
 carried the flag of their country to final victory. For long 
 and weary months here they suffered, maddened, were mur- 
 
268 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 dered, and died. Here they lingered, unsheltered from the 
 burning rays of a tropical sun by day, and drenching and 
 deadly dews by night, in every stage of mental and physical 
 disease, hungered, emaciated, starving, maddened ; fester 
 ing with unhealed wounds ; gnawed by the ravages of 
 scurvy and gangrene ; with swollen limb and distorted vis 
 age ; covered with vermin which they had no power to ex 
 tirpate ; exposed to the flooding rains which drove them 
 drowning from the miserable holes in which, like swine, 
 they burrowed ; parched with thirst and mad with hunger ; 
 racked with pain or prostrated with the weakness of disso 
 lution ; with naked limbs and matted hair ; filthy with 
 smoke and mud ; soiled with the very excrement from 
 which their weakness would not permit them to escape.; 
 eaten by the gnawing worms which their own wounds had 
 engendered ; with no bed but the earth ; no covering save 
 the cloud or the sky ; these men, these heroes, born in the 
 image of God, thus crouching and writhing in their terrible 
 torture and calculating barbarity, stand forth in history as 
 a monument of the surpassing horrors of Andersonville as 
 it shall be seen and read in all future time, realizing in the 
 studied torments of their prison-house the ideal of Dante s 
 Inferno and Milton s heil." 
 
 I undertake to say, from reading the testimony, that that 
 is a moderate description. I will read but a single para 
 graph from the testimony of Rev. William John Hamilton, 
 a man I believe who never was in the North, a Catholic 
 priest at Macon. He is a Southern man and a Democrat 
 and a Catholic priest. And when you unite those three 
 qualities in one man you will not find much testimony that 
 would be strained in favor of the Republican party. 
 
 This man had gone to Andersonville on a mission of 
 mercy to the men of his own faith, to administer to them 
 the rites of his church in their last moments. That is why 
 lie happened to be a witness. I will read his answer under 
 oath to a question addressed to "him in regard to the bodily 
 condition of the prisoners. He said : 
 
 "Well, as I said before, when I went there I was kept so 
 busily engaged in giving the sacrament to the dying men 
 that I could not observe much ; but of course I could not 
 keep my eyes closed as to what I saw there. I saw a great 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 269 
 
 many men perfectly naked ; their clothes had been taken 
 from them, as other testimony shows, walking about the 
 stockade perfectly nude ; they seemed to have lost all regard 
 for delicacy, shame, morality, or anything else. I would 
 frequently have to creep on my hands and knees into the 
 holes that the men had burrowed in the ground, and stretch 
 myself out alongside of them to hear their confessions. I 
 found them almost living in vermin in those holes ; they 
 could not be in any other condition than a filthy one, be 
 cause they got no soap and no change of clothing, and were 
 there all huddled up together." 
 
 Let me read further from the same witness another speci 
 men : 
 
 "The first person I conversed with on entering the stock 
 ade was a countryman of mine, a member of the Catholic 
 church, who recognized me as a clergyman. I think his 
 name was Farrell. He was from the north of Ireland. He 
 came toward me and introduced himself. He was quite a 
 boy ; I do not think, judging from his appearance, that he 
 could have been more than sixteen years old. I found him 
 without a hat and without any covering on his feet, and 
 without jacket or coat. He told me that his shoes had been 
 taken from him on the battle-field. I found the boy suffer 
 ing very much from a wound on his right foot ; in fact the 
 foot was split open like an oyster ; and on inquiring the 
 cause, they told me it was from exposure to the sun in the 
 stockade, and not from any wound received in battle. I 
 took oif my boots and gave him a pair of socks to cover 
 his feet, and told him I would bring him some clothing, as I 
 expected to return to Andersonville the following week. I 
 had to return to Macon to get another priest to take my place 
 on Sunday. When I returned on the following week, on 
 inquiring for this man Farrell, his companions told me he 
 had stepped across the dead line and requested the guards 
 to shoot him. He was not insane at the time I was con 
 versing with him." 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to go into such hor 
 rible details as these for any purpose of arousing bad feel 
 ing. I wish only to say that the man who administered the 
 affairs of that prison went there by order of Mr. Davis, 
 was sustained by him ; and this William John Hamilton, 
 
210 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 from whose testimony I have read, states here that he went 
 to General Howell Cobb, commanding that department, and 
 asked that intelligence as to the condition of affairs there 
 be transmitted to the Confederate government at Richmond. 
 For the matter of that, there are a great many proofs to 
 show that Mr. Davis was thoroughly informed as to the 
 condition of affairs at Andersonville. 
 
 One word more, and I shall lay aside this book. When 
 the march of General Sherman, or some other invasion of 
 that portion of the country, was under way, there was 
 danger, or supposed danger, that it might come into the 
 neighborhood of Andersonville ; and the following order 
 to which I invite the attention of the House a regular 
 military order^ Order No. 13, dated, headquarters Confed 
 erate States military prison, Andersonville, July 27, 18G4, 
 was issued by Brigadier-General John H. Winder : 
 
 "The officers on duty and in charge of the battery of 
 Florida artillery at the time, will, upon receiving notice 
 that the enemy have approached within seven miles of this 
 
 post, OPEN FIRE UPON THE STOCKADE WITH GRAPE-SHOT 
 
 without reference to the situation beyond these lines of de 
 fense." 
 
 Now, here were these 35,000 poor, helpless, naked, starv 
 ing, sickened, dying men. This Catholic priest states that 
 he begged Mr. Cobb to represent that if they could not 
 exchange those men, or could not relieve them in any other 
 way, they should be taken to the Union lines in Florida 
 and paroled ; fqr they were shadows, they were skeletons. 
 Yet it was declared by a regular order of Mr. Davis officer 
 that if the Union forces should come within seven miles the 
 battery of Florida artillery should open fire with grape-shot 
 on these poor, helpless men, without the slightest possible 
 regard to what was going on outside. 
 
 Now I do not arraign the Southern people for this. God 
 forbid that I should charge any people with sympathizing 
 with such tilings. There were many evidences of great un 
 easiness among the Southern people about it ; and one of 
 the great crimes of Jefferson Davis was that bosidos conniv 
 ing at and producing that condition of things, he concealed 
 it from the Southern people. He labored not only to conceal 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 271 
 
 it, but to make false statements about it. We have obtained, 
 and have now in the Congressional library, a complete series 
 of Mr. Davis messages the official imprint from Richmond. 
 I have looked over them, and I have here an extract from 
 his message of November 7, 1864, at the very time that 
 these horrors were at their acme. Mark you, when these 
 horrors of which I have read specimens were at their ex- 
 tremest verge of desperation, Mr. Davis sends a message 
 to the Confederate Congress at Richmond, in which he 
 says : 
 
 "The solicitude of the Government for the relief of our 
 captive fellow-citizens has known no abatement, but has on 
 the contrary been still more deeply evoked by the additional 
 sufferings to which they have been wantonly subjected by 
 deprivation of adequate food, clothing, and fuel, which they 
 were not even permitted to purchase from the prison sutler." 
 
 And he adds that the 
 
 "Enemy attempted to excuse their barbarous treatment 
 by the unfounded allegation that it was retaliatory for like 
 conduct on our part." 
 
 Now I undertake here to say that there is not a Confed 
 erate soldier now living, who has any credit as a man in his 
 community, and who ever was a prisoner in the hands of 
 the Union forces, who will say that he ever was cruelly 
 treated ; that he ever was deprived of the same rations that 
 the Union soldiers had the same food and the same 
 clothing. 
 
 MR. COOK. Thousands of them say it thousands of 
 them ; men of as high character as any in this House. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I take issue upon that. There is not one 
 who can substantiate it not one. As for measures of 
 retaliation, although goaded by this terrific treatment of our 
 friends imprisoned by Mr. Davis, the Senate of the United 
 States specifically refused to pass a resolution of retaliation, 
 as contrary to modern civilization and the first precepts of 
 Christianity. And there was no retaliation attempted or 
 justified. It was refused ; and Mr. Davis knew it was 
 refused just as well as I knew it or any other man, because 
 what took place in Washington or what took place in Rich- 
 
272 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 mond was known on cither side of the line within a day or 
 two thereafter. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, this is not a proposition to punish Jefferson 
 Davis. There is nobody attempting that. I will very 
 frankly say that I myself thought the indictment of .Mr. 
 Davis at Richmond, under the administration of Mr. John 
 son, was a weak attempt, for he was indicted only for that 
 of which he was guilty in common with all others who went 
 into the Confederate movement. Therefore, there was no 
 particular reason for it. But I will undertake to say this, 
 and as it may be considered an extreme speech, 1 want to 
 say it with great deliberation, that there is not a govern 
 ment, a civilized government, on the face of the globe I 
 am very sure there is not a European government that 
 would not have arrested Mr. Davis, and when they had him 
 in their power would not have tried him for maltreatment 
 of the prisoners of war and shot him within thirty days. 
 France, Russia, England, Germany, Austria, any one of 
 them would have done it. The poor victim AVirz deserved 
 his death for brutal treatment, and murder of many victims, 
 but I always thought it was a weak movement on the part 
 of our government to allow Jefferson Davis to go at la rue. 
 and hang Wirz. I confess I do. Wirz was nothing in the 
 world but a mere subordinate, a tool, and there was no 
 special reason for singling him out for death. I do not .-ay 
 he did not deserve it he did, richly, amply, fully. He de 
 served no mercy, but at the same time, as I have often said. 
 it seemed like skipping over the president, superintendent, 
 and board of directors in the case of a great railroad acci 
 dent, and hanging the brakeman of the rear car. [Laughter.] 
 
 There is no proposition here to punish Jefferson Davis. 
 Nobody is seeking to do it. That time has gone by. The 
 statute of limitation, common feelings of humanity, will 
 supervene for his benefit. But what you ask us to do is to 
 declare by a vote of two-thirds of both branches of Con 
 gress, that we consider Mr. Davis worthy to fill the highest 
 offices in the United States if he can get a constituency to 
 indorse him. He is a voter; he can buy and he can sell : 
 he can go and he can come. He is as I m- as any man in 
 the United States. There is a larjv list of subordinate offi 
 ces to which he is eligible. This bill proposes, in view of 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 273 
 
 thai record, that Mr. Davis, by a two-thirds vote of the 
 Senate and a two-thirds vote of the House, be declared eli 
 gible and worthy to fill any office up to the Presidency of 
 the United States. For one, upon full deliberation, I will 
 not do it. 
 
 One word more, Mr. Speaker, in the way of detail, which 
 I omitted. It has often been said in mitigation of Jefferson 
 Davis in the Andersonville matter that the men who died 
 there in such large numbers (I think the victims were about 
 fifteen thousand) fell prey to an epidemic, and died of a 
 disease which could not be averted. The record shows that 
 out of 35,000 men about 33 per cent, died, that is, one in 
 three, while of the soldiers encamped near by to take /are 
 and guard them, only one men in four hundred died ; that 
 is, within half a mile only one in four hundred died. 
 
 As to the general question of amnesty, Mr. Speaker, as I 
 have already said, it is too late to debate it. It has gone 
 by. Whether it has in all respects been wise, or whether 
 it has been unwise, I would not detain the House here to 
 discuss. Even if I had a strong conviction upon that ques 
 tion, I do not know that it would be productive of any great 
 good to enunciate it ; but, at the same time, it is a very 
 singular spectacle that the Republican party, in possession 
 of the entire Government, have deliberately called back in 
 to political power the leading men of the South, every one 
 of whom turns up its bitter and relentless and malignant 
 foe ; and to-day from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, the 
 very men who have received this amnesty are as busy as 
 they can be in consolidating into one compact political or 
 ganization the old slave States just as they were before the 
 war. We see the banner held out blazoned again with the 
 inscription that with the united South and a very fe\v votes 
 from the North this country can be governed. I want the 
 people to understand that is precisely the movement ; 
 that that is the animus and the intent. I do not think 
 offering amnesty to the seven hundred and fifty men 
 who are now without it will hasten or retard that move 
 ment. I do not think the granting of amnesty to Mr. 
 Davis will hasten or retard it, or that refusing it will do 
 either. 
 
 I hear it said, u We will lift Mr. Davis again into great 
 
r 
 
 274 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 consequence by refusing amnesty." That is not for me to 
 consider; I only see before me, when his name is pivsriitrd, 
 a man who by the wink of his eye, by a wave of his hand, 
 by a nod of his head, could have stopped the atrocity at 
 Anderson ville. 
 
 Some of us had kinsmen there, most of us had friends 
 there, all of us had countrymen there, and in the name of 
 those kinsmen, friends, and countrymen,! here protest, and 
 shall with my vote protest, against their calling back and 
 crowning with the honors of full American citizenship the 
 man who organized that murder. 
 
 Three days later, after Garfield had taken his celebrated 
 part in the dispute, Blaine spoke again on the same topic : 
 
 MR. SPEAKER : Before proceeding with the remarks which 
 I shall address to the questions before the House, I desire 
 to say that in the discussion on the point of order that was 
 raised just prior to the adjournment last evening, I did not 
 intend to be understood and hope no gentleman understood 
 me as implying that the honorable Speaker intended in any 
 way to deprive me of the right to speak. I did not so un 
 derstand the Speaker, nor did I understand it to be the mo 
 tive or object of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
 Randall). I say this much in justice to myself and in 
 justice to the honorable incumbent of the chair. 
 
 From the tone of the debate on the opposite side of the 
 Chamber, Mr. Speaker, one would certainly imagine that 
 the Republican party, as represented in Congress, was try 
 ing to inflict some new punishment or add some fresh stig 
 ma to the name of Jefferson Davis, as well indeed as to lay 
 some additional burden on those other citizens of the South 
 who are not yet fully amnested. It may therefore not be 
 unprofitable just to recall to the attention of the House the 
 precise question at issue, and how it came here, and who it 
 was that brought it here. 
 
 The gentleman from Pennsylvania introduced a bill to 
 confer special honor on Jefferson Davis ; for what honor 
 can be higher than the full panoplied citizenship of the 
 United States of America? He has lost it by his crinu-s, 
 and the gentleman from Pennsylvania proposes, in hot haste, 
 without debate, without amendment, to drag every gentle- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 275 
 
 man up to say "Aye" or "No" upon a bill declaring him 
 to be entitled now and henceforth to all the rights and all 
 the honors of American citizenship. From that we dis 
 sent. AVe did not bring the question here. We are not 
 seeking to throw any fresh element of an inflammatory kind 
 into any discussion or difference that may be between two 
 parties or two sections, and whatever of that kind has grown 
 from this discussion lies at the door of the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania and those who stand with him. 
 
 Remember, Mr. Speaker, it is no proposition to punish, 
 but a proposition to honor ; and while we disclaim any in 
 tention or desire to punish Jefferson Davis, we resist the 
 proposition to honor him. And right here, as a preliminary 
 matter, I desire to address myself for a moment to the con 
 stitutional point suggested by the honorable gentleman from 
 Massachusetts (Mr. Seelye) , who addressed the House last 
 evening. He sees and appreciates" the magnitude of the 
 crime laid at the door of Jefferson Davis, and he clearly 
 pointed out that neither the gentleman from New York nor 
 the gentleman from Georgia had palliated or dared to palli 
 ate the crimes with which I charged him. But he is both 
 ered by the scruple that because we are permitted to punish 
 for participancy in insurrection or rebellion, we cannot make 
 any discrimination or distinction. Why, the honorable gen 
 tleman must have forgotten that this is precisely what we 
 have been doing ever since the disability was imposed. We 
 first removed the disabilities from the least offensive class ; 
 then in the next list we removed those next in order of 
 guilty participancy, and so on, until in 1872 we removed 
 the disability from all, except the army and navy officers, 
 members of Congress, and heads of departments. Why, 
 Sir, are we not as much justified to-day in excepting Jeffer 
 son Davis as we were in 1872 in excepting the seven hun 
 dred and fifty of whom he constitutes one? Therefore, I 
 beg to say to my honorable friend, whose co-operation I 
 crave, that that point is res adjudicate by a hundred acts 
 upon the statute-book. We are entirely competent to do just 
 what is proposed in my amendment. 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, on the question of the treatment of 
 our prisoners, and on the great question as to who was to 
 blame for breaking exchange, the speech of the honorable 
 
276 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Garfield) lias loft me literalb 
 nothing to say. He exhausted the subject. His speech 
 was unanswerable, and I undertake to say that as yet 
 no gentleman has answered one fact that he alleged no 
 gentleman in this House can answer one fact presented by 
 him. I shall not, therefore, at any length dwell upon that. 
 But in connection with one point in history there is some 
 thing which I should feel it my duty, not merely as a mem 
 ber of the Republican party which upheld the administra 
 tion that conducted the war, but as a citizen of the Ameri 
 can Union, to resist and resent, and that is, the allegations 
 that were made in regard to the manner in which Confed 
 erate prisoners were treated in the prisons of the Union. 
 The gentleman from Georgia says : 
 
 "I have also proved that with all the horrors you have 
 made such a noise about as occurring at Andersonville, 
 greater horrors occurred in the prisons where our troops 
 were held." 
 
 And I could not but admire the "our" and the "your" 
 with which the gentleman conducted the whole discussion. 
 It ill comported with his later profession of Unionism. It 
 was certainly flinging the shadow of a dead Confederacy a 
 long way over the dial of the National House of Represen 
 tatives ; and I think the gentleman from New York fell into 
 a little of the same line. Of that I shall speak again. The 
 gentleman from Georgia goes on to say that : 
 
 "The atrocities of Andersonville do not begin to compare 
 with the atrocities of Elmira, of Camp Douglas, of Fort 
 Delaware ; and of all the atrocities both of Andersonville 
 and at Elmira the Confederate authorities stand acquitted." 
 
 MR. HILL. I certainly said no such thing. I stated dis 
 tinctly that I brought no charge of crime against anybody. 
 But I also stated distinctly that according to the gentleman s 
 logic that result followed. 
 
 MR. BLAIXE. But that is not the reported speech at all. 
 I MR. HILL. I stated distinctly that I was following the 
 gentleman s logic. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I am quoting the gentleman s speech as he 
 delivered it. I quote it as it appeared in the Daily Ohrmii- 
 cle and the Associated Press report. I do not pretend to be 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 277 
 
 bound by the version which may appear hereafter, because 
 I observe that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Cox) 
 spoke one speech and published another [great laughter] , 
 and I suppose the gentleman from Georgia will do the same. 
 I admit that the gentleman has a difficult role to play. He 
 has to harmonize himself with the great Northern Democ 
 racy and keep himself in high line as a Democratic candi 
 date for Senator from Georgia ; and it is a very difficult 
 thing to reconcile the two. [Laughter.] The "barn-burn 
 er Democrats" in 1853 tried very hard to adhere to their 
 anti-slavery principles in New York and still support the 
 Pierce administration ; and Mr. Greeley, with that inimita 
 ble humor which he possessed, said that they found it a very 
 hard road to straddle, like a militia general on parade on 
 Broadway, who finds it an almost impossible task to follow 
 the music and dodge the omnibuses. [Laughter.] And that 
 is what the gentleman does. The gentleman tries to keep 
 step to the music of the Union and dodge his fire-eating con 
 stituency in Georgia. [Great laughter.] 
 Then here is another quotation : 
 
 "We know our prisoners suffered in Federal hands, and 
 we know how if we chose to tell. Thousands of our poor 
 men came home from Fort Delaware and other places with 
 their fingers frozen off, with their toes frozen off, with their 
 teeth fallen out." 
 
 MR. HILL. The gentleman will allow me to answer. I 
 said that those things were necessary incidents of the hor 
 rors of all prisons. 
 
 MR. ELAINE. But the gentleman states that that was a fact ! 
 I do not understand him to back down from that assertion ? 
 
 MR. HILL. No, sir. I saw it with my own eyes. 
 
 MR. BLAIXE. Now, the gentleman from the Elmira dis 
 trict (Mr. Walker) , and I honor him for it, was not held in 
 leash as his colleague from New York (Mr. Cox) was by 
 party fidelity and Southern sympathy, and came out like a 
 man and vindicated his constituents. The gentleman from 
 Georgia makes this charge of ill treatment of Confederate 
 prisoners at Camp Douglas. 
 
 ***** 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, I desire to call attention to the remarks 
 
278 THK LIFE AND rrm.ic SERVKI- 
 
 of the gentleman from New York, who, as I said, delivered 
 one speech and published another. 
 
 Mi:. ( <>x. I did not change anything in my speech or in 
 my colloquy with you. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. The gentleman will have time to answer. 
 I say the gentleman from New York delivered one speech 
 and printed another. 
 
 MR. Cox. Go on with your talk ; you are getting used 
 up on this side. [Laughter.] 
 
 MR. BLAINE. The gentleman from New York stated that 
 "he had it on the authority of sixty and odd gentlemen here, 
 many of them having been in the service of the Confederacy 
 during the war, that no order was issued at any time in the 
 South relative to prisoners who were taken by the South as 
 to rations or clothing that did not apply equally to their own 
 soldiers, and that any exparte statements taken by that hum 
 bug committee on the conduct of the war, could not contro 
 vert the facts of history." The gentleman therefore stands 
 up here as denying the atrocities of Andersonville. He 
 seconds the gentleman from Georgia and gives the weight 
 of whatever may be attached to his word to denying that 
 fact. Now, the gentleman himself did not always talk so. 
 I have here a debate that occurred on the 21st of Decem 
 ber, 18G4, in which, while the proposition was pending in 
 the House for retaliation, the gentleman, then from Ohio, 
 said : 
 
 "This resolution provides for inflicting upon the rebe.1 
 prisoners who may be in our hands the same inhuman, bar 
 barous, horrible treatment which has been inflicted upon our 
 soldiers held as prisoners by the rebels. Now, Mr. Speak 
 er," continued the enraged gentleman at that time, it does 
 not follow that because the rebels have made brutes and 
 fiends of themselves that we should do likewise." 
 
 MR. Cox. That is good sense. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. u There is," he says, "a certain law of 
 retaliation in war, I know; but," continued the gentleman, 
 "no man will stand up here and sav, alter due deliberation, 
 that he would reduce these prisoners thrust into our hands 
 into the same condition exhibited by these skeletons, these 
 pictures, these anatomies brought to our attention and laid 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 279 
 
 upon the desks of members of Congress." Then the gentle 
 man says : "It does not follow because our prisoners are 
 treated in the way represented, and no doubt truthfully 
 represented." That is what the gentleman said in 1864 ; 
 but when a solemn committee of Congress, made up of hon 
 orable gentlemen of both sides of the House, bring in exact 
 ly the statements which verify all this, then the gentleman 
 states "that the authority was a humbug committee." 
 
 MR. Cox rose. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Wait, you will have plenty of time. 
 
 MR. Cox. I did not get up to interrupt the gentleman. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Now the gentleman takes his side among 
 the great defenders of Andersonville, and states there has 
 been nothing made out against Andersonville except upon 
 ex parte statements. 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, while I do not wish to be interrupted, 
 I would like by a nod, if the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
 Hill) will be good enough to tell me for he is a well- 
 practiced lawyer and I am not one at all ; and when wit 
 nesses are in doubt they are allowed time to reflect and 
 refresh their memory I ask him to tell me after reflection 
 whether he recollects having introduced this resolution into 
 the Confederate Senate. 
 
 MR. HILL. Which? 
 
 MR. BLAINE. The following : 
 
 Senator Hill, of Georgia, introduced the following reso 
 lution in the Confederate Congress in October, 1862 : 
 "That every person pretending to be a soldier or officer of 
 the United States, who shall be captured on the soil of the 
 Confederate States after the first day of January, 1863, 
 shall be presumed to have entered the territory of the Con 
 federate States with intent to incite insurrection and to abet 
 murder ; and unless satisfactory proof be adduced to the 
 contrary before the military court before which the trial 
 shall be had, he shall suffer death. And this section shall 
 continue in force until the proclamation issued by Abraham 
 Lincoln, dated Washington, September 22, 1862, shall be 
 rescinded." 
 
 Did the gentleman introduce that resolution ? 
 
 MR. HILL. Do you want an answer? 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Yes. 
 
280 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVK I> 
 
 MK. HILL. I will say this : I state precisely and frankly, 
 its I Mated to the gentleman day before yesterday, that I do 
 not recollect being the author of that resolution. I have no 
 doubt the resolution was introduced, and I will state this : 
 that at the time there was a belief in the Confederacy 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I did not yield for a speech I only wanted 
 to know that. * * .* * 
 
 Mr. Speaker, what does this mean ? What did the gen 
 tleman from Georgia mean when, from the committee on 
 judiciary, he introduced the following : 
 
 2. "Every white person who shall act as a commissioned 
 or non-commissioned officer, commanding negroes or mulat- 
 toes against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, or 
 ganize, train, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military 
 service, or aid them in any military enterprise against the 
 Confederate States shall, if captured, suffer death." 
 
 3. "Every commissioned or non-commissioned officer 
 of the enemy who shall incite slaves to rebellion, or pretend 
 to give them freedom, under the aforementioned act of Con 
 gress, and proclamation, by abducting or causing them to 
 be abducted, or inducing them to abscond, shall, if captured, 
 suffer death." 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, I have searched somewhat, but in 
 vain, for anything in the world that rivals this. I did find, 
 and have here in my minutes, the proclamation of Vahne- 
 seda, the Captain-General of Cuba, who was recalled by 
 Spain because of his atrocious cruelties to the inhabitants of 
 that island ; and the worst thiiig in all the atrocities laid to 
 his charm was that he proclaimed "that every man or buy. 
 over fifteen years, found away from his house, not being 
 able to give a satisfactory reason therefor, should suffer 
 death." He copied it from the resolution of the gentleman 
 from Georgia. 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, I hold in my hand a copy of the At 
 lanta Constitution, printed on the 24th of January. IN?."). 
 We are told that all these allegations against Jefferson Davis 
 should be forgiven, because they are all of the dead past. 
 
 We are told that we should not revive them, that there 
 should be nothing in the world brought up in any way to 
 disturb the beautiful serenity of the centennial year, and 
 
TY 
 CALH 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 283 
 
 that to make any allusion to them whatever is to do an un 
 welcome and unpatriotic act. The very last declaration we 
 have from Jefferson Davis authentically, in the life which 
 the gentleman from Georgia held the other day as a text 
 book, reads thus : 
 
 "Time will show, however, the amount of truth in the 
 prophecy of Jefferson Davis " 
 
 Says the biographer, made in reply to the remark that 
 the cause of the Confederacy was lost. Mr. Davis said : 
 
 "It appears so, but the principle for which we contended 
 is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time 
 and in another form." 
 
 Now, I have here, of the date of January 24ih, 1875, a 
 speech by Hon. B. H. Hill, in the Atlanta Constitution, 
 and it is said to have been the "grandest speech" he ever 
 delivered. 
 
 MR. HILL. Oh, that is a mistake. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. The gentleman says it is a mistake. I 
 know he has delivered some very grand speeches, but the 
 editor characterizes this as the grandest of them all. I quote 
 from him : 
 
 "Fellow-citizens, I look to the contest of 1876 not only 
 as the most important that ever occurred in American 
 history, but as the most important in the history of the 
 world ; for if the people of the country cannot be aroused 
 to give an overwhelming vote against this Republican party 
 it will perpetuate itself in power in the United States by 
 precisely the same means that the President has taken in 
 Louisiana, and the people will be powerless to prevent it, 
 except they go to war. [Applause.] If we fail with the 
 ballot-box in 1876, by reason of force, a startling question 
 will present itself to the American people. I trust we will 
 not fail. I hope the Northern people have had a sufficient 
 subsidence of passion to see this question fairly." 
 
 Then the gentleman goes on to say 
 "If we must have war " 
 why his voice is always for war. 
 
284 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 MR. HILL. Never, never ! 
 
 MR. BLAINE. The gentleman says : 
 
 "If we must have war; if we cannot preserve this Con 
 stitutiou and constitutional government by the ballot ; if 
 force is to defeat the ballot ; if the war must come God 
 forbid that it should come but if it must come ; if folly, if 
 wickedness, if inordinate love of power shall decree that 
 America must save her Constitution by blood, let it come ; 
 I am ready." [Laughter.] 
 
 MR. HILL. Will the gentleman allow me one word? 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Not now. There will be plenty of time. 
 And then the gentleman said in another speech, May 12 : 
 
 "He impressed upon the colored men of the country the 
 truth that, if the folly and wickedness were consummated 
 in war, they would be the greatest sufferers. If peace was 
 preserved they were safe, but as sure as one war had freed 
 them, just as sure another war would re-enslave them." 
 
 Now that was precisely the kind of talk we had here by 
 folios and reams before the rebellion. Oh, yes ; you were 
 for war then. The gentleman in his speech says that the 
 Union now is an unmixed blessing, providing the Demo 
 cratic party can rule it ; but that if the Republican party 
 must rule it, he is for war. Why, that is just what Jefferson 
 Davis said in 1861. 
 
 I have here very much more of the same kind. I have 
 been supplied with very abundant literature emanating 
 from the gentleman, more, indeed, than I have had time 
 to read. He seems to have been as voluminous as the 
 Spanish Chroniclers. In one speech he says : 
 
 "I must say a word about this list of disabilities removed. 
 I would rather see my name recorded in the Georgia peni 
 tentiary than to find it on the list of removal of disabilities. 
 Why, my friends, do you not know that when you go to 
 that Congress and ask for a removal of disabilities you 
 admit that you are a traitor?" 
 
 MR. HILL. What do you read from? 
 
 MR. BLAINE. From a report in the Cincinnati Gazette, 
 giving an account of a great meeting in 1868, at which 
 Howell Cobb, Robert Toombs, and the Hon. B. H. Hill 
 made speeches. And there the gentleman declared that he 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 285 
 
 would rather have his name on the list of the Georgia peni 
 tentiary than on the list of the removals of disabilities. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to stir up more needless ill 
 blood, but the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Garfield) yester 
 day, apparently without much thought, spoke of a class of 
 men in the Southern States who had committed perjury, 
 and I would like to address the gentleman a question that 
 he can answer when he gets the floor. 
 
 MR. HILL. Will you not allow me to answer it now? 
 
 MR. BLAINE. No, sir ; not now. Suppose you inagu- 
 rate a great war if the Republican party retains power, and 
 you and all these gentlemen who sympathize with you up 
 on this floor, and who had taken an oath to bear true alle 
 giance to the Government of the United States, and that 
 you took that oath without mental reservation, then revolt 
 against the country ; what would that be ? Would it have 
 any relation to perjury? 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, you see the effect of the speeches of 
 the gentleman from Georgia. They are very tremendous 
 down there. The very earth quakes under him. One of 
 his organs says : 
 
 44 We assert without fear of contradiction that Mr. Hill 
 in his bitter denunciation of scallawags and carpet-baggers 
 has deterred thousands of them from entering the ranks of 
 the Radical party. They dare not do so for fear of social 
 ostracism, and to-day the white population of Georgia are 
 unanimous in favor of the Democratic party." 
 
 And when he can get the rest of the States to the same 
 standard he is for war. 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman cannot, by withhold 
 ing his speech here and revising it and adapting it to the 
 Northern Democracy, erase his speeches in Georgia. I 
 have quoted from them. I have quoted from Democratic 
 papers. There is no accusation that there is any perversion 
 in Republican papers or that he was misrepresented. But 
 the gentleman deliberately states that in a certain contin 
 gency of the Republican party having power he is for war ; 
 and I undertake here to say that, in all the mad, hot wrath 
 in the Thirty-sixth Congress that precipitated the revolt in 
 this country, there is not one speech to be found that 
 
286 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 breathes a more determined rebellion against lawful author 
 ity or a guiltier readiness to resist it than the speech of the 
 gentleman from Georgia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker : I have not much time left. I said briefly 
 in my first speech that God forbid I should lay at the door 
 of the Southern people, as a people, these atrocities. I 
 repeat it. I lay no such charge at their door. Sir, I have 
 read in this ii cx parte humbug report" that there were deep 
 movements among the Southern people about these atroci 
 ties ; that there was a profound sensibility. I know that 
 the leading officers of the Confederacy protested against 
 them ; I know that many of the subordinate officers pro 
 tested against them. I know that an honorable gentleman 
 from North Carolina, now representing his State in the 
 other end of the Capitol, protested against them. But i 
 have searched the records in vain to find that the gentleman 
 from Georgia (Mr. Hill) protested against them. They 
 were known to the Confederate Congress ; they were known 
 at the doorway of your Senate and along the corridors of 
 your Capitol. The honorable and venerable gentleman in 
 my eye ai this moment, who served in the Confederate 
 Congress, and who had before served in the Senate of the 
 United States, himself brought them to the attention of the 
 Confederate Congress, and I class him with great gladness 
 among those whose humanity was never quenched by the 
 tires of the rebellion. I allude to Hon. Henry S. Foote. 
 
 My time is running and I have very little left. I con 
 fess and I say it to the gentleman from Georgia, with no 
 personal unkindness I confess that my very blood boiled, 
 if there was anything of tradition, of memory, of feeling, it 
 boiled when I heard the gentleman, with his record, which I 
 have read, seconded and sustained by the gentleman from New 
 York, arraigning the administration of Abraham Lincoln, 
 throwing obloquy and slander upon the grave of Edwin M. 
 Stanton, and demanding that .Jetlerson Davis should be re 
 stored to full citizenship in this country. Ah ! That is a 
 novel spectacle ; the gentleman from Georgia does not know 
 how novel ; the gentleman from New York ought to know. 
 The gentleman from Georgia does not know and he cannot 
 know how many hundred thousands of Northern bosoms 
 were lacerated by his course. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 287 
 
 MR. HILL. I never said it, Mr. Elaine ; you are mis 
 taken. 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. Oh, no ; you accused the administration of 
 Mr. Lincoln with breaking the cartel and violating the 
 honor of the Government, and a thousand other tilings ; the 
 speech as published in the papers shows it. And as soon 
 as he made it the gentleman from New York run to him in 
 hot haste to congratulate him, sympathizing, I suppose, with 
 the assault. 
 
 Mr. HILL. Upon that subject I read nothing but pu^- 
 lished letters and documents y and of Northern origin at 
 that. 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. I repeat, that proposition strikes I might 
 say almost terror into Northern hearts ; that here, in an 
 American Congress, the gentleman who offered that resolu 
 tion in the Confederate Congress, who in his campaign for 
 a seat in this House comes here breathing threatenings and 
 slaughter, who comes here telling you that in a certain con 
 tingency he means war, advising his people to be ready for 
 it that gentleman, profaning the very altar of patriotic 
 liberty witli the speech that sends him here, arraigning the 
 Administration that conducted the war and saved the Union 
 that gentleman asks us to join with him in paying the 
 last full measure of honor that an American Congress can 
 pay to the arch enemy of the Union, the arch fiend of the 
 rebellion. 
 
 Suppose Jefferson Davis is not pardoned ; suppose he is 
 not amnestied. Oh ! you cannot have a centennial year 
 without that ! No man on this side has ever intimated that 
 Jefferson Davis should be refused pardon on account of any 
 political crimes ; it is too late for that ; it is because of a 
 personal crime. 
 
 If you ask that there may be harmonious and universal 
 rejoicing over every forgiven man, release all your crim 
 inals ; set free every man who has been sentenced for piracy 
 or for murder by your United States courts ; proclaim the 
 jubilee indeed. 
 
 MR. HEREFORD. And the whisky convicts ! 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Mr. Speaker, that reminds me of one 
 thing which in the haste and pressure of my hour I might 
 have forgotten. The gentleman from Georgia aimed to be 
 
288 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 very humorous about (Inn-nil Grant, and said that the logic 
 which I had presented the oilier day in regard to Jefferson 
 Davis made General Grant responsible for McDonald and 
 ,Jyce. The gentleman might have thought that he was 
 witty, but I could not see it. 
 
 MB. HILL. I know you could not. 
 
 MR. BLAIXE. It was not so witty as the remarks of the 
 gentleman from New York (Mr. Cox). It was more grim. 
 If Jefferson Davis, the moment the crimes of Andersonville 
 had been brought to his attention, had arraigned the offend 
 ers with all competent authority, and had issued an order 
 that "no guilty man should escape," there would be some 
 little consistency in the gentleman s position. It was there 
 fore ill-conceived levity, and in very bad taste, for the gen 
 tleman to introduce General Grant s name in that connec 
 tion. 
 
 But I am authorized, if the gentleman desires it not au 
 thorized especially to mention it here, but I mention it on 
 the authority of General Grant, whom the gentleman from 
 Georgia impugned in connection with the exchanged pris 
 oners 
 
 MR. HILL. No, sir. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. To say that one thing touching the ex 
 change of prisoners was that the Davis government observed 
 no honor in regard to it ; and General Grant states that the 
 brigade of Carter L. Stephenson, that was dislodged at 
 Chattanooga, was made up of paroled prisoners from Vick>- 
 burg, and that Stephenson himself was one of them. He 
 states that the paroled prisoners of one day in front of his 
 line were taken the next. But in stating this he was care 
 ful to say that, as to Lee and the two Johnstons and IVm- 
 berton, and the other leading Confederate generals, their 
 word was honor itself; but that for the Davis executive gov 
 ernment there was no honor in it none whatever. The 
 gentleman has got enough of General Grant by this time, I 
 hope. 
 
 Now in regard to the relative number of prisoners that 
 died in the North and the South respectively, the gentleman 
 undertook to show that a great many more prisoners died 
 in the hands of the Union authorities than in the hands of 
 the rebels. I have had conversations with surgeons of the 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 289 
 
 army about that, and they say that there were a large num 
 ber of deaths of rebel prisoners, but that during the latter 
 period of the war they came into our hands very much ex 
 hausted, ill-clad, ill-ted, diseased so that they died in our 
 prisons of diseases that they brought with them. And one 
 eminent surgeon said, without wishing at all to be quoted 
 in this debate, that the question was not only what was the 
 condition of the prisoners when they came to us, but what 
 it was when they were sent back. Our men were taken in 
 full health and strength ; they came back wasted and worn 
 mere skeletons. The rebel prisoners, in large numbers, 
 were, when taken, emaciated and reduced ; and General 
 Grant says that at the time such superhuman efforts were 
 made for exchange there were 90,000 men that would have 
 re-enforced your armies the next day, prisoners in our hands, 
 who were in good health and ready for fight. This con 
 sideration sheds a great deal of light on what the gentleman 
 said. 
 
 The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hurlbut) puts a let 
 ter into my hands. I read it without really knowing what 
 it may show : 
 
 CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, 
 
 WAR DEPARTMENT, 
 Richmond, Virginia, March 21, 1863. 
 MY DEAR SIR : If the exigences of our army require the 
 use of trains for the transportation of corn, pay no regard to 
 the Yankee prisoners. I would rather that they should 
 starve than our own people suffer. 
 
 I suppose I can safely put it in writing: "Let them 
 suffer." The words are memorable, and it is fortunate that 
 in this case they can be applied properly and without the in 
 tervention of a lying quartermaster. 
 
 Very truly your faithful friend, 
 
 ROBERT OULD. 
 COLONEL A. C. MYERS. 
 
 That is a good piece of literature in this connection. Mr. 
 Ould, I believe, was the rebel commissioner to exchange. 
 When the gentleman from Georgia next takes the floor I 
 want him to state what excuse there was for ordering the 
 
290 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Florida artillery, in case General Sherman s army got with* 
 in seven miles of Andersonville, to fire on that stockade. 
 r MR. HILL. That was just to keep your army from com 
 ing. That is all. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Upon this point letters have flowed in up 
 on me letters which without pretending to any extra 
 ordinary tenderness, I say in this presence I could not read 
 without unbecoming emotion. 
 
 MR. HILL. Will the gentleman allow me to say 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I have a letter which states that at Ander 
 sonville they had stakes put up with flags in order that the 
 line of fire might be properly directed from the battery of 
 Florida artillery. 
 
 MR. HILL. Oh, that is not so. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. There is that order. 
 
 MR. HILL. That is said to be a forgery. I do not know 
 whether it is genuine or not. You have the records ; we 
 have not; you will not let us see them. You merely say 
 what they are. Let us see the whole of them. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Let us take one single case. I suppose 
 the gentleman would deny that they ever used bloodhounds 
 at Andersonville. 
 
 MR. HILL. Oh, no ; though I do not myself know the 
 fact. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. Did the gentleman ever hear of Colonel 
 James H. Fannin, of the first Georgia reserves, who was 
 on duty at Andersonville ? 
 
 MR. HILL. Oh, yes. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. He says "that Surgeon Turner, the owner 
 of the dogs, belonged to the first regiment of reserves of my 
 company." Then he goes on to tell how the dogs were ob 
 tained and how used ; and here is one of the returns made 
 by Wirz : 
 
 Twenty-five more men escaped during the month, but 
 they were taken by the dogs before the daily returns were 
 made out." 
 
 The gentleman is a very able lawyer 
 
 MR. JONES of Kentucky. Has not the time of the gen 
 tleman from Maine expired? 
 
 TUP: SPKAKER, pro tempore (Mr. Hoskins in the chair). 
 The time of the gentleman from Maine has not expired. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 291 
 
 MR. HANCOCK. He commenced ten minutes before one 
 o clock. 
 
 MR. JONES of Kentucky. I ask that the fifty-seventh 
 rule of the House be read. I should like to have it read, 
 because the gentleman from Maine is constantly violating 
 the rules of this House. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. In what respect? 
 
 THE SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ken 
 tucky is out of order. 
 
 MR. JONES of Kentucky. I rise to a point of order. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. I hope it will not be taken out of my 
 time. 
 
 THE SPEAKER pro tempore. The Speaker of the House 
 set the dial exactly at the time the gentleman from Maine 
 commenced his speech, showing exactly when his hour will 
 expire, and the present occupant of the chair when that 
 time is reached, will notify the House. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. How much time have I left? 
 
 THE SPEAKER pro tempore. About two minutes. 
 
 MR. BLAINE. The gentleman is inconsistent. I should 
 like to get him to admit something. He does not deny 
 that bloodhounds were used at Anderson ville. 
 
 Mr. HILL. I understood they were I do not know, farm 
 dogs, not bloodhounds. 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. Here are four or five Georgia witnesses. 
 I conclude in the two minutes left me by saying that in all 
 the evidence I have adduced I have never asked to bring 
 one piece of Union testimony ; the whole of it is from Con 
 federate prisoners. 
 
 Why, Mr. Speaker, the Administration of Martin Van 
 Buren, that went down in a popular convulsion in 1840, had 
 no little of obloquy thrown upon it because it had ventured 
 to hunt the Seminoles in the swamps of Florida with blood 
 hounds. 
 
 A MEMBER. No bloodhounds there. 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. Blood-thirsty dogs were sent after the 
 hiding savages, and the civilization of the nineteenth cen 
 tury and the Christian feeling of the American people 
 revolted at it. And I state here , and the gentleman from 
 Georgia (Mr. Hill) cannot deny it, that upon the testimony 
 of witnesses as numerous as would require me all day to 
 
292 THE LIFE AND PUULIC SERVICES 
 
 read, bloodhounds were used ; that large packs of them 
 were kept, and Georgia officers commanded them ; that they 
 were sent after the poor unfortunate, shrinking men who by 
 any accident could get out of that horrible stockade. I state. 
 Sir, that the civilization of the world stands aghast at what 
 was done at Andersonville. And the man who did that 
 was sustained by Jefferson Davis, and promoted. Yet the 
 gentleman says that was analogous of General Grant sending 
 McDonald to the penitentiary. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, in view of all these facts I have only to 
 say that if the American Congress, by a two-thirds vote, 
 shall pronounce Jefferson Davis worthy to be restored to 
 the full rights of American citizenship, 1 can only vote 
 against it and hang my head in silence and regret it. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 The amnesty was not granted, and Blaine and Garfield 
 were most sincerely hated by their Democratic opponents. 
 Blaine became the target for every kind of political and par 
 tisan weapon. His opponents in debate, so often defeated, 
 became bitter and dangerous private enemies. 
 
 They sought in every channel for some excuse for assail 
 ing his private character. They scrutinized with malignant 
 intentions every act of his life from boyhood. They sought 
 for everything he had said and tried to wrench it into their 
 service. As the day drew near when it seemed apparent 
 that Blaine would be nominated as the candidate of his 
 party for President, their activity and malice increased in 
 an astonishing ratio. Their anxiety to find something 
 against him was so great that it was a practical bribe to 
 any one who could furnish or manufacture evidence against 
 him. At such a time irresponsible men could be found to 
 set afloat rumors and to magnify or misrepresent them after 
 they were started. 
 
 The Democrats desired in some way to cast a cloud over 
 his reputation by some charge which should be under inves- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 293 
 
 tigation when the Republican Convention should meet and 
 thus satisfy their spite and defeat the nomination of their 
 most popular opponent. It became known that Elaine 
 had invested some money in railroad bonds. This was true 
 and the money was saved from his earnings by great econ 
 omy and care. It was an investment any man had the 
 right to make, but in which Elaine had the misfortune to 
 be a considerable loser. 
 
 But his Democratic opponents seized upon this fact and 
 set afloat many damaging rumors and began to talk of an 
 investigation, when Elaine most shrewdly defeated their 
 scheme by meeting the matter openly in the House of Rep 
 resentatives, April 24th, 1876. According to the Congres 
 sional Record these were his remarks and they explain 
 themselves : 
 
 MR. ELAINE. Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the House 
 so kindly granted, I shall proceed to submit certain facts 
 and correct certain errors personal to myself. The dates of 
 the correspondence embraced in my statement will show 
 that it was impossible for me to make it earlier. I shall 
 be as brief as the circumstances will permit. For some 
 months past a charge against me has been circulating in 
 private and was recently made public designing to show 
 that I had in some indirect manner received the large sum 
 of $64,000 from the Union Pacific Railroad Company in 
 1871 for what services or for what purpose has never 
 been stated. The alleged proof of this serious accusation 
 was based, according to the original story, upon the author 
 ity of E. H. Rollins, treasurer of the Union Pacific Com 
 pany^ who it was averred had full knowledge that I got the 
 money, and also upon the authority of Morton, Eliss & 
 Co., bankers of New York, through whom the draft for 
 $64,000 was said to have been negotiated for my benefit as 
 they confidentially knew. Hearing of this charge some 
 weeks in advance of its publication, I procured the follow 
 ing statements from the two principal witnesses who were 
 quoted as having such definite knowledge against me : 
 
294 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 I MON PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, 
 
 Boston, March 31, 1876. 
 
 DEAR SIR : In response to your inquiry, I beg leave to 
 state that I have been treasurer of the Union Pacific Rail 
 road Company since April 8, 1871, and have necessarily 
 known of all disbursements made since that date. During 
 that entire period, up to the present time, I am sure that no 
 money has been paid in any way or to any person by the 
 company in which you were interested in any manner what 
 ever. 
 
 I make this statement in justice to the company, to yon, 
 and to myself. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, E. H. ROLLINS. 
 
 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 
 
 NEW YORK, April 6, 1876. 
 
 DEAR SIR : In answer to your inquiry, we beg to say 
 that no draft, note, or check, or other evidence of value, 
 has ever passed through our books in which you were known 
 or supposed to have any interest of any kind, direct or in 
 direct. 
 
 We remain, very respectfully, your obedient servants, 
 MORTON, BLISS & CO. 
 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Some persons on reading the letter of Morton, Bliss & 
 Co., said that its denial seemed to be confined to any pay 
 ment that had passed through their "books," whereas they 
 might have paid a draft in which I was interested and yet 
 no entry of it made on their "books." On this criticism 
 being made know.n to the firm, they at once addressed me 
 the following letter : 
 
 Xi.w YnuK, April 13, 1876. 
 
 DEAR SIR: It has been suggested to us that our letter 
 of the Gth instant was not sufficiently inclusive or exclusive. 
 In that letter we stated "that no draft, note, or check, or 
 other evidence of value has ever passed through our hooks 
 in which you were known or supposed to have any interest, 
 direct or indirect." It may be proper for us to add that 
 nothing has been paid by us, in any form or at any time. t<> 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 295 
 
 any person or any corporation, in which you were known, 
 believed, or supposed to have any interest whatever. 
 We remain, very respectfully, your obedient servants, 
 MORTON, BLISS & CO 
 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE, Washington, D. C. 
 
 The two witnesses quoted for the original charge having 
 thus effectually disposed of it, the charge itself re-appeared 
 in another form to this effect, namely : That a certain draft 
 was negotiated at the house of Morton, Bliss & Co., in 
 1871, through Thomas A. Scott, then President of the Union 
 Pacific Railroad Company, for the sum of $64,000, and that 
 $75,000 of the bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith 
 Railroad Company were pledged as collateral ; that the 
 Union Pacific Company paid the draft and took up the col 
 lateral ; that the cash proceeds of it went to me, and that I 
 had furnished, or sold, or in some way conveyed or trans 
 ferred to Thomas A. Scott these Little Rock and Fort Smith 
 bonds which had been used as collateral ; that the bonds in 
 reality had belonged to me or some friend or constituent of 
 mine for whom I was acting. I endeavor to state the charge 
 in its boldest form and in all its phases. 
 
 I desire here and now to declare that all and every part 
 of this story that connects my name with it is absolutely 
 untrue, without one particle of foundation in fact and with 
 out a tittle of evidence to substantiate it. I never had any 
 transaction of any kind with Thomas A. Scott concerning 
 bonds of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Road or the bonds 
 of any other railroad, or any business in any way 
 connected with railroads, directly or indirectly, immediately 
 or remotely. I never had any business transaction what 
 ever with the Union Pacific Railroad Company or any of 
 its officers or agents or representatives, and never in any 
 manner received from that company, directly or indirectly, 
 a single dollar in money, or stocks, or bonds, or any other 
 form of value. And as to the particular transaction referred 
 to, I never so much as heard of it until nearly two years 
 after its alleged occurrence, when it was talked of at the 
 time of the Cre&t^JlQhilier investigation in 1873. But, 
 while my denial ought to be conclusive, I should greatly 
 regret to be compelled to leave the matter there. I am 
 
296 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 fortunately able to sustain my own declaration by the most 
 conclusive evidence that tin- case admits of, or that human 
 testimony can supply. If any person or persons know the 
 truth or falsity of these charges it must he the otlin-rs of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad Company. J accordingly addressed 
 a note to the president of that company, a gentleman who 
 has been a director of the company from its organization I 
 believe, and who has a more thorough acquaintance with its 
 business transactions probably than any other man. The 
 correspondence which I here submit will explain itself and 
 leaves nothing to be said. 1 will read the letters in their 
 proper order. They need no comment : 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., April 13,1876. 
 DEAR SIR : You have doubtless observed the scandal 
 now in circulation in regard to my having been interested 
 in certain bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Road, 
 alleged to have been purchased by your company in 1871 . 
 
 It is due to me, I think, that some statement in regard to 
 the subject should be made by yourself as the official head 
 of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 J. G. BLAINK. 
 SIDNEY DILLON, Esq., 
 
 President Union Pacific Railroad Company. 
 
 OFFICE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY. 
 
 NEW YnnK. April 15, 1876. 
 
 DEAR SIR : I have your favor of the 13th instant, and 
 in reply desire to say that I have this day written Colonel 
 Thomas A. Scott, who was president of the Union Pacific 
 Railroad Company at the time of the transaction referred to, 
 a letter of which I send a copv herewith. On receipt of 
 his reply I will enclose it to you. 
 Very respect full v. 
 
 SIDNEY DILLON, President 
 HON. JAM us (i. Hi. AIM:, 
 
 Washington, D- C. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 297 
 
 OFFICE OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, 
 
 New York, April 15, 1876. 
 
 DEAR SIR : The press of the country are making alle 
 gations that certain bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith 
 Railroad, purchased by the Union Pacific Railroad Com 
 pany in 1871, were obtained from Hon. James G. Blaine 
 of Maine, or that the avails in some form went to his bene 
 fit, and that the knowledge of these facts rests with the offi 
 cers of the company and with yourself. 
 
 These statements are injurious both to Mr. Blaine and to 
 the Union Pacific Railroad Company. There were never 
 any facts to warrant them, and I think that a statement to 
 the public is due both from you and myself. I desire, as 
 president of the company, to repel any such inference in the 
 most emphatic manner, and would be glad to hear from you 
 on the subject. 
 
 Very respectfully, SIDNEY DILLON, Pres. 
 
 COL. THOMAS A. SCOTT, 
 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
 
 OFFICE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, 
 
 New York, April 22, 1876. 
 
 DEAR SIR : As I advised you some days ago, I wrote 
 Colonel Thomas A. Scott, and beg leave to inclose you his 
 reply. 
 
 I desire further to say that I was a director of the com 
 pany and a member of the executive committee in 1871, 
 and to add my testimony to that of Colonel Scott^s, in veri 
 fication of all that he has stated in the enclosed letter. 
 Truly yours, 
 
 SIDNEY DILLON, President. 
 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, April 21, 1876. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR : I have your letter, under date New York, 
 April 15, 1876, stating that the press of the country are 
 making allegations that certain bonds of the Little Rock 
 and Fort Smith Railroad, purchased by the Union Pacific 
 
298 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Railroad Company in 1871, were obtained from Hon. J. G. 
 Elaine of Maine, or that the avails in some form went to 
 his benefit ; that there never were any facts to warrant them ; 
 that it is your desire as president of the company to repel 
 any such inference in the most emphatic manner ; and ask 
 ing me to make a statement in regard to the matter. 
 
 In reply, I beg leave to say that, much as I dislike the 
 idea of entering into any of the controversies that are be 
 fore the public in these days of scandal, from which but 
 few men in public life seem to be exempt, I feel it my duty 
 to state : 
 
 That the Little Rock and Fort Smith bonds purchased by 
 tin- Union Pacific Railroad Company in 1871, were not pur 
 chased or received from Mr. Blame, directly or indirectly, 
 and that of the money paid by the Union Pacific Railroad 
 Company, or of the avails of said bonds, not one dollar 
 went to Mr. Blaine, or to any person for him, or for his 
 benefit in any form. 
 
 All statements to the effect that Mr. Blaine ever had any 
 transaction with me directly or indirectly involving money 
 or valuables of any kind, are absolutely without foundation 
 in fact. 
 
 I take pleasure in making this statement to you, and you 
 may use it in any manner you deem best for the interest of 
 the Union Pacific Railroad Company. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 THOMAS A. SCOTT. 
 
 SIDNEY DILLON, ESQ., 
 
 President Union Pacific Railroad Company, New York. 
 
 And this closes the testimony I have wished to offer. 
 
 Several newspapers some of them, doubtless, from 
 friendly motives have urged that I should ask for a com 
 mittee to investigate these charges. I might have done that 
 and awaited the delay and slow progress that inevitably at 
 tend all congressional investigations. Three and a half 
 years ago I moved a committee to investigate the Credit 
 Mohilier charges, and though every particle of proof, in com 
 plete exculpation of myself, was before the committee in 
 thirty-six hours after its first meeting, I was compelled to 
 wait for more than two months, indeed seventy full days, 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 299 
 
 before I got a public report exonerating and vindicating me 
 from the charges. If I had asked for a committee to inves 
 tigate the pending matter, I should have been compelled to 
 wait its necessarily slow action with the charge all the while 
 hanging over me, undenied and unanswered ; and, pending 
 the proceedings of an investigation which I had myself 
 asked, propriety would have forbidden my collecting and 
 publishing the decisive proofs which I have now submitted. 
 For these reasons I have deemed that the shortest and most 
 expeditious mode of vindication was the one which I was 
 bound to choose by every consideration of myself personally 
 and of my official relations. I have not omitted the tes 
 timony of a single material witness to the transaction on 
 which the accusation against me is based, and unless I mis 
 apprehend the scope and force of the testimony it leaves no 
 charge against me. In any and all events, I am ready to 
 submit the whole matter to the candid judgment of the 
 JJpuse and the country, and, if the House thinks the matter 
 should be further inquired into, I beg to express my entire 
 readiness to give all the assistance in my power to make the 
 investigation as thorough, as rigid, and as impartial as pos 
 sible. 
 
 To give a seeming corroboration or foundation to the 
 story which I have disproved, the absurd rumor has lately 
 appeared in certain newspapers that I was the owner of 
 from $150,000 to $250,000 of the Little Rock and Fort 
 Smith Railroad bonds, which I received without consider 
 ation, and that it was from these bonds that Thomas A. 
 Scott received his $75,000. The statement is gratuitously 
 and utterly false. No responsible author appears anywhere 
 for this unfounded story, but in dismissing it I desire to make 
 the following explicit statement : More than twenty-three 
 years ago, in the closing days of Mr. Fillmore s adminis 
 tration, the Government granted to the State of Arkansas 
 some public lands within its own limits to be applied to the 
 construction of railroads in that State. The Legislature of 
 Arkansas incorporated the Little Rock and Fort Smith 
 Railroad Company the same year, and gave to the company 
 a portion of the lands it had received from the General 
 Government to aid in the construction of the road about 
 five thousand acres to the mile, I think. But the company 
 
300 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 were unable to raise any money for the enterprise, though 
 they made the most strenuous efforts, and when tin- war 
 broke out in 1861 eight years after the State had given the 
 lands to the company not a mile of the road was built. 
 Of course nothing was done during the war. 
 
 After the war all the grants of land previously made to 
 the Southern States were renewed in gross in the ses 
 sion of 1865- 66. The Little Rock and Fort Smith Com 
 pany again received a grant from the State and again tried 
 to raise money to build their road ; but 1865, 1866, and 
 1867 passed without their getting a dollar. Finally toward 
 the close of 1868 a company of Boston gentlemen, repre 
 senting considerable capital, undertook its construction. In 
 raising the requisite means they placed the bonds of the 
 road on the New England market in the summer of 1869, 
 offering them on terms which seemed very favorable to the 
 purchaser, and offering them at a time when investments of 
 this kind were fatally popular. In common with hundreds 
 of other people in New England and other parts of the 
 country, I bought some of these bonds not a very large 
 amount paying i or them at precisely the same rate that 
 others paid. I never heard and do not believe that the Little 
 Rock Company which I know is controlled by highly hon 
 orable men ever parted with a bond to any person except 
 at the regular price fixed for their sale. The enterprise, 
 though apparently very promising, proved unsuccessful, as 
 so many similar projects did about the same time. I lost a 
 considerable sum of money (over $20,000) by my invest 
 ment, and I presume New England made a net loss of 
 $2,000,000 in completing that road for Arkansas, as she 
 has lost over one hundred millions by similar ventures West 
 and South, within the last twelve years. In addition to 
 my investment in the bonds, I united with others in raising 
 some money for the company when it met its first financial 
 troubles. Proceedings are now pending in the United 
 States circuit court in Arkansas, to which I am a party of 
 record, for the reimbursement of the money so advanced. 
 All the bonds which I ever purchased I continued to hold ; 
 and when the company was reorganized, in 1874, 1 ex 
 changed them for stock and bonds in the new concern, 
 which I still own. My whole connection with the road ha> 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 301 
 
 been open as the day. If there had been anything to con 
 ceal about it I should never have touched it. Wherever 
 concealment is desirable avoidance is advisable, and I do 
 not know any better test to apply to the honor and fairness 
 of a business transaction. 
 
 As to the question of propriety involved in a member of 
 Congress holding an investment of this kind, it must be re 
 membered that the lands were granted to the State of 
 Arkansas, and not to the railroad company, and that the 
 company derived its life, franchise, and value wholly from 
 the State. And to the State the company is amenable and 
 answerable, and not in any sense to Congress. Since I 
 purchased the bonds but one act of Congress has passed in 
 any way touching the subject, and that was merely to rec 
 tify a previous mistake in legislation. I take it when any 
 security from Government bonds to town scrip is offered at 
 public sale to any one who can pay for it, every American 
 citizen is free to buy. If you exclude a Representative 
 from the investment on the ground that in some secondary 
 or remote way the legislation of Congress has affected or 
 may affect the value of the article, then you exclude every 
 man on this floor, not only from holding a Government bond 
 or a share in a national bank, but also from owning a 
 flock of sheep, or a field of hemp, or a tobacco plantation, or 
 a cotton mill, or an iron-furnace ; for all these interests are 
 vitally affected by the tariff legislation on which we vote at 
 every session and of which an important measure is even 
 now pending in the Committee of the Whole. In the seven 
 intervening years since the Little Rock and Fort Smith 
 bonds were placed on the market, I know few investments 
 that have not been more affected by the legislation of Con 
 gress. But this case does not require to be shielded by any 
 such comparisons or citations, for I repeat that the Little 
 Rock road derived all it had from the State of Arkansas, 
 and not from Congress. It was in the discretion of Con 
 gress to give or withhold from the State, but it was solely 
 in the discretion of the State to give or withhold from the 
 Little Rock Railroad Company. 
 
 When the Little Rock road fell into the financial troubles 
 of which I have spoken, there were certain interests con 
 nected with it that were under peculiarly pressing embar- 
 
302 THE LIFE AND TUTU/IC SERVICES 
 
 rassment and that needed relief. There had been at, 
 different times very considerable talk about inducing the 
 Atlantic and Pacific road which on its southern branch was 
 to be a connecting line east and west with the Little Rock 
 and Fort Smith, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas road, 
 which would be a connecting line both North and South at 
 the point of junction to aid the Little Rock and Fort Smith 
 enterprise by taking some of its securities, a practice very 
 common among connecting roads. To both these roads the 
 completion of the Little Rock road was of very great 
 importance. Accordingly, in the spring of 1871, when only 
 one coupon had been passed by the Little Rock Company 
 on one series of its bonds and none passed on the other, 
 and when there was sanguine hope of getting the enterprise 
 on its feet again, the Atlantic and Pacific Company took 
 one hundred thousand of its bonds and one hundred thousand 
 of its stock for the gross sum of $79,000 ; and the Missouri, 
 Kansas and Texas, if I remember correctly, took half the 
 amount at the same rate. This was done not for the corpo 
 ration itself, but for an interest largely engaged in the con 
 struction of the road. With the circumstances attending 
 the negotiation with the Atlantic and Pacific road I was 
 entirely familiar, and with several of its officers I have long 
 been well acquainted. I also knew all about the negotiation 
 with the Missouri, Kansas and Texas road, though I never 
 to my knowledge saw any of its officers and never had 
 an interview with any of them on any subject. But in 
 the case of both roads I desire to say that the bonds sold to 
 them did not belong to me, nor did I have one dollar s 
 pecuniary interest in the whole transaction with either com 
 pany. 
 
 The infamous insinuation made in certain quarters that I 
 engaged to use my influence in Congress for the Atlantic 
 and Pacific road and also for the Missouri, Kansas and 
 Texas in consideration of their purchasing these securities, 
 hardly merits notice. The officers and directors of both 
 companies, so far as I have known the one and heard of the 
 other, are high-minded, honorable gentlemen, and they would 
 have justly spurned me from their presence had I been will 
 ing to submit an offer so dishonorable and mutually degrad 
 ing. I had no pecuniary stake in the negotiation and I 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 303 
 
 should have loved infamy for infamy s sake, had I bartered 
 my personal and official honor in the transaction. And I am 
 sure that every man connected with either company would 
 repel the dishonoring suggestion as warmly as I do myself. 
 The whole affair had no more connection with congressional 
 legislation than any one of the ten thousand similar trans 
 actions that are constantly occurring in the business world. 
 
 Of a like character with the insinuation just answered is 
 that which, in an irresponsible and anonymous way, at 
 tempts to connect the ownership of Little Rock and Fort 
 Smith bonds with the legislation of last winter respecting 
 the State government of Arkansas. There are some accu 
 sations which it is difficult to repel with sufficient force be 
 cause of their mixture of absurdity, depravity, and false 
 hood. I never heard this stupid slander until within a few 
 days, and I venture to say there is not a responsible man in 
 the country of the slightest sense who can discern the re 
 motest connection between the two things that are alleged to 
 have an intimate and infamous relation. 
 
 Let me now, Mr. Speaker, briefly summarize what I 
 have presented. 
 
 First, that the story of my receiving $04,000 or any other 
 sum of money or other thing of value from the Union Pacific 
 Railroad Company, directly or indirectly, or in any form, 
 for myself or for another, is absolutely disproved by the 
 most conclusive testimony. 
 
 Second, that no bond of mine was ever sold to the At 
 lantic and Pacific or the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Rail 
 road Company, and that not a single dollar of money from 
 either of those companies ever went to my profit or benefit. 
 
 Third, that instead of receiving bonds of the Little Rock 
 and Fort Smith road as a gratuity, I never had one except 
 at the regular market price, and that instead of making a 
 large fortune out of that company, I have incurred a severe 
 pecuniary loss from my investment in its securities which I 
 still retain. And out of such affairs as this grows the pop 
 ular gossip of large fortunes amassed in Congress ! 
 
 I can hardly expect, Mr. Speaker, that any statement 
 from me will stop the work of those who have so industri 
 ously circulated these calumnies. For months past the 
 effort has been energetic and continuous to spread these 
 
304 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 stories in private circles. Emissaries of slander have vis* 
 ited the editorial-rooms of leading Republican papers from 
 Boston to Omaha, and whispered of revelations to come that 
 were too terrible even to be spoken in loud tones. And at 
 last the revelations have been made ! 
 
 I am no\\yMr. Speaker, in the fourteenth year of a not 
 inactive service in this Hall. I have taken and have given 
 blows. I have, no doubt, said many tilings in the heat of 
 debate which I would now gladly recall. I have, no doubt, 
 given votes which in fuller light I would gladly change. 
 But I have never done anything in my public career fur 
 which I could be put to the faintest blush in any presence, 
 or for which I cannot answer to my constituents, my con 
 science, and the great Searcher of hearts. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 307 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Approach of the Convention of 1876. Activity of Blaine s Ene 
 mies. Rumors of Bribery. Elaine Meets Them in Open 
 Session. Obtaining the Mulligan Letters. Meeting of the 
 Convention. Ingersoll s Speech. The "Plumed Knight." 
 The Vote. Blaine s Letter to Hayes. The Campaign. 
 Blaine s Appointment to the Senate. His Reception by the 
 People. Re-election to the Senate. 
 
 As the 14th of June drew nearer and Blaine s nomination 
 seemed more and more certain, his Democratic opponents 
 increased their efforts to have the Republican Convention 
 reject him. In no corner of his life could there be found 
 a cause of serious criticism unless it be in his Divestment in 
 railroad bonds. On that matter it appears that none seri 
 ously believed that they should find any wrong. But should 
 they succeed in getting him under investigation and keep 
 the investigation open until after the Republican Convention, 
 the Democrats hoped to prevent in that way the taking of 
 their strongest man by the Republicans, as a candidate 
 for the Presidency. 
 
 Shrewdly endeavoring to cover their scheme, a resolution 
 was offered and passed to investigate the affairs of the 
 Pacific railroad and it was so worded as to allow the com 
 mittee of investigation a wide scope in their inquiries. 
 
 As soon as it was passed the exultant originators of the 
 scheme talked openly of the intention under cover of that 
 resolution to investigate Blaine s business transactions in 
 railroad bonds. 
 
308 THE LIFE AND PU ILIC SERVICES 
 
 The purpose was then too clear to be mistaken as it was 
 then near the first of June and the Republican Convention 
 met on Hie fourteenth of that month. If the committee, on 
 which were a majority of Democrats, were allowed to keep 
 control of the matter the cloud would hang over Blai tie s 
 reputation and suspicions be allowed to arise which would 
 be likely to defeat him. That such was their purpose be 
 came fully apparent when a despatch from London exoner 
 ating Blaine from the half-hinted charges against him was 
 suppressed, being shown by Proctor Knott, the chairman 
 of the committee, to one or two Democratic friends. Some 
 of these Democrats were too honorable men to conceal it, 
 and it reached Blame s ears. He did not hesitate a moment 
 after that. He was bold and innocent. He determined if 
 possible to set the whole matter before the country openly 
 where all could read and judge for themselves. 
 
 Among other things which they pretended was against 
 his good name was his purchase of some bonds of the 
 Arkansas and Little Rock railroad after Congress had legis 
 lated concerning it. No one claimed that he had any inter 
 est or knew of the road when the matter came up in Con 
 gress. The committee summoned a man named Mulligan 
 from Boston who in some way had obtained possession of 
 Blaine s private correspondence with one of his friends con 
 cerning the investments in railroad stock. Blaine discov 
 ered this, and, to defeat the damaging surmises which the 
 Democrats kept in circulation concerning this correspon 
 dence, he went to Mulligan and after considerable entreaty, 
 obtained the whole correspondence. Blaine then, on the 
 fifth of June, went into the House and making it a question 
 of personal privilege read the whole of the letters boldly and 
 had them printed in the record of the House proeee<linii>. 
 
 It was an unusual and a daring measure. Few men 
 would have had the courage to vindicate themselves in that 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 309 
 
 way. The correspondence showed no dealings in any bonds 
 but those of the Arkansas and Little Rock railroad which 
 he purchased as any other buyer would and on which he 
 must have lost $15,000 or $20,000. The suspicions given 
 out beforehand were that he was bribed by gifts of bonds to 
 do something for the road as a member of Congress. But 
 no trace of any such action appeared. Yet his open and 
 complete vindication of himself and the perfectly apparent 
 motive of the opposition in suggesting the investigation and 
 suppressing evidence in his favor, did not prevent some 
 lovers of gossip and some morbidly suspicious people from 
 misconstruing and doubting still. 
 
 How much this accusation had to do with the defeat 
 which followed in the convention cannot be seen. That 
 it had some effect on a few timid ones who believed Elaine 
 thoroughly honest, but "feared the talk," there is not much 
 doubt. Fortunately for the nation they who could stab an 
 individual reputation in the dark could not succeed in kill 
 ing the party to which he belonged. 
 
 June 14th, 1876, the Republican Convention met in Cin 
 cinnati. The excitement was great. But Blaine was the 
 leading candidate. Hon. Theodore M. Fomeroy of New 
 York was temporary chairman and Hon. Edward McPher- 
 son of Pennsylvania was permanent chairman. 
 
 The great city of Cincinnati was filled with excited poli 
 ticians, all discussing, criticising, or wildly lauding the 
 various candidates. In all the cities and large towns of the 
 country, crowds stood in front of newspaper offices and 
 telegraph stations with excited anxiety. The great Con 
 vention awaited with an intensity of emotion that none but 
 those who were there could realize to be true. When the 
 time came to bring Blaine s name before that body, a silence 
 deep and oppressive, followed the din and uproar of the 
 previous hour. But when Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, of 
 
 * 
 
310 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Illinois, ascended the platform as the advocate for the friends 
 of Elaine, the enthusiasm was displayed in wild and alm<>>t 
 frantic shouts and signals. Col. Ingersoll was inspired by 
 the occasion, by the audience before him, and his friendship 
 for the man for whose nomination he arose. His speech 
 was a remarkable specimen of modern oratory, and was the 
 origin of the sobriquet of "The Plumed Knight," which 
 has since adhered to Elaine s name. 
 
 Colonel Ingersoll in his speech, said : 
 
 "Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous 
 achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of 
 the past and prophetic of her future ; asks for a man who 
 has the audacity of genius ; asks for a man who is the 
 grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain be 
 neath the flag. That man is James G. Elaine. For the 
 Republican host led by this intrepid man there can be no 
 such thing as defeat. This is a grand year a year filled 
 witli the recollection of the Revolution ; filled with proud 
 and tender memories of the sacred past ; filled with the 
 legends of liberty a year in which the sons of freedom will 
 drink from the fountain 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 we call for 
 the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue 
 of slander ; a man that has snatched the mask of Democracy 
 from the hideous face of Rebellion ; a man who, like an 
 intellectual athlete, stood in the arena of debate, challenged 
 all comers, and who up to the present moment is a total 
 stranger to defeat. Like an armed warrior, like a plumed 
 knight, James G. Elaine marched down the halls of the 
 American Congress and threw his shining lance full and 
 fair against the brazen forehead of every defamer of this 
 country and maligner of its honor. 
 
 For the Republican party to desert that gallant man now 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 311 
 
 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 Republic. I 
 call it sacred, because no human being can stand beneath 
 its folds without becoming and without remaining free. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Convention, in the name of the Great 
 Republic, the only Republic that ever existed upon this 
 earth ; in the name of all her defenders and of all her sup 
 porters ; in the name of all her soldiers living ; in the name 
 of all her soldiers that have died upon the field of battle, and 
 in the name of those that perished in the skeleton clutches of 
 famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose suffering he so 
 eloquently remembers, Illinois nominates for the next Presi 
 dent of this country that prince of parliamentarians, that 
 leader of leaders, James G. Blaine." 
 
 Applause that deafened and excitement which almost 
 overcame many followed this eloquent tribute. None felt 
 it was overdrawn and none of his opponents hinted that its 
 statements were untrue. 
 
 On the first ballot Blaine had two hundred and eighty- 
 five votes, Bristow one hundred and thirteen votes, Conk- 
 ling ninety-nine votes, Morton one hundred and twenty- 
 four votes and Hayes sixty-one votes. The Hon. Roscoe 
 Conkling, ever after his famous tournament with Blaine 
 in the House, seemed determined to do all he could consis 
 tently with his allegience to his party to defeat Blaine and 
 his friends. This feeling appeared again on this occasion. 
 Conkling s friends united with those of Morton to defeat 
 Blaine and the result was the nomination of R. B. Hayes 
 on the seventh ballot. The vote stood on the last ballot, 
 Blaine three hundred and fifty-one, Hayes three hundred and 
 eighty-four, and Bristow twenty-one. 
 
 There was a feeling of disappointment throughout the 
 country at the defeat of Blaine and for a time great fear was 
 
312 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 expressed by many of the leading Republicans that it would 
 result in the defeat of the party. That such would have 
 luH-n the case there can be no question, had Blaine refused 
 to join in the campaign. But Blaine was a patriot and a 
 statesman, not a narrow, selfish seeker after office. And 
 while the balloting was going on and Blaine and Garfield 
 sat together in Blame s house in Washington listening to 
 the dispatches, Blaine predicted that Hayes would be nom 
 inated. He took a pencil before the result of the last bal 
 lot was known and wrote the following dispatch and showed 
 it to Garfield : 
 To Gov. R. B. HAYES, Columbus, Ohio. 
 
 I offer you my sincerest congratulations on your nomina 
 tion. It will be alike my highest pleasure as well as my 
 first political duty to do the utmost in my power to promote 
 your election. The earliest moments of my returning and 
 confirmed health will be devoted to securing you as large a 
 vote in Maine as she would have given for myself. 
 
 J. G. BLAINE. 
 
 Into the labor of the subsequent campaign he did enter 
 frankly, heartily and conscientiously. 
 
 July 10th, 1876, immediately after the Convention the 
 Governor of Maine appointed Blaine to fill the unexpired 
 term of Hon. Lot M. Morrill, who resigned his seat in the 
 United States Senate to take the position of Secretary of 
 the Treasury in the President s Cabinet. 
 
 His entry into this new branch of the Government was 
 no relief from work. For he was so well known and so 
 conversant with the Nation s business that he needed no 
 further experience to enter into the practical work. He 
 was received cordially by the Senators and took his place at 
 once with the oldest as a debater and worker. 
 
 On taking his seat in the Senate, Blaine wrote a letter to 
 his constituents in Maine, which contained the following 
 expressions : 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 313 
 
 "Beginning with 1862 you have by continuous elections 
 sent me as your representative to the Congress of the Uni 
 ted States. For such marked confidence I have endeavored 
 to return the most zealous and devoted service in my power, 
 and it is certainly riot without a feeling of pain that I now 
 surrender a trust by which I have always felt so signally 
 honored. It has been my boast in public and in private 
 that no man on the floor of Congress ever represented a 
 constituency more distinguished for intelligence, for patriot 
 ism, for public and personal virtue. The cordial support 
 you have so uniformly given me through these fourteen 
 eventful years is the chief honor of my life. In closino- 
 the intimate relations I have so long held with the people of 
 this district, it is a great satisfaction to me to know that 
 with returning health I shall enter upon a field of duty in 
 which I can still serve them in common with the larger con 
 stituency of which they form a part." 
 
 The Kennebec Journal, well representing the sentiment 
 of his Congressional district, in answer to his letter, 
 said : 
 
 "Fourteen years ago, standing in the Convention at which 
 he was first nominated, Mr. Elaine pledged himself to use 
 his best services for the district, and to support to the best 
 of his ability the policy of Abraham Lincoln to subdue the 
 rebellion, and then and there expressed plainly the idea that 
 slavery must and ought to be abolished to save the Union. 
 That he has kept his pledge faithfully his constituents know 
 and feel, and the records of Congress attest. To this dis 
 trict his abilities were freely given, and as he rose in honor 
 in the House and in the public estimation he reflected honor 
 and gave strength to the constituency that supported him. 
 Every step he made in advance was a gain for them. It 
 was a grand thing for this district to have as its Representa 
 tive in Congress for six years the Speaker of the House, 
 filling the place next in importance to that of President of 
 the United States, with matchless ability. It was a grander 
 thing when he took the lead of the minority in the House 
 last December, routed the Democratic majority, and drove 
 back in dismay the ex-Confederates who were intending tinl 
 
314 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 expecting through the advantage they had already gained to 
 grasp the supreme power in the Nation and wield it in the 
 interest of the cause of secession and rebellion revived. 
 For what he has done as their representative in Congress, 
 never will this 3d District of Maine forget to honor the 
 name of James G. Blaine. It will live in the hearts of 
 this people even as the name of Henry Clay is still loved by 
 the people of his old district in Kentucky." 
 
 During the campaign Blaine visited many of the large 
 cities of the Nation and his reception was one of the most 
 astonishing ovations ever seen in this country. The Ken- 
 nebec Journal of October 4th, 1876, speaking of Elaine s 
 reception, said : 
 
 "The grand ovations which Senator Blaine has received in 
 the Western and Middle States are said by good authorities 
 to have excelled any ever accorded to any individual since 
 the early days of the republic. 
 
 4 In the Newark (N. J.) Courier of Saturday we find the 
 following account of his reception in that city, in which 
 Democrats as well as Republicans joined to do him honor. 
 The Courier says : 
 
 4 The Republican demonstration in Newark on Tuesday in 
 honor of the Hon. J. G. Blaine was the most remarkable 
 event of the campaign in this State. In its proportion and 
 in the degree of enthusiasm shown, the afternoon meeting, 
 and likewise the reception and street parade in the evening 
 were beyond comparison with any previous demonstration 
 in New Jersey, and can be likened only to the monster out 
 pouring of people and the absorbing interest manifested in 
 the Western campaign. 
 
 4 Shortly after one o clock crowds of people were noticed 
 moving towards Institute Hall in AVashington street, and from 
 that time until two o clock they flowed in a steady 
 stream into the capacious building. The lower floor, the 
 galleries and the stage were filled even to crowding with an 
 audience which for intelligence as well as number lias not 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 315 
 
 been often excelled in Newark. It included nearly all the 
 representative Republicans of the county, beside numbers of 
 equally prominent Democrats, many of whom were given 
 seats on the stage ; several clergymen, among them Rev. 
 Drs. Guenther, Fish, Forrester and Rev. W. W. Newton, 
 and hundreds of other professional men. Hon. T. B. Ped- 
 die, Hon. M. L. Ward, Hon. H. N. Congar and Hon. N. 
 Perry were prominent on the platform. Ladies occupied 
 front seats on the floor of the hall. 
 
 For half an hour before Mr. Elaine s arrival, which was 
 about two o clock, the vast audience were waiting for him with 
 an eager expectancy that was quite marked. His appearance 
 on the stage, accompanied by Hon. G. A. Halsey, whose guest 
 he was, Mr. John Y. Foster and Capt. A. L. Bassett, was 
 hailed with rapturous cheering. Upon call of Captain Bas 
 sett three cheers were again given for the "great champion 
 of human rights." Senator Kirk, who was chosen chair 
 man introduced Mr. Blaine and thereby evoked once more 
 the cheers of the excited assembly. Their loud acclaims 
 filled the hall, died down and then rose again, while at the 
 same time hats and handkerchiefs were waved in all parts 
 of the house. 
 
 Mr. Blaine showed great fatigue under the hard work he 
 was doing for the Republican cause. He was evidently weary 
 in body and mind, and in addition to this his voice was 
 husky, so that he made no attempt at oratory, but delivered 
 his address in a free, semi-conversational manner. It was 
 nevertheless forcible and effective. 
 
 At the conclusion of the speech, the meeting was brought 
 to a close with cheers for Mr. Blaine, Mr. Peddie and 
 Hayes and Wheeler. Immediately a rush was made to the 
 stage, to shake hands with Mr. Blaine. He was again 
 cheered there by the group of men about him and afterwards 
 in the street upon leaving the hall. 
 
310 Till. LIFE AND PUBLIC M.KVj, BS 
 
 The dinner, at the residence of ex-Congressman Halsey, 
 was a very elegant affair. Among the honored guests who 
 dined with Mr. Blaine were ex-Governor Ward, Hon. 
 Thomas N. McCarter, Hon. Thomas B. Peddie, Hon. 
 Xelicmiah Perry, Hon. H. N. Cougar, Hon. Win. H. Kirk, 
 Mr. John Y. Foster, Mr. T. T. Kinney, Capt. A. L. Bas- 
 sett, Mr. J. W. Grover, Hon. John Hill, Mr. John L. 
 Blake, Mr. Ira M. Yarrison, Joseph Coult, Esq., Mr. Wil- 
 liam Stainsby. 
 
 The following toast was proposed by Captain Basset t : 
 "Henry Clay and James G. Blaine; they enjoy alike the 
 love of the people ; may the latter secure what the former 
 failed to achieve." There were no speeches. 
 
 The reception at Park Hall amounted as did the meeting 
 in the afternoon, to an ovation. As soon as the 4 doors were 
 open, at seven-thirty o clock Alderman Stainsby appeared up 
 on the platform and announced that Mr. Blaine was in the 
 hall, and invited those assembled to pass across the platform 
 and greet the distinguished Senator. As that gentleman ap 
 peared a tremendous cheer rang out, so hearty, so enthus 
 iastic, that it gave the best assurance of the appreciation of 
 the citizens of Newark of this brave and talented leader of 
 the Republican party. Hon. George A. Halsey stood be 
 side Mr. Blaine and gave the introductions. In response 
 to earnest calls for a speech the Maine Senator stepped for 
 ward and said that he thought one speech in a day was 
 sufficient. He tendered his warmest thanks for the splendid 
 ovation given him, and said that no place had shown more 
 earnest, friendly greeting than Newark. He was cheered 
 repeatedly while the handshaking was going on. 
 
 Among those present at the reception were Hon. Thomas 
 B. IVddie, ex-Gov. Ward. Mr. S. C. Ilalsey. ( apt. Bassett, 
 John L. Blake, Joseph L. Mmm, Dr. Stockton. A. .M. 
 Holbrook, Rev. Mr. Ilutchings, Senator Kirk, Hon. Amos 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAIXK. 317 
 
 Clark, Mr. E. G. Brown, Hon. Nehemiah Perry, Alder 
 man Gould and many others of note. A large number 
 of the most respectable Democrats in the city were also pre 
 sent and shook Mr. Elaine by the hand. During the hand 
 shaking, Hon. Thomas B. Peddle, our next Congressman, 
 came in for a full share. He was enthuisastically cheered. 
 It seemed to be generally believed that Mr. Blaine would 
 be the successor of Gen. Hayes in the Presidency, and many 
 expressed their devotion to him as they took him by the 
 hand, in such words as these: "Sorry we cannot vote for 
 you this time but we will next," and "Thank the Lord I 
 have got a chance to take you by the hand," and many other 
 similar expressions. The ladies also gave many expressions 
 of admiration for the hero of a hundred hard-fought battles 
 in the House, and several grandmothers went away happy 
 after he had kissed the little ones in their arms. By request 
 of Mr. Blaine, the Republican Glee Club, consisting of 
 Messrs. John Woodal, John Foster, John W. Creswell and 
 Wm. Watkins, sang their celebrated Hayes and Wheeler 
 campaign song, which was enthusiastically received. As the 
 Senator was receiving on time, the reception had to be short 
 to give way for the grand review of the Boys in Blue, at 
 the residence of the next Congressman, Hon. Thomas B. 
 Peddie. The residence of Robert Stoutendurgh, in front 
 of the hall was beautifully decorated with flags and colored 
 lights. As Mr. Blaine passed up Broad Street that avenue 
 was all ablaze with the torches of the Boys in Blue, form 
 ing. In Mr. Peddie s elegant parlor a brilliant company 
 awaited him in which were a large number of ladies. 
 Among the gentlemen present were Hons. Cortlandt Parker, 
 John Hill, Marcus L. Ward, George A. Halsey, Amos 
 Clark, Messrs. S. C. Halsey, J. Jacob Hockenjor, Alder 
 man Gould, Marvin and Stainsby, and Wm. Gould of 
 Caldwell. 
 
i UK LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Cannon on the park thundered out tones of welcome, 
 fireworks blazed incessantly, many colored lights making 
 the scene truly grand and picturesque. The Boys in Him- 
 marched splendidly. They kept time like an army of vet 
 eran soldiers, and there was not the slightest disorder in 
 the ranks. All of the townships were represented, and by 
 actual count of the men reported to Brigadier General Bow 
 ers, there were about 3,500 in line. Conspicuous among 
 them was the James A. Hedden Guards of Watsessing, 
 bearing a beautiful banner. The park seemed surrounded 
 by a cordon of torches. Cheer upon cheer rent the air, 
 rockets went streaming up toward the quiet stars and vic 
 tory seemed to pervade the air. Mr. Blaine left the resi 
 dence of Mr. Peddie in a carriage, accompanied by that 
 gentleman and Messrs. Hasley and Ward, for the Market 
 Street depot. Down Market Street the Boys in Blue opened 
 ranks, occupying each side of the street while the distin 
 guished guest drove between, and was greeted along the 
 whole route by continuous cheers. The line reached almost 
 from Broad Street to the depot. At the latter place there 
 was a display of pyrotechnics, the Boys having determined 
 to give the Senator the grandest send-off possible. 
 
 The New York Tribune said, referring to Mr. Blaine s 
 reception during the campaign of 1876 : 
 
 u The reception of Mr. Blaine at the hall of the Cooper 
 Union, last evening, was one of the grandest of demon 
 strations which even this city has ever witnessed. In 
 every respect the audience was one which reflected 
 credit upon the intelligence and patriotism of the me 
 tropolis. Among those on the platform were Thurlow 
 Weed, Elliot C. Cowdin, Luther R. Marsh, Gen. Daim-l 
 E. Sickles, Gen. G. B. Sheridan, William Blakeman, 
 Judge F. J. Fithian, Henry Highland Garnet, Hon. Wil 
 liam A. Darling, Charles S. Spencer, ex- Judge A. J. Dit- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 319 
 
 tenlioefer, lion. A. W. Tenney, and many others. At 
 7 :20 Hon. A. B. Cornell called the meeting to order and 
 nominated Clarence A. Seward as chairman. Mr. Seward 
 accepted the honor in a neat speech, and, after the com 
 pletion of the organization by the appointment of Vice 
 Presidents and Secretaries, introduced to the audience the 
 speaker of the evening, Hon. J. G. Elaine. The appear 
 ance of the ex-Speaker was the signal for a most enthu 
 siastic and tumultuous reception. Men cheered until they 
 were hoarse, women waved their handkerchiefs, and for full 
 five minutes the air resounded with the continuous applause. 
 When the noise of his welcome had sufficiently subsided, 
 Mr. Elaine advanced to the front of the platform and spoke 
 for an hour and a half. His exposure of the meanness, 
 duplicity and false pretenses of the Democratic Confederate 
 House was telling, and was received with thunders of ap 
 plause from the entire assemblage. His tribute to the 
 courage of the Republican Senate in resisting the arrogant 
 demands of the ex-Rebel Representatives, called forth a 
 renewed tempest of cheering, while his description of the 
 servile submission of the Northern Democratic majority to 
 the Southern Democratic minority, was a masterpiece of 
 sarcasm and indignation. The peroration in which he 
 pointed the argument for protection to the Southern blacks 
 by quoting Edmund Burke s appeal in the impeachment 
 of Warren Hastings, in which justice was demanded for 
 the suffering Hindo, was spoken with the utmost effect, 
 and was received accordingly. The scene when Mr. Elaine 
 left the rostrum, was a repetition of his welcome. It was 
 generally conceded that the meeting was one of the most 
 memorable in the annals of New York politics." 
 
 Mr. Elaine was elected by the Maine Legislature to com 
 plete the term of Senator Morrill, and again in 1877, elected 
 for the succeeding full term of six years. 
 
320 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 He had become so established in the hearts of the people 
 of Maine, and their confidence in his good judgment and 
 integrity was such that any honor which they had to be 
 stow they pressed upon him as one above all others entitled 
 to their suffrages. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 321 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Elaine on Southern War Claims. The Celebrated Neal Dow Case. 
 Chinese Emigration. Elaine s Answer to William Lloyd 
 Garrison. The Silver Question. Kemonetization of Silver. 
 Pensioning Jeff Davis. United States Troops at the Polls. 
 A Sharp discussion in the Senate. 
 
 During Elaine s service in the United States Senate he 
 wrote a letter to the Toledo Blade upon the Southern war 
 claims, which so fully explains his position in the Senate 
 and in his public speeches, that it is given here to save the 
 recital of the many things he said and did upon the subject : 
 
 TOLEDO, October 5, 1876. 
 To the Editor of the Toledo Blade: 
 
 I observe in The Cincinnati Enquirer of yesterday, a let 
 ter from Bion Bradbury, Esq, an attorney-at-law in Port 
 land, Maine, in regard to the decision made by Judge Clif 
 ford of the United States Supreme Court, in the now famous 
 Neal Dow case. Mr. Bradbury is counsel for the plaintiff 
 in that suit, is fully committed to all its dangerous doctrines, 
 and is well known in Maine as one of the most rancorous 
 and uncompromising of partizan Democrats. He is a fair 
 and full type of the men whom the loyal Republican senti 
 ment of the North will have to fight to the bitter end on all 
 questions of this kind. Only two or three points of Mr. 
 Bradbury s letter require my attention, and I am compelled 
 to write "on the wing," and of course very hastily. 
 
 Mr. Bradbury intimates that I have had in my possession, 
 
322 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 ever since my Boston speech of September 18th, a letter 
 from Judge Clarke, of New Hampshire, who sat with Judge 
 Clifford, and dissented from his opinion. The inference 
 Mr. Bradbury desires the public to draw is that I have con 
 cealed or withheld Judge Clarke s letter all that time. The 
 truth is, Judge Clarke s letter was not written till Septem 
 ber 22d, mailed the 23d, and has been following me from 
 point to point, and finally reached me at Cincinnati three 
 days since. The letter is as follows, and I give it verbatim 
 et literatim: 
 
 MANCHESTER, N. H., Sept. 22, 76. 
 My Dear MR. BLAINE : 
 
 My attention has been called to a passage of your speech 
 at Boston, in which you refer to a suit against Neal Dow, 
 recently heard by Judge Clifford and myself at Portland. 
 
 Your statement of the case is substantially correct, and 
 forcibly illustrates the danger to be apprehended from tJtcse 
 Southern ivar claims, and yet it may do injustice to Judge Clif 
 ford, by leaving an impression that he is in favor of paying 
 such claims. I hardly think this is so, and no such infer 
 ence can be drawn from his conduct or decision in this ca>-. 
 He heard the case in the first instance sitting alone. Neither 
 Judge Shepley nor Judge Fox could sit with him. He had 
 the case for a long time under advisement, it presenting a 
 question of great National importance, and of fine pleading. 
 He did not wish to decide it alone, and it could in only one 
 way be carried to the Supreme Court, to wit. , a certificate of 
 difference between two judges, because the amount being 
 about $1,700, it could not go upon writ of error. To en 
 able the parties, therefore, if they wish, to take the case to 
 the Supreme Court, he sent for me to come and sit with him, 
 and sign the certificate of difference, as I did. 
 
 One great difficulty in the case is, General Dow lot a 
 judgment go by default in a court recognized by Judge 
 Shepley while Military Governor of New Orleans, and that 
 judgment is now sued here. The judgment is conclusive if 
 the court had jurisdiction, and the court was one recognized 
 by the Military Governor, and its process was duly served 
 on General Dow. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 323 
 
 The case is one of difficulty, but I am quite certain Judge 
 Clifford is anxious it should be decided right. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 DANIEL CLARKE. 
 
 It will be observed that Judge Clarke frankly says that 
 my "statement of the case was substantially correct," and 
 further that it forcibly illustrates the danger to be apprehended 
 from these Southern war claims. These remarks by Judge 
 Clarke sufficiently answer Mr. Bradbury s ill-tempered, ill- 
 mannered, untruthful assertions respecting the main point at 
 issue. 
 
 I am not responsible for the report of my speech at War 
 ren, as quoted by Mr. Bradbury. I never saw the reporter s 
 notes, and never read the extract quoted by Mr. Bradbury 
 until I saw it in his letter. But I was assuredly reported 
 incorrectly. I certainly never dreamed of calling Judge 
 Clifford "a hungry Democrat." I am too familiar with the 
 Judge s well-fed and portly dimensions to apply to him any 
 such absurd characterization. Neither did I reflect on his 
 personal or official integrity. On the contrary, I state that 
 one of the most alarming features of the decision was that 
 Judge Clifford belonged to that gnarled, twisted, ingrained, 
 incurable school of Bourbon Democracy that honestly be 
 lieves in just such dangerous and destructive doctrines as 
 are covered by this decision. 
 
 Mr. Bradbury says that the only point involved in Judge 
 Clifford s decision was the question of jurisdiction of the 
 Louisiana Court, Precisely ! The Louisiana Court gave 
 judgment against a colonel of the Union army, for property 
 seized and appropriated by a foraging squad of the regi 
 ment ; judgment was taken by default, Colonel Dow being 
 with his command in the field, utterly unable to respond to 
 a summons, and certainly not dreaming that civil suits could 
 be brought in the country of insurgents against officers of the 
 
324 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 invading army of the Union. I have always stated the case 
 with accuracy, and neither Judge Clifford nor Mr. Bradbury 
 can show why every other officer of the Union army may 
 not, in like manner, be sued for all the property which his 
 command may have seized and appropriated during the four 
 years of the rebellion. Judge Clifford s decision is far 
 worse than if it sustained a suit brought since the war, for 
 it distinctly recognizes, if it does not positively affirm, that 
 while the war was actually going on flag rant e bello, an offi 
 cer of the Union army was bound, at whatever peril it might 
 be to the Union cause, to leave his command when sum 
 moned by a local court, in the heart of a rebellious country. 
 And Judge Clifford, without looking at the facts which no 
 toriously surrounded the case nay, shutting his eyes to 
 these facts, when it required a great effort to close them, 
 recognizes the jurisdiction of a Louisiana court to interfere, 
 at the very crisis of the war, with the operations of the Un 
 ion army. Judge Clarke says : "Judge Clifford has had the 
 case a long time under advisement, it presenting a case of 
 grave National importance." The "long time," referred to 
 by Judge Clarke, covers at least eight years, I am told. It is 
 not for me to say that Judge Clifford has not had good rea 
 sons for withholding his opinion this "long time," but it can 
 not fail to strike the country that the decision is promulgated 
 just at the time that Judge Clarke thinks that there is "dan 
 ger to be apprehended from these Southern war claims." I 
 have no right to comment on Judge Clifford s motives, and 
 do not assume to judge them, but I have a perfect right to 
 discuss the mood and tense of his remarkable opinion. And 
 the danger concealed under that opinion is greatly enhanced 
 by the reported expression of the Democratic candidate for 
 the Presidency, that " every soldier who marched across 
 Southern soil was a trespasser, and liable to suit for damages 
 in an action for trespass." Ex-Gov. Underwood, of Ver- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 325 
 
 mont, declares that Mr. Tilden made this identical declara 
 tion to him during the war. 
 
 The dangers to which I called attention, as exemplified 
 by Judge Clifford s opinion, were substantially these : 
 
 1. That an army officer can be sued, and compelled, 
 by judgment of court, to pay for property seized by him, or 
 his soldiers, at the South during the war. 
 
 2. That in such a suit, by decision of the Supreme 
 Court, touching cotton cases before the Court of Claims, no 
 proof whatever can be required that the plaintiff was not a 
 rebel, but that he may recover without such proof. 
 
 3. That such a suit may be brought, and judgment re 
 covered in any Southern State Court, and then the judg 
 ment sued in a United States Court at the North, and the 
 judgment affirmed, and the officer compelled to pay, by the 
 process of the United States Court. 
 
 No answer has been made to any of these points by 
 Mr. Bradbury. He says that Bradish Johnson, the plain 
 tiff, was, in fact, loyal, but he does not assert that any such 
 fact was proved, or that Judge Clifford s opinion makes any 
 distinction whatever between a loyal citizen and a rebel. 
 And this point illustrates the very danger I have been try 
 ing to point out, and most forcibly presents the rapid prog 
 ress we are making towards paying Southern claims, 
 regardless of the loyalty of the claimant. 
 
 With the Republican party in power, the United States 
 Treasury is safe from the frightful raid now impending over 
 it. But what, I ask, may be apprehended from a Demo 
 cratic Congress, a Democratic President, and Democratic 
 Judges ? 
 
 The passage of one short law, covering only three 
 points, would bankrupt the United States Government, and 
 destroy our public credit. Those points are : 
 
 1 . That no proof of loyalty shall be required of any 
 
326 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVIfK* 
 
 claimant before the Southern claims commission, now in 
 session, or before any department of the Government other 
 than that required by the United States Supreme Court in 
 suits at law, i. e. no proof whatever. 
 
 2. That the statutes of limitation shall not apply in 
 case of any war claims otherwise allowable against any in 
 dividual or against the United States. If there be any ques 
 tion of law about the power to revive a claim against an in 
 dividual, once barred by statute of limitation, there is cer 
 tainly none as to the power of the Government to revive it 
 as against itself, and that is the point principally affecting 
 the United States Treasury and the loyal tax-payers of the 
 country. 
 
 3. That "reasonable compensation may be recovered by 
 all citizens of the United States for the use and occupation 
 of their property by the United States army or any part 
 thereof, during the late civil war ;" and in these words I am 
 but quoting the language of a bill now pending in the U. S. 
 House of Representatives, introduced by a Democrat, and 
 under consideration by the Democratic Judiciary Committee 
 to whom it was referred in February last, and who did not 
 report it back to the House, but held it for consideration 
 until after the Presidential election. Why did they not re 
 port adversely upon it, promptly and decidedly? 
 
 The courteous tone in which Judge Clarke refers to his 
 belief in Judge Clifford s intention to do right, belongs to 
 the amenities of the Bench, and with these I am not deal 
 ing at present. I only see that Judge Clifford did not agree 
 with Judge Clarke, and end, as he might then and there, all 
 dangerous claims of this character. I only see that Judge 
 Clifford s great influence on the Supreme Bench, based on 
 his long service and his learning in the law, has all been 
 thrown on the Southern or rebel side of this mighty ques 
 tion. In short, in the very language of Judge Clarke, I 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 327 
 
 only see that the case "fully illustrates the danger to be ap 
 prehended from these Southern war claims." And seein" 
 these things, and believing these things, I have exposed them 
 wherever I have spoken, and shall continue to do so to the 
 end of the Presidential campaign. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 J. G. ELAINE. 
 
 In February, 1879, the question of Chinese Emigration 
 which had from time to time appeared in the Senate, came 
 up in the definite form of a bill to restrict Chinese emigra 
 tion, and Blaine made a strong argument in favor of the 
 measure and gave many precedents and statistics in support 
 of his position. But he was often interrupted and other mat 
 ters interfered with the discussion so much that a better 
 conclusion of his argument can be obtained from a letter he 
 wrote soon afterwards in answer to the criticism of William 
 Lloyd Garrison : 
 
 The reflections of Mr. William Lloyd Garrison upon the 
 Senators who voted for the bill restricting Chinese emigra 
 tion are made, I think, without the thorough examina 
 tion which he usually brings to the discussion of public 
 questions. Permit me, with plainness of speech, and yet 
 with the sincere respect I entertain for Mr. Garrison, to 
 state the grounds on which I cast my vote for the measure. 
 
 First. There has not been from the outset any emigra 
 tion of Chinese in the sense in which emigration comes to 
 us from Europe. It has all been "under contract" and 
 through agencies, and if not in every respect of the Cooly 
 type, the entire emigration from China has had the worst 
 and most demoralized features of Coolyism. The Burlin- 
 game treaty specially "reprobated any other than an entirely 
 voluntary emigration," and yet from the first Chinaman 
 that came, in 1848, to the last one that lauded at San Fran- 
 
328 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 cisco, it is safe to say that not one in one hundred came in 
 an "entirely voluntary" manner. Up to October 1, 1876, 
 the records of the San Francisco custom-house show that 
 233,136 Chinese had arrived in this country and that 93,- 
 273 had returned to China. The emigration since has 
 been quite large, and allowing for returns and deaths, the 
 best statistics I can procure show that about 109,000 Chi 
 nese are in California and from 20,000 to 25,000 in the 
 adjacent Pacific States and Territories. 
 
 Second. Of this large population fully nine-tenths are 
 adult males. The women have not in all numbered over 
 seven thousand, and, according to all accounts, they are im 
 pure and lewd far beyond the Anglo-Saxon conception of 
 impurity and lewdness. One of the best informed Califor- 
 nians I ever met says that not one score of decent and pure 
 women could ever have been found in the whole Chinese 
 emigration. It is only in the imagined, rather I hope the 
 uuima^iiiL-d. feculence and foulness of Sodom and Gomor 
 rah that any parallel can be found to the atrocious nastiness 
 of the Chinese quarter of San Francisco. I speak of this 
 from abounding testimony largely from those who have 
 had personal opportunity to study the subject in its revolt 
 ing details. In the entire Chinese population of the Pacific 
 coast scarcely one family is to be found ; no hearthstone of 
 comfort, no fireside of joy ; no father nor mother, nor broth 
 er nor sister ; no child reared by parents ; no domestic and 
 ennobling influences ; no ties of affection. The relation of 
 wife is degraded beyond all description, the females holding 
 and dishonoring that sacred name being sold and transferred 
 from one man to another, without shame and without fear ; 
 one woman being at the same time the wife to several men. 
 jMany of these women came to San Francisco under written 
 contracts for prostitution, openly and shamelessly entered 
 into. I have myself read the translation of some of these 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAIKE. 
 
 abominable documents. If as a nation we have the right to 
 keep out infectious diseases, if we have the right to exclude 
 the criminal classes from coming to us, we surely possess 
 the right to exclude that emigration which reeks with im 
 purity and which cannot come to us without plenteously 
 sowing the seeds of moral and physical disease, destitution, 
 and death. 
 
 Third. The Chinese emigration to California began 
 with the American emigration in 1848. The two races 
 have been side by side for more than thirty years, nearly an 
 entire generation, and not one step toward assimilation has 
 been taken. The Chinese occupy their own peculiar quarter 
 in the city, adhere to their own dress, speak their own lan 
 guage, worship in their own heathen temples, and inside the 
 municipal law and independent of it, administer a code 
 among themselves, even pronouncing the death penalty and 
 executing it in criminal secrecy. If this were for a year 
 only, or for two or five or even ten years, it might be 
 claimed that more time was needed for domestication and 
 assimilation ; but this has been going on for an entire 
 generation, and the Chinaman to-day approaches no nearer 
 our civilization than he did when the Golden Gate first 
 received him. In sworn testimony before an investigating 
 committee of Congress, Dr. Hears, the health officer of 
 San Francisco, described as "a careful and learned man," 
 testified that the condition of the Chinese quarter is "hor 
 rible, inconceivably horrible !" He stated that the Chinese 
 as a rule "live in large tenement-houses, large numbers 
 crowded into individual rooms, without proper ventilation, 
 with bad drainage, and underground, with a great deal of 
 filth, the odors from which are horrible." He described 
 their "mode of taking a room ten feet high and putting a 
 flooring half way to the ceiling, both floors being crowded 
 at night with sleepers. In these crowded dens cases of 
 
330 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 small-pox were concealed from the police." "They live 
 underground in bunks. The topography of that portion 
 of Chinadom is such that you enter a house sometimes and 
 think that it is a one-story house, and you will find two or 
 three stories down below on the side of the hill, where they 
 live in great filth." Another close and accurate observer, 
 a resident of California, says "the only wonder is that 
 desolating pestilences have not ensued. Small-pox has 
 often been epidemic, and could always be traced to Chinese 
 origin. The Chinese quarter was once occupied by shops, 
 churches, and dwellings of Americans. Now these are as 
 thoroughly Mongolian as any part of Canton. All other 
 races flee from the contact." Dr. Hears further testified, 
 and gave many revolting details in proof that the Chinese 
 "are cruel and indifferent to their sick." He described cases 
 of Chinese lepers at the city hospital : "Their feet dropped 
 off by dry gangrene, and their hands were wasted and 
 attenuated. Their finger-nails dropped off." He said the 
 "Chinese were gradually working eastward, and would by 
 and by crowd into eastern cities, where the conditions under 
 which they live in San Francisco would produce, in the 
 absence of its climatic advantages, destructive pestilences." 
 Perhaps a Chinese quarter in Boston, with forty thousand 
 Mongolians located somewhere between the south end and 
 north end of the city, and separating the two, would give 
 Mr. Garrison some new views as to the power and right of 
 a nation to exclude moral and physical pestilence from its 
 borders. In San Francisco there is no hot weather, the 
 thermometer rarely rising above sixty-five degrees. One 
 of the most intelligent physicians in the United States says 
 that the Chinese quarter of San Francisco transferred to 
 Saint Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, or any eastern city, 
 would, in a hot summer, breed a plague equal to the 
 "black death" that is now alarming the civilized world. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 331 
 
 When Mr. Garrison says the emigration of Englishmen, 
 Irishmen, Scotchmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Scandi 
 navians must be put on the same footing as the Chinese 
 Coolies, he confounds all distinctions, and, of course with 
 out intending it, libels almost the entire white population 
 whose blood is inherited from the races he names. All the 
 emigration from Europe to-day assimilates at once with 
 its own blood on this soil, and to place the Chinese Coolies 
 on the same footing is to shut one s eyes to all the instincts 
 of human nature and all the teachings of history. 
 
 Fourth. Is it not inevitable that a class of men living in 
 this degraded and filthy condition, and on the poorest of 
 food, can work for less than the American laborer is en 
 titled to receive for his daily toil ? Put the two classes of 
 labor side by side and the cheap servile labor pulls down the 
 more manly toil to its level. The free, white laborer never 
 could compete with the slave labor of the South. In 
 the Chinaman the white laborer finds only another form of 
 servile competition in some aspects more revolting and cor 
 rupting than African slavery. Whoever contends for the 
 unrestricted emigration of Chinese Coolies contends for 
 that system of toil which blights the prospects of the white 
 laborer dooming him to starvation w r ages, killing his am 
 bition by rendering his struggle hopeless, and ending in a 
 plodding and pitiable poverty. Nor is it a truthful answer 
 to say that this danger is remote. Remote it may be for 
 Mr. Garrison, for Boston, and for New England, but it is 
 instant and pressing on the Pacific Slope. Already the 
 Chinese male adults on that coast are wellnigh as numer 
 ous as the white voters of California, and it is conceded 
 that a Chinese emigrant can be placed in San Francisco for 
 one-half the amount required to transport a man from the 
 Mississippi Valley to the Pacific coast, and for one-third 
 what it requires for a New Yorker or New Englander to 
 
332 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 reach California or Oregon. The late Caleb Gushing, who 
 had carefully studied the Chinese question ever since his 
 mission to Peking in 1842, maintained that unless resisted by 
 the United States the first general famine in China would be 
 followed by an emigration to California that would swamp 
 the white race. I observe that a New England newspaper 
 I especially regret that such ignorance should be shown iu 
 New England says it is only "a strip" on the Pacific that 
 the Chinaman seeks for a home. The Chinese are already 
 scattered in three States and two adjacent Territories 
 whose area is larger than the original thirteen colonies. 
 California alone is larger than New England, New York, 
 Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and is capable of maintaining a 
 vast population of Anglo-Saxon freemen if we do not sur 
 render it to Chinese Coolies. 
 
 Fifth. Before the same Committee of Investigation from 
 whose report I have already quoted, Mr. T. W. Jackson, a 
 man of high character, who had traveled extensively in the 
 East, testified that his strong belief was "that if the Chinese 
 felt that they were safe and had a firm footing in California 
 they would come in enormous numbers, because the popula 
 tion of China is practically inexhaustible." Such, indeed, is 
 the unbroken testimony of all who are entitled to express 
 an opinion. The decision of Congress on this matter there 
 fore becomes of the very last importance. Had it been in 
 favor of Chinese emigration, with the encouragement and 
 protection which that would have implied, it requires no 
 vivid imagination to foresee that the great slope between 
 the Sierras and the Pacific would become the emigrating 
 ground for the Chinese Empire. So that I do not at all ex 
 aggerate wiien I say that on the adoption or rejection of the 
 policy passed upon by Congress, hangs the fate of the Pacific 
 Slope whether its labor shall be that of American free 
 men or servile Mongolians. If Mr. Garrison thinks the 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 333 
 
 interests of his own countrymen, his own Government, and, 
 in a still larger sense, the interests of humanity and civil 
 ization will be promoted by giving up the Pacific to Mon 
 golian labor, I beg respectfully but firmly to differ from 
 him. There is no ground on which we are bound to re 
 ceive them to our own detriment. Charity is the first of 
 Christian graces. But Mr. Garrison would not feel obliged 
 to receive into his family a person that would physically 
 contaminate or morally corrupt his children. As with a 
 family so with a nation : the same instinct of self-preserva 
 tion exists, the same right to prefer the interest of our own 
 people, the same duty to exclude that which is corrupting 
 and dangerous to the Republic ! 
 
 Sixth. The outcry that we are violating our treaty obli 
 gations is without any foundation. The article on emigra 
 tion in the treaty has not been observed by China for a 
 single hour since it was made. All the testimony taken on 
 the subject and it has been full and copious shows con 
 clusively that the entire emigration was "under contract ;" 
 that the Coolies had been gathered together for export, and 
 gathered as agents in our Western States would gather live 
 stock for shipment. A very competent witness in Cali 
 fornia, speaking to this point, says that : 
 
 "On the arrival of the Chinese in California, they are 
 consigned like hogs to the different Chinese companies, their 
 contracts are vised, and the Cooly commences to pay to the 
 companies fees to insure care if he is taken sick and his re 
 turn home dead or alive. His return is prevented until 
 after his contract has been entirely fulfilled. If he breaks 
 his contract the spies of the six companies hunt him to pre 
 vent his returning to China by arrangements with the 
 steamship company or their agents in the steamship employ 
 to prevent his getting a ticket. The agents of the steam 
 ship companies testified to this same fact. If a ticket is 
 obtained for him by others he is forcibly stopped on the day 
 of sailing by the employes of the six companies, called 
 
334 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 * high-binders, who can always be seen guarding the 
 Coolies." 
 
 Mr. Joseph J. Ray, a Philadelphia merchant, long resi 
 dent in China, and a close observer of its emigration, >avs 
 "that nine hundred and ninety-nine one-thousandths of the 
 Chinese who have reached our shores were not free agents 
 in their coming. Files of the Hong- Kong newspapers from 
 1861 would supply information regarding the "barracoous* 
 at that port, and when the system had become too great a 
 scandal, their removal to Macao (a Portuguese colony forty 
 miles distant), in which barracoons the Chinese, in every 
 sense prisoners, were retained until their shipment to San 
 Francisco, Callao, Havana, &c. These, called by courtesy 
 emigrants, were collected from within a radius of two to 
 three hundred miles from Canton, and consisted of the ab 
 jectly poor, who, willingly or not, were sold to obtain food 
 for their families, or for gambling debts (the Chinese, as 
 you are aware, being inveterate gamblers) , or the scape 
 graces of the country, fleeing to avoid punishment." 
 
 It is of course a mere misuse of terms to call this an "en 
 tirely voluntary emigration," andyet none other was permis 
 sible under the Burlingame Treaty. Our Government 
 would be clearly justified in disregarding the treaty on the 
 single ground that the Chinese Government had never re 
 spected its provisions. But without any reference to that, 
 our Government possesses the right to abrogate the treaty 
 if it adjudges that its continuance is "pernicious to the 
 state." Indeed, the two pending propositions in the Senate 
 differed not in regard to our own right to abrogate the 
 treaty, but simply as to whether we should do it in July, 
 1879, by the exercise of our power without further notice 
 to China, or whether we should do it in January, 1880, 
 after notifying China that we had made up our minds to do 
 it. Nearly a year ago Congress by joint resolution ex- 
 
OK JAMES G. BLAINE. 
 
 pressed its discontent with the existing Treaty, and thus 
 clearly gave notice to the civilized world if notice were 
 needful of the desire and intention of our people. In the 
 late action of Congress the opposing proposition moved as 
 a substitute for the bill to which I gave my support re 
 quested the President to notify the Emperor of China that 
 Chinese emigration is "unsatisfactory and pernicious," and 
 in effect if he would not modify the treaty as we desired, 
 then the President should notify the Emperor that after Jan 
 uary 1, 1880, the United States will k treat the obnoxious 
 stipulations as at an end." Both propositions the bill that 
 we passed and the substitute that we rejected assumed alike 
 the full right to abrogate the Treaty. Whether it were bet 
 ter to abrogate it after last year s joint resolution, or to in 
 form the Emperor of China directly that if he would not 
 consent to the change "we would make it anyhow," must 
 be relegated for decision to the schools of taste and etiquette. 
 The first proposition resting an our clear constitutional 
 power seemed to me a better mode of proceeding than to 
 ask the Emperor of China to consent to a modification and 
 informing him at the same time that, whether he consented 
 or not, we would on next New Year s day treat "the obnox 
 ious stipulation as at an end." As to the power of Congress 
 to do just what has been done no one will entertain a doubt 
 who examines the whole question. An admirable summary 
 of the right and power is found in an opinion delivered by 
 that eminent jurist, Benjamin R. Curtis, when he was a 
 judge of the United States Supreme Court. Judge Curtis 
 said : 
 
 "It cannot be admitted that the only method of escape 
 from a treaty is by the consent of the other party to it or ;i 
 declaration of war. To refuse to execute a treaty for reasons 
 which approve themselves to the conscientious judgment 
 of a nation is a matter of the utmost gravity ; but the power 
 
336 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 to do so is a prerogative of which no nation can be deprived 
 viflin/tf (It cjili/ /< ctiixj its Independence. Tliat tin- people of 
 the United States have deprived their Government of this 
 power I do not believe. That it must reside somewhere, 
 and 1)0 applicable to all cases I am convinced, and I fed no 
 dnlt f/tttf if lii-longs to Congress." 
 
 Seventh. A great deal has been said about the danger to 
 our trade if China should resort to some form of retaliation. 
 The natural and pertinent retaliation is to restrict American 
 emigration to China. Against that we will enter no pro 
 test, and should have no right to do so. The talk about 
 China closing her ports to our trade is made only by those 
 who do not understand the question. Last year the total 
 amount of our exports to all Chinese ports outside of Hong 
 Kong was but $692,000. I have called Hong Koni: a 
 Chinese port, but every child knows that it is under British 
 control, and if we w r ere at war with China to-day, Hong- 
 Kong would be as open to us as Liverpool. To speak of 
 China punishing us by suspending trade, is only the sugges 
 tion of dense ignorance. We pay China an immense bal 
 ance in coin, and probably we always shall do it. But if 
 the trade question had the importance which some have er 
 roneously attributed to it, I would not seek its continuance 
 by permitting a vicious emigration of Chinese Coolies. 
 The Bristol merchants cried out that commerce would be 
 ruined if England persisted in destroying the slave trade. 
 But history does not record that England sacrificed her honor 
 by yielding to the cry. 
 
 Eighth. The attempt made from diileivnt quarters and 
 with different motives, to justify maltreatment of the negro 
 in the South on the same ground that we refuse to receive 
 the Chinese, is signally illogical. If the negro population 
 of this country, domiciled here for two centuries, have 
 no more rights under our Government, and no more 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 337 
 
 ground for appeal to our protection than the Coolies who 
 are still in China, then allegiance and nationality and "the 
 flag" are worse than meaningless. Observe that this dis 
 cussion is not in regard to the Chinese now on our shores 
 for they are entitled to legal protection but in regard to the 
 countless hordes who may come upon us if we leave the way 
 open. The very class of gentlemen who make this argu 
 ment are the same who refused to permit the Chinese to be 
 naturalized and to acquire suffrage. In a Republic, with 
 suffrage so general, it is impossible to have with safety a 
 proscribed and disfranchised race. I maintain that those 
 who voted that the Chinese should not be naturalized, voted 
 in effect that they ought not to come here. 
 
 Ninth. The enlightened religious sentiment of the Pacific 
 coast views with profound alarm the tendency and effect of 
 unrestricted Chinese emigration. The "pastors and de 
 legates of the Congregational churches of California," a 
 year since expressed their "conviction" that "the Burlingame 
 Treaty ought to be so modified ly the General Government 
 as to restrict Chinese emigration." Rev. S. V. Blakeslee, 
 editor of the- oldest religious paper on the Pacific coast, 
 spoke thus in an official address : 
 
 "Moreover, wealthy English and American companies 
 have organized great money-making plans for bringing mil 
 lions it is true even millions of these Chinese into our 
 State, and into all parts of the Union ; and they have sent 
 out emissaries into China to induce the people, by every true 
 and false story, to migrate here. Already two hundred and 
 fifty thousand have come, of whom one hundred tJiousand 
 remain. 
 
 "The tendency of all this is tremendously toward evil; 
 toward vice and abomination ; toward all opposed to the true 
 spirit of Americanism, and is very dangerous to our mo 
 rality, to our stability, and to our success as a people and ;i 
 nation. Millions more of these Chinese must come if not 
 prevented by any legal, or moral, or mobocratic restraint, 
 
338 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 increasing incalculably by numbers the evils already exist 
 ing ; while a spirit of race prejudices and clanship jealousies 
 and a conflict of interests must be developed, portending 
 possible evil beyond all description." 
 
 In regard to the process of converting and Christianizing 
 this people, a missionary, who has been in the field since 
 1849, testifies that not one in a thousand have even nom 
 inally professed a change from heathenism, and that of this 
 small number nearly one-half had been taught in missionary 
 schools in China. The same missionary says, "as they 
 come in still larger numbers they will more effectually sup 
 port each other in their national peculiarities and vices, 
 become still more confirmed in heathen immoralities, with an 
 influence in every respect incalculably bad." Under what 
 possible sense of duty any American can feel that he pro 
 motes Christianity by the process of handing California 
 over to heathenism, is more than I am able to discover. 
 
 Tenth. This Chinese question connects itself intimately 
 and inseparably with the labor question. Their emigration 
 is encouraged by some openly, by many secretly, because 
 their labor is cheap. The experiment is a most dangerous 
 one. In a Republic where the man who works carries a 
 ballot in his hands, it will not do for capitalized wealth to 
 legislate for cheap labor. We do not want cheap labor ; 
 we do not want dear labor. AVe want labor at fair rates ; 
 at rates that shall give the laborer his fair share, and capi 
 tal its fair share. Jf more is sought by capital, less will in 
 the end be realized. There is not a laboring-man from the 
 Penobscot to the Sacramento who would not feel aggrieved, 
 outraged, burdened, crushed, by being forced into competi 
 tion with the labor and the wages of the Chinese Cooly. 
 For one I will never consent by my vote or my voice to 
 drive the intelligent workingmen of America to that com 
 petition and that degredation. Mr. Garrison spent the best 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 339 
 
 years of an honored life in a courageous battle for the free 
 dom and dignity of labor, and for its emancipation from 
 thralldom. I trust he will not lessen the gratitude which 
 the workiugmen of America owe him for his noble lead in 
 the past by an effort now to consign them to the humilia 
 tion and the poverty inevitably resulting from the competi 
 tion of Chinese Coolies. 
 
 Years ago, Mr. Carlyle said to an American friend, "You 
 will have no trouble in your country so long as you have 
 few people and much land ; but when you have much peo 
 ple and little land, your trials will begin." No one con 
 nected in any manner with the Government of the Republic 
 can view the situation without grave concern. At least 
 nine large States of the South are disturbed by a race 
 trouble, of which no man is yet wise enough to see the end ; 
 the central and largest and wealthiest of our Territories is 
 seized by a polygamous population which flaunts defiance in 
 the face of the general Government ; discontent among un 
 employed thousands has already manifested a spirit of vio 
 lence, and but recently arrested travel between the Atlan 
 tic and Mississippi by armed mobs which defied three States 
 and commanded great trunk lines of railway to cease opera 
 tions. Practical statesmanship would suggest that the gov 
 ernment of the United States has its hands fuU and that 
 nothing but sheer recklessness will force upon the American 
 population of the Pacific slope the odious contamination of 
 the lowest grade of the Chinese race. It may be attempted ; 
 but, in my judgment, it will lead to direful results, in which 
 violence and murders and massacres will be terribly fre 
 quent. Let it be proclaimed here and now that the general 
 Government will support and maintain unrestricted emi 
 gration of Chinese coolies, and in less than five years a 
 larger military force than the existing army of the United 
 States will be required to keep peace on the Pacific slope. 
 
340 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 I feel and know that I am pleading the cause of the free 
 American laborer and of his children and of his children s 
 children. It has been well said that it is the cause of "the 
 house against the hovel ; of the comforts of the freeman 
 against the squalor of the slave." It has been charged that 
 my position would arraign labor-saving machinery and con 
 demn it. This answer is not only superficial ; it is also ab 
 surd. Labor-saving machinery has multiplied the power to 
 pay, has developed new wants, and has continually enlarged 
 the area of labor and constantly advanced the wages of the 
 laborer. But servile toil has always dragged free labor to 
 its lowest level and has stripped it of one muniment after 
 another until it was helpless and hopeless. Whenever that 
 condition comes to the free laborer of America, the Repub 
 lic of equal rights is gone, and we shall live under the worst 
 of oligarchies that of mere wealth, whose profit only 
 measures the wretchedness of the unpaid toilsmen that pro 
 duce it. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 341 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Four Years, 1876 to 1880. The Popular Desire for Elaine. The 
 Approach of the Republican Convention of 1880. The Can 
 didacy of General Grant. Senator Conkling s Advocacy of 
 Grant. The Convention Speech in favor of the Nomination 
 of Elaine. Enthusiasm. The Long Contest. Nomination of 
 Elaine s Next Friend. Supports Garfield s Nomination. 
 
 Four years service in the Senate confirmed Elaine s pop 
 ularity with the Nation, and wholly killed out the influence 
 of the scandal mongers who so falsely assailed his character 
 in 1876. The people awaited the coming Presidential elec 
 tion of 1880 with confidence, expecting Elaine to be the 
 candidate of the Republican party. Even those who were 
 opposed to him for partisan reasons, predicted his nomina 
 tion and his election. 
 
 But suddenly, as the day drew near for the meeting of 
 the Chicago Convention of 1880, Senator Conkling, the 
 former rival and constant opponent of Elaine, brought for 
 ward General Grant as a candidate for a third term. It was 
 an exceedingly shrewd measure if the Senator had in view 
 only the defeat of Elaine. For General Grant was the only 
 man in the Nation whose influence was greater than that of 
 Elaine. General Grant s distinguished services in the war, 
 and the very large and influential body of men who held 
 office under him, when President, and who hoped to do so 
 again, combined a most powerful influence, even if had not 
 received the untiring, energetic support and advocacy of men 
 like Conkling. 
 
342 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 The only strong candidate who appeared againsl Blaine, 
 before the opening of the Convention, was General Grant. 
 One distinguished and loved for his patriotism and success 
 in war. The other distinguished and loved for his patriot 
 ism and success in legislating to sustain that war and to 
 preserve the results of its victories. Both men of equal 
 importance to the National life, and each, in his sphere, as 
 patriotic as the other. 
 
 The partisans of each became hostile to each other as the 
 contest drew nearer, and often great bitterness was dis 
 played between them. 
 
 June 2d, 1880, the Convention met in Chicago, and the 
 excited people eagerly watched every action, and closely 
 criticised every word that was spoken in it. 
 
 Hon. George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, was made per 
 manent chairman. Thousands crowded into or surged 
 about the great building in which the Convention held its 
 session, and at every mention of the name of Blaine or 
 Grant, riotous applause shook the building from the dense 
 masses within, and echoed and re-echoed in cheers from 
 without. 
 
 When Hon. James F. Joy, of Michigan, nominated 
 Blaine, as the choice of their delegation for the candidate of 
 the Republican party, the uproar was deafening and bewil 
 dering. Men seemed wild. 
 
 When the first ballot was taken, the ballot stood for Gen 
 eral Grant, 304 ; for Blaine, 284 ; for Sherman, 93 ; for 
 Edmunds, 34, and for Windom 10. 
 
 Then followed ballot after ballot, amid the most intense 
 excitement. Day after day went by, and a whole week was 
 consumed, in the hardest-fought political battle of the 
 century. 
 
 At last human nature became exhausted. Some com 
 promise must be made or adjourn without a choice. Atten- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 343 
 
 tion began to turn to Elaine s intimate friend and co-worker 
 in every important measure James A. Garfield, of Ohio. 
 At last, on the thirty-sixth ballot, and on the seventh day 
 of the Convention, enough of Elaine s friends went over to 
 Garfield to carry the nomination, the friends of Sherman 
 and Edmunds having agreed to combine upon him. The 
 last ballot stood : Garfield, 399 ; Grant, 306 ; Elaine, 42. 
 
 Again Elaine accepted the result cheerfully, and at once 
 gave in his adherence to the nomination of Garfield. Poli 
 ticians said that probably Elaine s name would not appear 
 again before the Convention of the Republican party. But 
 it was apparent, by Elaine s great popularity with the 
 masses of the people and the ovations given him wherever 
 he went, that the time must come when the machinery of 
 party would be compelled to move on the track which the 
 voters in the aggregate desired. The people may be hin 
 dered and deceived once or twice, but ultimately their will 
 must be the law. 
 
 The selection of Garfield was the next thing to that of 
 Elaine, and so for the time the people acquiesced, and in 
 the turn of events Elaine himself became the "power 
 behind the throne" of Garfield s administration. 
 
 During the campaign of 1880 Elaine took an active 
 share in the work, and awakened a tide of enthusiasm 
 wherever he appeared. The "Plumed Knight" became a 
 synonym for "Elaine," and a helmet with a white plume 
 was popularly regarded as an emblem of his life. 
 
344 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Garfield Offers the Portfolio of Secretary of State to Blaine. 
 Blaine s Letter of Acceptance. The Policy of the New 
 Administration. Blaine s Letter Defining it. The Inter- 
 oceanic Canal. Misunderstanding with Chili. The Peace 
 Congress. Bright Hopes for the Future. Misunderstanding 
 with Conkling. 
 
 It is now a matter of accepted history that in November 
 of 1880 after the election General Garfield decided upon 
 a visit to Washington and Mr. Blaine was in Bangor, Maine. 
 There he received a note from General Garfield appointing 
 an interview in Washington about November 24th. Blaine 
 reached the capital on the 26th, and on the afternoon of that 
 day called upon the President-elect. For two hours they were 
 closeted without interruption from a single person. At this 
 conference General Garfield without reservation, tendered 
 the State Department to Blaine. When Blaine had recovered 
 from his surprise he replied: "General, I was hardly pre 
 pared for this tender on your part. I do not know how to 
 make answer. I would like some time for reflection and 
 consultation, and in the mean time I will advise you." Gen 
 eral Garfield then and there urged Mr. Blaine to accept, 
 but he made no binding answer at the time. Subsequently 
 Mr. Blaine had a conference with his closest friends, and 
 the weight of their testimony was that he should accept the 
 place. Said he : "Gentlemen, I am inclined to accept Gen 
 eral Garfield s offer ; but meanwhile I will for a very short 
 period still further hold it under advisement." After this 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 345 
 
 conference with his friends the fact that General Garfield 
 had offered the Senator the Secretaryship of State was com 
 municated to one or two of Senator Elaine s confidential 
 friends, and he said: u lf the sentiment of the country in 
 dorses the selection General Garfield has made, I will ac 
 cept the office. Otherwise not." Early in December the 
 announcement was made in one or two newspapers, direct 
 ly and absolutely, that Senator Elaine had been invited by 
 General Garfield to take the State Department. It soon be 
 came accepted as a fact. The universal expression of news 
 paper opinion was that the selection was a good one. 
 Thereupon Elaine wrote the following letter of acceptance : 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 1880. 
 
 MY DEAR GARFIELD : Your generous invitation to enter 
 your Cabinet as Secretary of State has been under consid 
 eration for more than three weeks. The thought had really 
 never occurred to my mind until at our late conference you t 
 presented it with such cogent arguments in its fayor and 
 with such warmth of personal friendship in aid of your kind 
 offer. 
 
 I know that an early answer is desirable, and I have 
 waited only long enough to consider the subject in all its 
 bearings, and to make up my mind, definitely and conclu 
 sively. I now say to you, in the same cordial spirit in 
 which you have invited me, that I accept the position. 
 
 It is no affectation for me to add that I make this de 
 cision, not for the honor of the promotion it gives me in the 
 public service, but because I think I can be useful to the 
 country and to the party ; useful to you as the responsible 
 leader of the party and the great head of the Government. 
 
 I am influenced somewhat, perhaps, by the shower of 
 letters I have received urging me to accept, written to me 
 in consequence of the mere unauthorized newspaper report 
 
346 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 that you had been pleased to offer me the place. While I 
 have received these letters from all sections of the Union, I 
 have been especially pleased and even surprised at the cor 
 dial and widely extended feeling in my favor throughout 
 New-England, where I had expected to encounter local 
 jealousy and perhaps rival aspiration. 
 
 In our new relation I shall give all that I am and all that 
 I can hope to be, freely and joyfully, to your service. You 
 need no pledge of my loyalty in heart and in act. I should 
 be false to myself did I not prove true both to the great 
 trust you confide to me and to your own personal and po 
 litical fortunes in the present and in the future. Your Ad 
 ministration must be made brilliantly successful and strong 
 in the confidence and pride of the people, not at all direct 
 ing its energies for re-election, and yet compelling that re 
 sult by the logic of events and by the imperious necessities 
 of the situation. 
 
 To that most desirable consummation I feel that, next to 
 yourself, I can possibly contribute as much influence as any 
 other one man. I say this not from egotism or vain glory, 
 but merely as a deduction from a plain analysis of the po 
 litical forces which have been at work in the country for 
 five years past, and which have been significantly shown in 
 two great National Conventions. I accept it as one of the 
 happiest circumstances connected with this affair that in al 
 lying my political fortunes with yours or rather for the 
 time merging mine in yours my heart goes with my head, 
 and that I carry to you not only political support but per 
 sonal and devoted friendship. I can but regard it as some 
 what remarkable that two men of the same age, entering 
 Congress at the same time, influenced by the same aims and 
 cherishing the same ambitions, should never, for a single 
 moment in eighteen years of close intimacy, have had a 
 misunderstanding or a coolness, and that our friendship has 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 347 
 
 steadily grown with our growth and strengthened with our 
 strength. 
 
 It is this fact which has led me to the conclusion em 
 bodied in this letter ; for however much, my dear Garfield, 
 I might admire you as a statesman, I would not enter your 
 Cabinet if I did not believe in you as a man and love you 
 as a friend. Always faithfully yours, 
 
 JAMES G. BLAINE. 
 
 In accordance with this understanding Blaine resigned his 
 seat in the Senate and took his place March 4th, 1881, at 
 the head of Garfield s Cabinet. 
 
 The Cabinet consisted of Hon. William "Windom, Secreta 
 ry of the Treasury ; Hon. Wayne McVeagh, Attorney Gen 
 eral ; Robert T. Lincoln, Secretary of War ; Hon. William 
 H. Hunt, Secretary of the Navy ; Hon. Samuel J. Kirk- 
 wood, Secretary of the Interior, and Hon. Thomas L. 
 James, Postmaster General. 
 
 The administration of the Government at once showed 
 the presence of stronger hands. The easy policy of Mr. 
 Hayes was replaced with the vigorous yet careful policy of 
 General Garfield. The whole people felt the new life, as 
 passengers on a ship become sensible of a stronger and 
 steadier hand at the wheel. Not a violent wrenching nor a 
 wild driving, but a sure and straight-forward course. A 
 dignified Government having the dignity and strength of 
 character becoming a great Nation. 
 
 In all the internal affairs of the nation, the policy of the 
 Government had a pleasing effect. A sense of stability and 
 a prophecy of growth and permanency accompanied the 
 President s financial policy and his administration of the 
 business connected with the collections of the Nation s reve 
 nue. Elaine s personal influence was felt everywhere in the 
 Government ; but in the foreign policy of the Government 
 
348 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 he was almost solely responsible, as the President deferred 
 jrrcatly to his advice. Unfortunately for the administra 
 tion, especially as it had too short a time before the Presi 
 dent s death to correct the false impression the error made, 
 some dispatches to the United States Minister to Chili were 
 misunderstood by the recipient and he made demands and 
 suggestions which Blaine could not and would not support. 
 
 The best exposition of the foreign policy which caused no 
 little discussion at the time, was given by Blaine himself in 
 a letter to a Chicago magazine, wherein he said : 
 
 AUGUSTA, MAINE, September 1, 1882. 
 
 The foreign policy of President Garfield s Administration 
 had two principal objects in view : First, to bring about 
 peace and prevent future wars in North and South Amer 
 ica ; second, to cultivate such friendly commercial relations 
 with all American countries as would lead to a large in 
 crease in the export trade of the United States by supplying 
 those fabrics in which we are abundantly able to compete 
 with the manufacturing nations of Europe. 
 
 To attain the second object the first must be accomplished. 
 It would be idle to attempt the development and enlarge 
 ment of our trade with the countries of North and South 
 America if that trade were liable at any unforeseen moment to 
 be violently interrupted by such wars as that which for three 
 years has engrossed and almost engulfed Chili, Peru and 
 Bolivia ; as that which was barely averted by the friendly 
 offices of the United States between Chili and the Argentine 
 Republic ; as that which has been postponed by the same 
 good offices, but not decisively abandoned, between Mexico 
 and Guatemala ; as that which is threatened between Bra/il 
 and Uruguay ; as that which is even now foreshadowed be 
 tween Brazil and the Argentine States. Peace is essential 
 to commerce, is the very life of honest trade, is the solid 
 basis of international prosperity ; and yet there is no part of 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 349 
 
 the world where a resort to arms is so prompt as in the 
 Spanish American republics. Those republics have grown 
 out of the old colonial divisions, formed from capricious 
 grants to favorites by royal charter, and their boundaries 
 are in many cases not clearly denned, and consequently af 
 ford the basis of continual disputes, breaking forth too often 
 in open war. To induce the Spanish American States to 
 adopt some peaceful mode of adjusting their frequently re 
 curring contentions was regarded by the late President as 
 one of the most honorable and useful ends to which the di 
 plomacy of the United States could contribute useful es 
 pecially to those States by securing permanent peace within 
 all their borders, and useful to our own country by affording 
 a coveted opportunity for extending its commerce and secur 
 ing enlarged fields for our products and manufactures. 
 
 Instead of friendly intervention here and there, patching 
 up a treaty between two countries to-day, securing a truce 
 between two others to-morrow, it was apparent to the 
 President that a more comprehensive plan should be adopted 
 if war were to cease in the Western Hemisphere. It was 
 evident that certain European Powers had in the past been 
 interested in promoting strife between the Spanish- American 
 countries and might be so interested in the future, while the 
 interest of the United States was wholly and always on the 
 side of peace with all our American neighbors and peace 
 between them all. 
 
 It was therefore the President s belief that mere inciden 
 tal and partial adjustments failed to attain the desired end, 
 and that a common agreement of peace, permanent in its 
 character and continental in its extents should, if possible, 
 be secured. To effect this end it had been resolved, before 
 the fatal shot of July 2, to invite all the independent Gov 
 ernments of North and South America to meet in a Peace 
 Congress at Washington. 
 
350 TUP: LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 The date to be assigned was the 15th of March, 1882, 
 and the invitations would have been issued directly after 
 the New Kngland tour which the President was not per 
 mitted to make. Nearly six months later, on November 
 22, President Garfield s successor issued the invitations for 
 the Peace Congress in the same spirit and scope, and with 
 the same limitations and restrictions, that had been origi 
 nally designed. 
 
 As soon as the project was understood in South America 
 it received a most cordial approval, and some of the coun 
 tries, not following the leisurely routine of diplomatic cor 
 respondence, made haste to accept the invitation. There 
 can be no doubt that within a brief period all the nations 
 invited would have formally signified their readiness to 
 attend the Congress ; but in six weeks after the invitations 
 had gone to the several countries, President Arthur caused 
 them to be recalled, or at least suspended. 
 
 The subject was afterward referred to Congress in a spec 
 ial message, in which the President ably vindicated his con 
 stitutional right to assemble the Peace Congress, but ex 
 pressed a desire that the legislative department of the Gov 
 ernment should give an opinion upon the expediency of the 
 step before the Congress should be allowed to convene. 
 Meanwhile the nations that received the invitations 
 were in an embarrassing situation, for after they were asked 
 by the President to come, they found that the matter had 
 been reconsidered and referred to another department of the 
 Government. The change was universally accepted as a 
 practical though indirect abandonment of the project, for it 
 was not from the first probable that Congress would take 
 any action whatever upon the subject. 
 
 The good will and welcome of the invitation would be 
 destroyed by a long debate in the Senate and House, in which 
 the question would necessarily become intermixed with per- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 351 
 
 sonal party politics, and the project would be ultimately 
 wrecked from the same cause and by the same process that 
 destroyed the usefulness of the Panama Congress, more than 
 fifty years ago, when Mr. Clay was Secretary of State. The 
 time for Congressional action would have been after the 
 Peace Conference had closed its labors. The Conference 
 could not agree upon anything that would be binding upon 
 the United States, unless assented to as a treaty by the Sen 
 ate, or enacted into a law by both branches. The assem 
 bling of the Peace Conference, as President Arthur so well 
 demonstrated, was not in derogation of any right or prerog 
 ative of the Senate or House. The money necessary for the 
 expenses of the Conference which would not have exceeded 
 $10,000 could not, with reason or propriety, have been 
 refused by Congress. If it had been refused, patriotism 
 and philanthrophy would have promptly supplied it. 
 
 The Spanish- American States are in special need of the 
 help which the Peace Congress would afford them. They 
 require external pressure to keep them from war. When 
 at war they require external pressure to bring them to 
 peace. Their outbreaks are not only frequent, but are 
 sanguinary and sometimes cruel. The inhabitants of those 
 countries are a brave people, belonging to a race that have 
 always been brave, descended of men that have always been 
 proud. They are of hot temper, quick to take affront, 
 ready to avenge a wrong, whether real or fancied. They 
 are at the same time generous and chivalrous, and though 
 tending for years past to estrangement and alienation from 
 us, they would promptly respond to any advance made by 
 the Great Republic of the North, as they have for two 
 generations termed our government. The moral influence 
 upon the Spanish- American people of such an international 
 assembly as the Peace Congress, called by the invitation 
 and meeting under the auspices of the United States, 
 
352 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 would have proved beneficent and far-reaching. It would 
 have raised the standard of their civilization. It would 
 have turned their attention to the things of peace ; and the 
 continent, whose undeveloped wealth amazed Ilumboldt, 
 might have had a new life given to it, a new and splendid 
 career opened to its inhabitants. 
 
 Such friendly interventions as the proposed Peace Con 
 gress, and as the attempt to restore peace between Chili and 
 Peru, fall within the line of both duty and interest on the 
 part of the United States, Nations, like individuals, often 
 require the aid of a common friend to restore relations of 
 amity. Peru and Chili are in deplorable need of a wise 
 and powerful mediator. Though exhausted by war, they 
 are unable to make peace, and, unless they shall be aided 
 by the intervention of a friend, political anarchy and social 
 disorder will come to the conquered, and evils scarcely less 
 serious to the conqueror. Our own Government cannot 
 take the ground that it will not offer friendly intervention 
 to settle troubles between American countries, unless at the 
 same time it freely concedes to European Governments the 
 right of such intervention, and thus consents to a practical 
 destruction of the Monroe doctrine and an unlimited in 
 crease of European and monarchical influence on this con 
 tinent. The late special envoy to Peru and Chili, Mr. 
 Trescot, gives it as his deliberate and published conclusion 
 that if the instructions under which he set out upon his mis- 
 .-i<m had not been revoked, peace between those angry bellig 
 erents would have been established as the result of his 
 labors necessarily to the great benefit of the United States. 
 
 If our Government does not resume its efforts to secure 
 peace in South America, some European Government will 
 be forced to perform that friendly office. The United States 
 cannot play between nations the part of the dog in the man 
 ger. We must perform the duty of humane intervention our- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 353 
 
 selves, or give way to foreign Governments that are willing 
 to accept the responsibility of the great trust, and secure 
 the enhanced influence and numberless advantages resulting 
 from such a philanthropic and beneficent course. 
 
 A most significant and important result would have fol 
 lowed the assembling of the Peace Congress. A friendship 
 and an intimacy would have been established between the 
 States of North and South America, which would have de 
 manded and enforced a closer commercial connection. A 
 movement in the near future, as the legitimate outgrowth of 
 assured peace, would, in all probability, have been a great 
 commercial conference at the city of Mexico or Rio Janeiro, 
 whose deliberations would be directed to a better system of 
 trade on the two continents. 
 
 To such a conference the Dominion of Canada could 
 properly be asked to send representatives, as that Govern 
 ment is allowed by Great Britain a very large liberty in reg 
 ulating its commercial relations. In the Peace Congress, to 
 be composed of independent Governments, the Dominion 
 could not have taken any part, and was consequently not in 
 vited. From this trade conference of the two continents 
 the United States could hardly have failed to gain great ad 
 vantages. At present the commercial relations of this 
 country with the Spanish- American countries, both con 
 tinental and insular, are unsatisfactory and unprofitable ; 
 indeed, those relations are absolutely oppressive to the finan 
 cial interests of the Government and people of the United 
 States. In our current exchanges it requires about $120,- 
 000,000 to pay the balance which Spanish America brings 
 kgainst us every year. This amount is 50 per cent, more 
 than the average annual product of the gold and silver mines \ 
 of the United States during the past five years. This vast V 
 sum does not, of course, go to Spanish America in coin, 
 but it goes across the ocean in coin or its equivalent, to pay 
 
354 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 European countries for manufactured articles which they fur 
 nish to Spanish America a large proportion of which should 
 be furnished by the manufacturers of the United States. 
 
 At this point of the argument the free trader appears, and 
 declares that our protective tariff destroys our power of com 
 petition with European countries, and that if we will abol 
 ish protection we shall soon have South American trade. 
 The answer is not sufficient, for to-day there are many arti 
 cles which we can send to South America and sell as cheap 
 ly as P^uropean manufacturers can furnish them. It is idle, 
 of course, to make this statement to the genuine apostle of 
 free trade and the implacable enemy of protection, for the 
 great postulate, of his argument, the foundation of his creed, 
 is that nothing can be made as cheaply in America as in 
 Europe. 
 
 Nevertheless, facts are stubborn, and the hard figures of 
 arithmetic cannot be satisfactorily answered by airy figures 
 of speech. The truth remains that the coarser descriptions 
 of cottons and cotton prints, boots and shoes, ordinary 
 household furniture, harness for draft animals, agricultural 
 implements of all kinds, doors, sashes and blinds, locks, 
 bolts and hinges, silver-ware, plated- ware, wooden- ware, 
 ordinary paper and paper hangings, common vehicles, ordi 
 nary window glass and glassware, rubber goods, coal oils, 
 lard oils, kerosenes, white lead, lead pipe, and articles in 
 which lead is a chief component, can be and are produced 
 as cheaply in the United States as in any other part of the 
 world. 
 
 The list of such articles might be lengthened by the addi 
 tion of those classed as "notions," but enough only are 
 given to show that this country would, with proper com 
 mercial arrangements, export much more largely than it 
 now does to Spanish America. 
 
 In the trade relations of the world it does not follow that 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 355 
 
 mere ability to produce as cheaply as another nation insures 
 a division of an established market, or indeed, any partici 
 pation in it. France manufactures many articles as cheap 
 ly as England some articles at even less cost. Portugal 
 lies nearer to France than to England, and the expense of 
 transporting the French fabric to the Portuguese market is 
 therefore less than the transportation of the English fabric. 
 And yet Great Britain has almost a monopoly in the trade 
 of Portugal. The same condition applies, though in a less 
 degree, in the trade of Turkey, Syria and Egypt, which 
 England holds to a much greater extent than any of the 
 other European nations that are able to produce the same 
 fabric as cheaply. If it be said in answer that England has 
 special trade relations by treaty with Portugal and special 
 obligations binding the other countries, the ready answer is 
 that she has no more favorable position with regard to those 
 countries than can be readily and easily acquired by the 
 United States with respect to all the countries of America. 
 That end will be reached whenever the United States de 
 sires it, and wills it, and is ready to take the steps neces 
 sary to secure it. 
 
 At present the trade with Spanish America runs so strongly 
 in channels adverse to us, that, besides our inability to fur 
 nish manufactured articles, we do not get the profit on our 
 own raw products that are shipped there. Our petroleum 
 reaches most of the Spanish-American ports after twice 
 crossing the Atlantic, paying often a better profit to the 
 European middle-man who handles it than it does to the 
 producer of the oil in the northwestern counties of Penn 
 sylvania. Flour and pork from the West reach Cuba by 
 way of Spain, and though we buy and consume ninety per 
 cent, of the total products of Cuba, almost that proportion 
 of her purchases are made in Europe made, of course, 
 with money furnished directly from our pockets. 
 
356 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 As our exports to Spanish America grow less, as Euro 
 pean imports constantly grow larger, the balance against us 
 will show an annual increase, and will continue to exhaust 
 our supply of the precious metals. We are increasing our 
 imports from South America, and the millions we annually 
 pay for coffee, wool, hides, guano, cinchona, caoutchouc, 
 cabinet- woods, dye woods and other articles, go for the ul 
 timate benefit of European manufacturers, who take the 
 gold from us and send their fabrics to Spanish America. If 
 we could send our fabrics, our gold would stay at home and 
 our general prosperity would be sensibly increased. But so 
 long as we repel Spanish America, so long as we leave her 
 to cultivate intimate relations with Europe alone, so long our 
 trade relations will remain unsatisfactory and even embar 
 rassing. 
 
 Those countries sell to us very heavily. They buy from 
 us very lightly. And the amount they bring us in debt 
 each year is larger than the heaviest aggregate balance of 
 trade we ever have against us in the worst of times. The 
 average balance against us for the whole world in the five 
 most adverse years we ever experienced, was about one 
 hundred millions of dollars. This plainly shows that in 
 our European exchanges there is always a balance in our 
 favor, and that our chief deficiency arises from our mal 
 adjusted commercial relations with Spanish America. It 
 follows that if our Spanish-American trade were placed on 
 a better and more equitable foundation, it would be almost 
 impossible, even in years most unfavorable to us, to bring 
 us in debt to the world. 
 
 AVith such heavy purchases as we are compelled to make 
 from Spanish America, it could hardly be expected that we 
 should be able to adjust the entire account by exports. But 
 the balance against us of one hundred and twenty millions 
 in gold coin is far too large, and in time of stringency is a stand- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 357 
 
 ing menace of financial disaster. It should not be forgotten 
 that every million dollars of products of fabrics that we sell in 
 Spanish America is a million dollars in gold saved to our 
 own country. The immediate profit is to the producer and 
 exporter, but the entire country realizes a gain in the ease 
 and affluence of the money market, which is insured by 
 keeping our gold at home. The question involved is so 
 large, the object to be achieved is so great, that no effort on 
 the part of the Government to accomplish it could be too 
 earnest or too long continued. 
 
 It is only claimed for the Peace Congress, designed under 
 the administration of Garfield, that it was an important and 
 impressive step on the part of the United States toward 
 closer relationship with our continental neighbors. The 
 present tendency in those countries is toward Europe, and 
 it is a lamentable fact that their people are not so near to us 
 in feeling as they were sixty years ago when they threw off 
 the yoke of Spanish tyranny. 
 
 We were then a weak Republic of but ten millions, but 
 we did not hesitate to recognize the independence of the new 
 Governments, even at the risk of war with Spain. Our 
 foreign policy at that time was specially designed to extend 
 our influence in the Western Hemisphere, and the statesmen 
 of that era the era of DeWitt Clinton and the younger 
 Adams, of Clay and Crawford, of Webster and Calhoun, 
 of Van Buren and Benton, of Jackson and of Edward Liv 
 ingston were always courageous in the inspiring measures 
 which they advocated for the expansion of our commercial 
 dominion. 
 
 Three-score years have passed. The power of the Re 
 public in many directions has grown beyond all anticipation, 
 but we have relatively lost ground in some great fields of 
 enterprise. We have added thousands of miles to our 
 ocean front, but our commerce has fallen off, and from 
 
358 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 ardent friendship with Spanish America we have drifted 
 into indifference, if not into coldness. It is but one step 
 further to reach a condition of positive unfriendliness, which 
 may end in what would be equivalent to a commercial alli 
 ance against us. 
 
 Already one of the most dangerous of movements that 
 of a European guarantee and guardianship of the Inter- 
 oceanic Canal is suggested and urged upon the great 
 foreign powers by representatives of a South American 
 country. If these tendencies are to be averted, if Spanish- 
 American friendship is to be regained, if the commercial 
 empire that legitimately belongs to us is to be ours, we 
 must not lie idle and witness its transfer to others. If we 
 would re-conquer it, a great first step must be taken. It is 
 the first step that costs. It is also the first step that counts. 
 Can there be suggested a wiser step than the Peace Con 
 gress of the two Americas, that was devised under Garfield 
 and had the weight of his great name? 
 
 In no event could harm have resulted in the assembling 
 of the Peace Congress. Failure was next to impossible. 
 Success might be regarded as certain. The subject to be 
 discussed was peace, and how it can be permanently pre 
 served in North and South America. The labors of the 
 Congress would have probably ended in a well-digested sys 
 tem of arbitration, under which all troubles between Ameri 
 can States could be quickly, efTectually and satisfactorily 
 adjusted. Such a consummation would have been worth a 
 great struggle and a great sacrifice. It could have been 
 reached without any struggle, and would have involved no 
 sacrifice. It was within our grasp. It was ours for the 
 asking. It would have been a signal victory of philanthro 
 py over the selfishness of human ambition ; a complete tri 
 umph of Christian principles, as applied to the affairs of 
 nations. It would have reflected enduring honor on our 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 359 
 
 new country, and would have imparted a new spirit and a 
 new brotherhood to all America. Nor would its influence 
 beyond the sea have been small. The example of seventeen 
 independent nations solemnly agreeing to abolish the arbit 
 rament of the sword, and to settle every dispute by peaceful 
 methods of adjudication, would have exerted an influence to 
 the utmost confines of civilization, and upon the generations 
 of men yet to come. 
 
 JAMES Gr. BLAINE. 
 
 As much has been accomplished for the greatness of 
 nations, and much more that was for their good, by diplo 
 macy as by war. If some general plan had been adopted 
 by a Peace Congress for the arbitration of all difficulties 
 between the powers for mutual advantage in freedom, edu 
 cation, and commerce, the American continent would have 
 been already far in advance of its present position. It was a 
 long step backward when the call for a Peace Congress was 
 countermanded by Secretary Frelinghuysen. The adminis 
 tration took a strong ground in favor of the Monroe Doc 
 trine, and notified the European powers concerned that the 
 proposed Isthmus Canal was a matter subject to American 
 control. It was a wise policy which would save the Nation 
 in the future from vast expense and many wars. Insisting 
 on the right of mankind in the American continent to the 
 control of that continent in season to prevent war is far 
 better than waiting until some European power has tried to 
 seize it and then fight for it. 
 
 Garfield and Elaine were both very industrious men per 
 sonally, and they at once set the subordinate officers at work 
 in earnest, and everything looked bright for the Nation. 
 
 The misunderstanding with the South American States 
 of Chili and Peru was in a fair way of settlement through 
 the visit of special envoys, of which Elaine s son, Mr. 
 
3GO 
 
 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Walker Elaine, was one. On the first of July every diffi 
 culty seemed in a fair way for amicable adjustment, and the 
 Government wheels were smoothly in motion. 
 
 A writer for the New York Tribune gave a digest of 
 Elaine s policy as Secretary of State and its results, which 
 we quote, as showing the opinion of one of America s lead 
 ing journals upon it: 
 
 "It was a pacific policy, and was wholly in accord with 
 
 WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D 
 
 the Monroe Doctrine and the characteristic traditions of 
 American diplomacy. 
 
 President Garfield in his inaugural address had repeated 
 the declaration of his predecessor, that it was the right 
 and duty of the United States to assert and maintain such 
 supervision and authority over any interoceanic canal across 
 the isthmus that connects North and South America as will 
 protect our National interests. This policy, which had 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 361 
 
 received the direct approval of Congress, was vigorously 
 upheld by Secretary Elaine. The Colombian Republic had 
 proposed to the European Powers to join in a guarantee of 
 the neutrality of the proposed Panama Canal. One of Presi 
 dent Garfield s first acts under the advice of Secretary Blaine 
 was to remind the European Governments of the exclusive 
 rights which the United States had secured with the country 
 to be traversed by the interoceanic waterway. These exclu 
 sive rights rendered the prior guarantee of the United States 
 Government indispensable, and the Powers were informed 
 that any foreign guarantee would be not only an unnecessary 
 but unfriendly act. As the United States had made in the 
 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 a special agreement with 
 Great Britain on this subject, Secretary Blaine supplement 
 ed his memorandum to the Powers by a formal proposal for 
 the abrogation of all provisions of that Convention which 
 were not in accord with the guarantees and privileges cov 
 enanted for in the compact with the Colombian Republic. 
 
 In this State paper, the most elaborate of the series re 
 ceiving his signature as Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine con 
 tended that the operation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 
 practically conceded to Great Britain the control of any 
 canal which might be constructed in the isthmus, as that 
 Power was required by its insular position and colonial pos 
 sessions to maintain a naval establishment with which the 
 United States could not compete. As the American Gov 
 ernment had bound itself by its engagements in the Clayton- 
 Bulwer Treaty not to fight in the isthmus, nor to fortify the 
 mouths of any waterway that might be constructed, the Sec 
 retary argued that if any struggle for the control of the canal 
 were to arise, England would have an advantage at the out 
 set which would prove decisive. The treaty, he remarked, 
 commands this Government not to use a single regiment 
 of troops to protect its interests in connection with the in- 
 
362 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 teroceanic canal, but to surrender the transit to the guardi 
 anship and control of the British navy. 
 
 "The logic of this paper was unanswerable from an Amer 
 ican point of view. If the Monroe Doctrine be anything 
 more than a tradition, the control of the Panama Canal must 
 not be allowed to pass out of American hands ; and since 
 the country having the most powerful navy is the real guar 
 dian of the freedom of an interoceanic canal under any 
 system of international guarantees, or in the absence of 
 treaty law, the Panama Canal, as Mr. Elaine said, under 
 the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty would be surrendered, if not in 
 form yet in effect, to the control of Great Britain. 
 
 "The war between Chili and Peru had virtually ended 
 with the capture of Lima on January 17, 1881. Pierola, 
 the President, had succeeded in rallying a few followers in 
 the north, and Calderon, assuming the provisional Presi 
 dency, had convoked a Congress in the vicinity of Lima. 
 The State Department made strenuous exertions to bring 
 about the conclusion of an early peace between Chili and the 
 two prostrate States which had been crushed in war. The in 
 fluence of the Government was brought to bear upon victo 
 rious Chili in the interest of peace and magnanimity ; but 
 owing to an unfortunate misapprehension of Mr. Blaine s 
 instructions, the United States Ministers did not promote 
 the ends of peace. Special envoys were accordingly sent to 
 South America accredited to the three Governments with 
 general instructions which should enable them to bring those 
 belligerent Powers into friendly relations. These envoys 
 were Mr. Trescot and Mr. AValker Blaine, and their mis 
 sion w T as to perform a most delicate and important diploma 
 tic duty in the interest of peace. After they had set out 
 from New York Mr. Blame resigned and Mr. Frelinghuysen 
 jeversed the diplomatic policy with such precipitate ha>t- 
 that the envoys on arriving at their destination were in- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 363 
 
 formed by the Chilian Minister of Foreign Affairs that their 
 instructions had been countermanded and that their mission 
 was an idle farce. By this extraordinary reversal of diplo 
 matic methods and purposes the influence of the United 
 States Government on the South American coast was re 
 duced to so low a point as to become insignificant. Mr. 
 Elaine s policy had been at once strong and pacific. It was 
 followed by a period of no-policy which enabled Chili to 
 make a conqueror s terms with the conquered and to seize 
 as much territory as pleased its rapacious generals. 
 
 The most conspicuous act of Mr. Elaine s administration 
 of the State Department was his invitation to the Peace 
 Congress. This plan had been decided upon before the 
 assassination of President Garfield. The proposition was 
 to invite all the independent Governments of North and 
 South America to meet in a Peace Congress at Washington 
 on March 15, 1882. The representatives of all the minor 
 Governments in this continent were to agree, if possible, 
 upon some comprehensive plan for averting war by means 
 of arbitration and for resisting the intrigues of European 
 diplomacy. Invitations were sent on November 22 with 
 the limitations and restrictions originally designed. Mr. 
 Frelinghuysen lost no time in undermining this Diplomatic 
 Congress, and the meeting never took place. It cannot be 
 doubted that the proposed Congress would have had a 
 most important . effect not only in promoting the ends of 
 peace but in stimulating American trade with the Spanish- 
 American States. It was a brilliant conception a most 
 useful project." 
 
 In June a lamentable misunderstanding arose between 
 President Garfield and Senator Conkling about the appoint 
 ment of a Collector for the Port of New York, which 
 caused considerable gossip through the country, but which 
 caused no great excitement notwithstanding both Senator 
 
364 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Conkling and Senator Platt of New York resigned in a 
 passion and their seats were filled by others. How much of 
 this feeling was due, if any of it, to the position which 
 Bluinc held, who had so long been regarded by Conkling as 
 a rival, is not now known. But the effect of the escapade 
 in political circles was transitory and unimportant. The 
 administration was unshaken, and the confidence of the 
 people in it undisturbed. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 367 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Assassination of Garficld. The President and Elaine Ride to 
 Station. Blaine Sees the Assassin. Tries Too Late to Stop 
 the Second Shot. Assumes the Cares of State. Vigils at 
 President s Bedside. The President s Death. Preparations 
 for the Funeral. Elaine s Great Funeral Oration. 
 
 On Saturday, the second day of July, the President 
 started from the White House for the purpose of taking 
 the train at the Baltimore Station in Washington. He had 
 made an engagement to visit his Alma Mater ^ Williams 
 College, in Western Massachusetts, to fulfill which he now 
 started from his new home. With him, and in the same 
 carriage, was Blaine, who, aside from the fact that he was 
 a constant companion of the President, was intending to 
 take the same train on his way to his home in Maine. 
 Together they alighted from the carriage at the entrance of 
 the commodious station. They then stood for a few 
 minutes engaged in private conversation. Close by them, 
 lurking behind the pillars of the doorway of the station, 
 listening to their conversation, and revolver in hand, stood 
 that satanic assassin, Charles J. Guiteau. 
 
 The sound of the gong or call of the conductor of the 
 train warned those in waiting that the train was ready, and 
 the President and Blaine hastened into the waiting-room. 
 
 As the President and Secretary of State crossed the wait 
 ing-room, two shots were fired from behind, one of which 
 took fatal effect in the President s back. The confusion and 
 dismay which ensued are utterly indescribable, in the midst 
 of which the guilty assassin escaped the vengeance of the 
 crowd by being safely escorted to prison. The history of 
 
368 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 the country was changed by that shot and the sad cortege 
 that escorted the wounded President back to the White 
 House seemed to realize the fatal ending. 
 
 Then began a vigil such as few men have had the oppor 
 tunity and, far less, the strength of body and mind to keep. 
 His personal friendship for the President kept him at Ins 
 side for many hours of the day, while the responsibilities 
 of his position as the practical head of the Government de 
 manded his constant care. The cares of State were greatly 
 increased by the probabilities that the President would die. 
 
 Blainc was calm but prompt in his decisions and actions, 
 and disarmed fear, and defeated all who would take advan 
 tage of the excitement to advance their own purposes at 
 the expense of the Nation. The affairs of the Nation 
 were administered promptly and safely, and by his direc 
 tion, during those long and terrible days of suspense. At 
 last, on the 19th of September, in the Seaside cottage at 
 Long Branch, where Blame had been continually within 
 call, the President died. 
 
 The Nation s grief was sincere and deep; but to Blaine 
 it was a terrible sorrow. They had been like brothers, and 
 were peculiarly bound together by social and political ties. 
 Amidst the weeping of a Nation, and in the grief of a 
 heart most sadly stricken, Blaine neglected no duty as the 
 Nation s servant. He officially notified the Vice-President, 
 Chester A. Arthur, of the death of the President, and ad 
 vised him at once to take the oath of office. 
 
 Then came the preparations for the funeral, in which 
 Blaine, as the most intimate friend, was the chief adviser. 
 AY lien the question arose who should represent the Nation 
 in the funeral oration before Congress and the Executive, 
 there could be but one choice. Blaine was the most fitted 
 by nature, experience, and friendship to speak for the 
 Nation. 
 
A 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 371 
 
 CHAFrER XIX. 
 
 Elaine selected by the Government to deliver the Memorial Oration 
 at President Garfield s funeral. The place. His manner. 
 His estimate of Garfield s character. Garfield s early life. 
 Garfield s military experience. Legislative experience. 
 Career as President. His death. 
 
 When the assassination of President Garfield, in July, 
 
 1881, and his lingering death, had excited the people of the 
 country to a degree not known since that sad day when the 
 solemn church bells and minute guns informed the people 
 of Lincoln s death, there was an unusual desire expressed 
 for the highest oratorical tribute within the gift of the na 
 tion. In such a time only the best friend of the nation, as 
 well as of Garfield, could be selected without great dissatis 
 faction. The cities and villages throughout the country 
 were almost universally dressed in mourning, many eloquent 
 men made the martyr s death their theme, and thousands 
 of gifted essayists and poets published their sorrows in beau 
 tiful words. But when the stricken people wanted some 
 official, central tribute given, their choice expressed in the 
 action of Congress fell unchallenged upon Blaine. 
 
 In the hall of the House of Representatives, Feb. 27th, 
 
 1882, and in the presence of the official heads and law 
 makers of the Republic, Blaine fittingly and tenderly voiced 
 the feelings of the people in the oration which he alone 
 seemed the proper person to deliver. He was the repre 
 sentative of the nation in every sense. The memorial ora- 
 
372 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 tion was delivered in a tender and subdued tone which 
 added much to its effectiveness to the listeners. 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. President: For the second time in this generation 
 the great departments of the Government of the United 
 States are assembled in the Hall of Representatives to do 
 honor to the memory of a murdered President. Lincoln 
 fell at the close of a mighty struggle in which the passions 
 of men had been deeply stirred. The tragical termination 
 of his great life added but another to the lengthened succes 
 sion of horrors which had marked so many lintels with the 
 blood of the first-born. GARFIELD was slain in a day of 
 peace, when brother had been reconciled to brother, and 
 when anger and hate had been banished from the laud. 
 Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he 
 will show it as it has been exhibited where such example 
 was last to have been looked for, let him not give it the 
 grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the 
 face black with settled hate. Let him draw, rather, a de 
 corous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon ; not so much an ex 
 ample of human nature in its depravity and in its paroxysms 
 of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary dis 
 play and development of his character." 
 
 From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth till the up 
 rising against Charles I., about twenty thousand emigrants 
 came from old England to New England. As they came 
 in pursuit of intellectual freedom and ecclesiastical independ 
 ence rather than for worldly honor and profit, the emigra 
 tion naturally ceased when the contest for religious liberty 
 began in earnest at home. The man who struck his most 
 effective blow for freedom of conscience by sailing for the 
 colonies in 1620 would have been accounted a deserter to 
 leave after 1640. The opportunity had then come on the 
 soil of England for that great contest which established the 
 authority of Parliament, gave religious freedom to the peo 
 ple, sent Charles to the block, and committed to the hands 
 of Oliver Cromwell the supreme executive authority of Eng 
 land. The English emigration was never renewed, and from 
 these twenty thousand men, and from a small emigration 
 from Scotland, from Ireland, and from France, are de- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 373 
 
 scended the vast numbers who have New England blood in 
 their veins. 
 
 In 1685 the revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis 
 XIV. scattered to other countries four hundred thousand 
 Protestants, who were among the most intelligent and enter 
 prising of French subjects merchants of capital, skilled 
 manufacturers and handicraftsmen, superior at the time to 
 all others in Europe. A considerable number of these Hu 
 guenot French came to America ; a few landed in New Eng 
 land and became honorably prominent in its history. Their 
 names have in large part become anglicized, or have disap 
 peared, but their blood is traceable in many of the most 
 reputable families, and their fame is perpetuated in honora 
 ble memorials and useful institutions. 
 
 From these two sources, the English-Puritan and the 
 French-Huguenot, came the late President his father, 
 Abram Garlield, being descended from the one, and his 
 mother, Eliza Ballou, from the other. 
 
 It was good stock on both sides none better, none braver, 
 none truer. There was in it an inheritance of courage, of 
 manliness, of imperishable love of liberty, of undying adher 
 ence to principle. Garfield was proud of his blood ; and, 
 with as much satisfaction as if he were a British nobleman 
 reading his stately ancestral record in Burke s Peerage, ho 
 spoke of himself as ninth in descent from those who would 
 not endure the oppression of the Stuarts, and seventh in de 
 scent from the brave French Protestants who refused to sub 
 mit to tyranny even from the Grand Monarque. 
 
 General Garfield delighted to dwell on these traits, and, 
 during his only visit to England, he busied himself in search 
 ing out every trace of his forefathers in parish registries and 
 on ancient army rolls. Sitting with a friend in the gallery 
 of the House of Commons, one night, after a long day s 
 labor in this field of research, he said, with evident elation, 
 that in every Avar in which for three centuries patriots of 
 English blood had struck sturdy blows for constitutional gov 
 ernment and human liberty, his family had been represented. 
 They were at Marston Moor, at Naseby, and at Preston ; 
 they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, and at Monmouth ; 
 and in his own person had battled for the same great cause 
 in the war which preserved the Union of the States. 
 
374 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 His father dying before he was two years old, Garfield s 
 early life was one of privation, but its poverty has been 
 made indelicately and unjustly prominent. Thousands of 
 readers have imagined him as the ragged, starving child, 
 whose reality too often greets the eye in the squalid sections 
 of our large cities. General Gartield s infancy and youth 
 had none of this destitution, none of these pitiful features 
 appealing to the tender heart, and to the open hand, of 
 charity. He was a poor boy in the same sense in which 
 Henry Clay was a poor boy ; in which Andrew Jackson 
 was a poor boy ; in which Daniel Webster was a poor boy ; 
 in the sense in which a large majority of the eminent men 
 of America in all generations have been poor boys. Before 
 a great multitude, in a public speech, Mr. Webster bore 
 this testimony : 
 
 4 It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but 
 my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin raised 
 amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so 
 early that when the smoke rose first from its rude chimney 
 and curled over the frozen hills there was no similar evi 
 dence of a white man s habitation between it and the settle 
 ments on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I 
 make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to 
 teach them the hardships endured by the generations which 
 have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recol 
 lections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touch 
 ing narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know 
 of this primitive family abode." 
 
 With the requisite change of scene the same words would 
 aptly portray the early days of Garfield. The poverty of 
 the frontier, where all are engaged in a common struggle 
 and where a common sympathy and hearty co-operation 
 lighten the burdens of each, is a very different poverty, dif 
 ferent in kind, different in influence and effect, from that 
 conscious and humiliating indigence which is every day 
 forced to contrast itself with neighboring wealth on which 
 it feels a sense of grinding dependi iice. The poverty of the 
 frontier is indeed no poverty. It is but the beginning of 
 wraith, and has the boundless possibilities of the future al 
 ways opening before it. No man ever grew up in the agri 
 cultural regions of the West, where a house-raising, or even 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 375 
 
 a corn-husking, is matter of common interest and helpful 
 ness, with any other feeling than that of broad-minded, gen 
 erous independence. This honorable independence marked 
 the youth of Garfield, as it marks the youth of millions of 
 the best blood and brain now training for the future citizen 
 ship and future government of the Republic. Garfield was 
 born heir to land, to the title of freeholder, which has been 
 the patent and passport of self-respect with the Anglo-Saxon 
 race ever since Hengist and Horsa landed on the shores of 
 England. His adventure on the canal an alternative be 
 tween that and the deck of a Lake Erie schooner was a 
 farmer boy s device for earning money, just as the New 
 England lad begins *a possibly great career by sailing before 
 the mast on a coasting vessel, or on a merchantman bound 
 to the farther India or to the China seas. 
 
 No manly man feels anything of shame in looking back 
 to early struggles with adverse circumstances, and no man 
 feels a worthier pride than when he has conquered the ob 
 stacles to his progress. But no one of noble mould desires 
 to be looked upon as having occupied a menial position, as 
 having been repressed by a feeling of inferiority, or as hav 
 ing suffered the evils of poverty until relief was found at the 
 hand of charity. General Garfield s youth presented no 
 hardships which family love and family energy did not over 
 come, subjected him to no privations which he did not cheer 
 fully accept, and left no memories save those which were 
 recalled with delight, and transmitted with profit and with 
 pride. 
 
 Garfield s early opportunities for securing an education 
 were extremely limited, and yet were sufficient to develop in 
 him an intense desire to learn. He could read at three years 
 of age, and each winter he had the ad vantage of the district 
 school. He read all the books to be found within the circle 
 of his acquaintance ; some of them he got by heart. While 
 yet in childhood he was a constant student of the Bible, and be 
 came familiar with its literature. The dignity and earnest 
 ness of his speech in hismaturer life gave evidence of this early 
 training. At eighteen years of age he was able to teach school, 
 and thenceforward his ambition was to obtain a college educa 
 tion. To this end he bent all his efforts, working in the 
 harvest field, tit the carpenter s bench, and in the winter season, 
 
376 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 teaching the common schools of the neighborhood. While 
 thus laboriously occupied he found time to prosecute his 
 studies, and was so successful that at twenty-two years of 
 age he was able to enter the junior class at Williams Col 
 lege, then under the presidency of the venerable and hon 
 ored Mark Hopkins, who in the fullness of his powers, sur 
 vives the eminent pupil to whom he was of inestimable 
 service. 
 
 The history of Garfield s life to this period presents no 
 novel features. He had undoubtedly shown perseverance, 
 self-reliance, self-sacrifice, arid ambition qualities which, be 
 it said for the honor of our country, are everywhere to be 
 found among the young men of America. But from his gradu 
 ation at Williams onward, to the hour of his tragical death, 
 Garfield s career was eminent and exceptional. Slowly work 
 ing through his educational period, receiving his diploma when 
 twenty-four years of age, he seemed at one bound to spring 
 into conspicuous and brilliant success. Within six years he 
 was successively President of a College, State Senator of 
 Ohio, Major General of the Army of the United States, 
 and Representative elect to the National Congress. A com 
 bination of honors so varied, so elevated, within a period so 
 brief and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel 
 in the history of the country. 
 
 Garfield s army life was begun with no other military 
 knowledge than such as he had hastily gained from books 
 in the few months preceding his march to the field. Step 
 ping from civil life to the head of a regiment, the first order 
 he received when ready to cross the Ohio was to assume 
 command of a brigade, and to operate as an independent 
 force in Eastern Kentucky. His immediate duty was to 
 check the advance of Humphrey Marshall, who was march 
 ing down the Big Sandy with the intention of occupying, in 
 connection with other Confederate forces, the entire terri 
 tory of Kentucky, and of precipitating the State into seces 
 sion. This was at the dose of the year 1861. Seldom, if 
 ever, has a young college professor been thrown into a more 
 embarrassing and discouraging position. He knew just 
 enough of military science, as he c\j>resse<l it himself, to 
 measure the extent of his ignorance, and with a handful of 
 men he was marching, in rough winter weather, into a 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 377 
 
 strange country, among a hostile population, to confront a 
 largely superior force under the command of a distinguished 
 graduate of West Point, who had seen active and important 
 service in two preceding wars. 
 
 The result of the campaign is matter of history. The 
 skill, the endurance, the extraordinary energy shown by 
 Gartield, the courage he imparted to his men, raw and un 
 tried as himself, the measures he adopted to increase his 
 force and to create in the enemy s mind exaggerated esti 
 mates of his numbers, bore perfect fruit in the routing of 
 Marshall, the capture of his camp, the dispersion of his 
 force, and the emancipation of an important territory from 
 the control of the rebellion. Coming at the close of a long 
 series of disasters to the Union arms, Garfield s victory had 
 an unusual and extraneous importance, and in the popular 
 judgment elevated the young commander to the rank of a 
 military hero. With less than two thousand men in his en 
 tire command, with a mobilized force of only eleven hun 
 dred, without cannon, he had met an army of five thousand 
 and defeated them driving Marshall s forces successively 
 from two strongholds of their own selection, fortified with 
 abundant artillery. Major General Buell, commanding the 
 Department of the Ohio, an experienced and able soldier of 
 the Regular Army, published an order of thanks and con 
 gratulation on the brilliant result of the Big Sandy Cam 
 paign, which would have turned the head of a less cool and 
 sensible man than Garfield. Buell declared that his ser 
 vices had called into action the highest qualities of a soldier, 
 and President Lincoln supplemented these words of praise 
 by the more substantial reward of a Brigadier General s 
 Commission, to bear date from the day of his decisive victory 
 over Marshall. 
 
 The subsequent military career of Garfield fully sustained 
 its brilliant beginning. With his new commission he was 
 assigned to the command of a brigade in the Army of the 
 Ohio, and took part in the second and decisive day s fight 
 on the bloody field of Shiloh. The remainder of the year 
 1862 was not especially eventful to Garfield, as it was not 
 to the armies witli Avhich he was serving. His practical 
 sense was called into exercise in completing the task, as 
 signed him by General Buell, of reconstructing bridges and 
 
378 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 re-establishing lines of railway communication for the army. 
 His occupation in this useful but not brilliant field was varied 
 by service on courts-martial of importance, In which depart 
 ment of duty he won a valuable reputation, attracting the 
 notice and securing the approval of the able and eminent 
 Judge Advocate General of the army. This of itself was 
 warrant to honorable fame ; for among the great men who 
 in those trying days gave themselves, with entire devotion, 
 to the service of their country, one who brought to that ser 
 vice the ripest learning, the most fervid eloquence, the most 
 varied attainments, who labored with modesty and shunned 
 applause, who in the day of triumph sat reserved and silent 
 and grateful as Francis Deak in the hour of Hungary s 
 deliverance was Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, who in his 
 honorable retirement enjoys the respect and veneration of 
 all who love the Union of the States. 
 
 Early in 1863 Garfield was assigned to the highly impor 
 tant and responsible post of Chief of Staff to General Rose- 
 crans, then at the head of the Army of the Cumberland. 
 Perhaps in a great military campaign no subordinate officer 
 requires sounder judgment and quicker knowledge of men 
 than the Chief of Staff to the Commanding General. An 
 indiscrete man in such a position can sow more discord, 
 breed more jealousy, and disseminate more strife than any 
 other officer in the entire organization. AVhen General 
 Garfield assumed his new duties he found various troubles 
 already well developed and seriously affecting the value and 
 efficiency of the Army of the Cumberland. The energy, 
 the impartiality, and the tact with which he sought to allay 
 these dissensions, and to discharge the duties of his new 
 and trying position, will always remain one of the most 
 striking proofs of his great versatility. His military duties 
 closed on the memorable field of Chickamauira. a field which, 
 however disastrous to the Union arms, gave to him the oc 
 casion of winning imperishable laurels. The very rare dis 
 tinction was accorded him of a great promotion for bravery 
 on a field that was lost. President Lincoln appointed him 
 a Major General in the Army of the United States for gal 
 lant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Cliickaiuanga. 
 
 The Army of the Cumberland \vas reoriraui/cd under the 
 command of General Thomas, who promptly offered Garfield 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 379 
 
 one of its divisions. He was extremely desirous to accept 
 the position, but was embarrassed by the fact that he had, a 
 year before, been elected to Congress, and the time when he 
 must take his seat was drawing near. He preferred to re 
 main in the military service, and had within his own breast 
 the largest confidence of success in the wider field which his 
 new rank opened to him. Balancing the arguments on the 
 one side and the other, anxious to determine what was for 
 the best, desirous above all things to do his patriotic duty, 
 he was decisively influenced by the advice of President Lin 
 coln and Secretary Stanton, both of whom assured him that 
 he could, at that time, be of especial value in the House of 
 Representatives. He resigned his commission of major- 
 general on the 5th day of December, 1863, and took his 
 seat in the House of Representatives on the 7th. He had 
 served two years and four months in the army, and had just 
 completed his thirty-second year. 
 
 The Thirty-eighth Congress is pre-eminently entitled in 
 history to the designation of the War Congress. It was 
 elected while the war was flagrant, and every member was 
 chosen upon the issues involved in the continuance of the 
 struggle. The Thirty-seventh Congress had, indeed, legis 
 lated to a large extent on war measures, but it was chosen 
 before any one believed that secession of the States would 
 be actually attempted. The magnitude of the work which 
 fell upon its successor was unprecedented, both in respect to 
 the vast sums of money raised for the support of the army 
 and navy, and of the new and extraordinary powers of leg 
 islation which it was forced to exercise. Only twenty-four 
 States were represented, and one hundred and eighty-two 
 members were upon its roll. Among these were many dis 
 tinguished party leaders on both sides, veterans in the pub 
 lic service, with established reputations for ability, and with 
 that skill which comes only from parliamentary experience. 
 Into this assemblage of men Garfield entered without special 
 preparation, and, it might almost be said, unexpectedly. 
 The question of taking command of a division of troops 
 under General Thomas, or taking his seat in Congress, was 
 kept open till the last moment, so late, indeed, that the res 
 ignation of his military commission and his appearance in 
 the House were almost contemporaneous. He wore the uni- 
 
380 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 form of a major-general of the United States Army on Sat 
 urday, and on Monday, in civilian s dress, he answered to 
 the roll-call as a Representative in Congress from the State 
 of Ohio. 
 
 He was especially fortunate in the constituency which 
 elected him. Descended almost entirely from New England 
 stock, the men of the Ashtabula district were intensely rad 
 ical on all questions relating to human rights. Well educa 
 ted, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs, acutely discern 
 ing of character, not quick to bestow confidence, and slow 
 to withdraw it, they were at once the most helpful and most 
 exacting of supporters. Their tenacious trust in men in 
 whom they have once confided is illustrated by the unparal 
 leled fact that Elisha Whittlesey, Joshua R. Giddings, and 
 James A. Garfield represented the district for fifty-four 
 years. 
 
 There is no test of a man s ability in any department of 
 public life more severe than service in the House of Repre 
 sentatives ; there is no place where so little deference is paid 
 to reputation previously acquired, or to eminence won out 
 side ; no place where so little consideration is shown for the 
 feelings or the 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, his rank is ir 
 reversibly decreed. 
 
 With possibly a single exception, Gartidd was the young 
 est member in the House when he entered, and was but 
 seven years from his college graduation. But he had not 
 been in his seat sixty days before his ability was recogni/od 
 and his place conceded. He stepped to the front with the 
 confidence of one who belonged there. The house was 
 crowded with strong men of both parties ; nineteen of them 
 have since been transferred to the Senate, and many of tlu-m 
 havr served with distinction in the gubernatorial chairs of 
 their respective States, and on foreign missions of great 
 consequence ; but among them all none grew so rapidly, 
 none so firmly, as Garficld. As is said by Trevelyan of 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 381 
 
 his parliamentary hero, Garfield succeeded "because all the 
 world in concert could not have kept him in the back 
 ground, and because when once in the front he played his 
 part with a prompt intrepidity and a commanding ease that 
 were but the outward symptoms of the immense reserves of 
 energy on which it was in his power to draw." Indeed, 
 the apparently reserved force which Garfield possessed was 
 one of his great characteristics. He never did so well but 
 that it seemed he could easily have done better. He never 
 expended so much strength but that he appeared to be hold 
 ing additional power at call. This is one of the happiest 
 and rarest distinctions of an effective debater, and often 
 counts for as much, in persuading an assembly, as the elo 
 quent and elaborate argument. 
 
 The great measure of Garfield s fame was filled by his 
 service in the House of Representatives. His military life, 
 illustrated by honorable performance, and rich in promise, 
 was, as he himself felt, prematurely terminated, and neces 
 sarily incomplete. Speculation as to what he might have 
 done in a field where the great prizes are so few, cannot be 
 profitable. It is sufficient to say that as a soldier he did 
 his duty bravely ; he did it intelligently ; he won an envi 
 able fame, and he retired from the service without blot or 
 breath against him. As a lawyer, though admirably equip 
 ped for the profession, he can scarcely be said to have en 
 tered on its practice. The few efforts he made at the bar 
 were distinguished by the same high order of talent which 
 he exhibited on every field where he was put to the test ; 
 and, if a man may be accepted as a competent judge of his 
 own capacities and adaptations, the law was the profession to 
 which Garfield should have devoted himself. But fate or 
 dained otherwise, and his reputation in history will rest 
 largely upon his service in the House of Representatives. 
 That service was exceptionally long. He was nine times 
 consecutively chosen to the House, an honor enjoyed prob 
 ably by not twenty other Representatives of the more than 
 five thousand who have been elected from the organization 
 of the government to this hour. 
 
 As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue 
 squarely joined, where the position had been chosen and the 
 ground laid out, Garfield must be assigned a very high 
 
382 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 rank. More, perhaps, than any man with whom he was 
 associated in public life, he gave careful and systematic 
 study to public questions, and he came to every discussion 
 in which he took part with elaborate and complete prepara 
 tion. He was a steady and indefatigable worker. Those 
 who imagine that talent or genius can supply the place or 
 achieve the results of labor will find no encouragement in 
 Garfield s life. In preliminary work he was apt, rapid, and 
 skillful. He possessed in a high degree the power of readily 
 absorbing ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art 
 of getting from a book all that was of value in it by a reading 
 apparently so quick and cursory that it seemed like a mere 
 glance at the table of contents. He was a pre-eminently 
 fair and candid man in debate, took no petty advantage, 
 stooped to no unworthy methods, avoided personal allusions, 
 raivly appealed to prejudice, did not seek to inflame pas 
 sion. He had a quicker eye for the strong point of his ad 
 versary than for his weak point, and on his own side he so 
 marshaled his weighty arguments as to make his hearers 
 forget any possible lack in the complete strength of his posi 
 tion. He had a habit of stating his opponent s side with 
 such amplitude of fairness and such liberality of concession 
 that his followers often complained that he was giving his 
 case away. But never in his prolonged participation in the 
 proceedings of the House did he give his case away, or fail 
 in the judgment of competent and impartial listeners to gain 
 the mastery. 
 
 These characteristics, which marked Garfield as a great 
 debater, did not, however, make him a great parliametary 
 leader. A parliamentary leader, as that term is understood 
 wherever free representative government exists, is neces 
 sarily and very strictly the organ of his party. An ardent 
 American denned the instinctive warmth of patriotism 
 when he offered the toast, "Our country, always right ; but 
 riirht or wrong, our country." The parliamentary leader 
 who has a body of followers that will do and dare and die 
 for the cause, is one who believes his party always right, 
 but right or wrong, is for his party. No more important 
 or exacting duty devolves upon him than the selection of the 
 field and the time for contest. He must know not mere 
 ly how to strike, but where to strike and when to strike. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 383 
 
 He often skillfully avoids the strength of his opponent s 
 position and scatters confusion in his ranks by attacking an 
 exposed point when really the righteousness of the cause and 
 the strength of logical intrenchment are against him. He 
 conquers often both against the right and the heavy battal 
 ions ; as when young Charles Fox, in the days of his Tory 
 ism, carried the House of Commons against justice, against 
 its immemorial rights, against his own convictions, if, in 
 deed, at that period Fox had convictions, and, in the inter 
 est of a corrupt administration, in obedience to a tyranical 
 sovereign, drove Wilkes from the seat to which the electors 
 of Middlesex had chosen him, and installed Luttrell, in de 
 fiance not merely of law but of public decency. For an 
 achievement of that kind Garfield was disqualified dis 
 qualified by the texture of his mind, by the honesty of his 
 heart, by his conscience, and by every instinct and aspira 
 tion of his nature. 
 
 The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hith 
 erto developed in this country are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas, 
 and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. They were all men of con 
 summate ability, of great earnestness, of intense personality, 
 differing widely each from the others, and yet with a signal 
 trait in common the power to command. In the give-and- 
 take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and con 
 solidating reluctant and refractory followers, in the skill to 
 overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with compe 
 tency and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for as 
 sault 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 the parliamentary annals of the 
 world a parallel to Mr. Clay, in 1841, when 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 elo 
 quence of Choate in the Senate, against the herculean 
 efforts of Caleb dishing 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 seek shelter behind 
 
384 THE LIFE AND Pl IlLIC SKHVICES 
 
 the lines of its political foes. Mr. Douglas achieved a vic 
 tory scarcely less wonderful, when in 1854, against the se 
 cret 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 reluct 
 ant Congress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 
 Mr. Thaddeus Stevens in his contests from 18G5 to 1868 
 actually advanced his parliamentary leadership until Con 
 gress tied the hands of the President and governed the 
 country by its own will, leaving only perfunctory 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. 
 
 From these three great men Garfield differed radically, 
 differed in the quality of his mind, in temperament, in the 
 form and phase of ambition. He could not do what they 
 did, but he could do what they could not, and in the breadth 
 of his Congressional work he left that which will longer ex 
 ert a potential influence among men, and which, measured 
 by the severe test of posthumous criticism, will secure a 
 more enduring and more enviable fame. 
 
 Those unfamiliar with Garfield s industry, and ignorant 
 of the details of his work, may, in some degree measure 
 them by the annals of Congress. No one of the generation 
 of public men to which he belonged has contributed so much 
 that will prove valuable for future reference. His speeches 
 are numerous, many of them brilliant, all of them well 
 studied, carefully phrased, and exhaustive of the subject 
 under consideration. Collected from the scattered pages of 
 ninety royal octavo volumes of Congressional record, they 
 would present an invaluable compendium of the political 
 events of the most important era through which the Na 
 tional government has ever passed. When the history of 
 this period shall be impartially written, when war legisla 
 tion, measures of reconstruction, protection of human rights, 
 amendments to the Constitution, maintenance of public 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 385 
 
 credit, steps toward specie resumption, true theories of rev 
 enue, may be reviewed, unsurrounded by prejudice and dis 
 connected from partisanism, the speeches of Garfield will 
 be estimated at their true value, and will be found to com 
 prise a vast magazine of fact and argument, of clear analy 
 sis and sound conclusion. Indeed, if no other authority 
 were accessible, his speeches in the House of Representa 
 tives from December, 1863, to June, 1880, would give a 
 well-connected history and complete defense of the import 
 ant legislation of the seventeen eventful years that consti 
 tute his parliamentary life. Far beyond that, his speeches 
 would be found to forecast many great measures yet to be 
 completed- measures which he knew were beyond the pub 
 lic opinion of the hour, but which he confidently believed 
 would secure popular approval within the period of his own 
 lifetime and by the aid of his own efforts. 
 
 Differing as Garfield does, from the brilliant parliament 
 ary leaders, it is not easy to find his counterpart anywhere 
 in the record of American public life. He, perhaps, more 
 nearly resembles Mr. Seward in his supreme faith in the 
 all-conquering power of a principle. He had the love of 
 learning, and the patient industry of investigation, to which 
 John Quincy Adams owes his prominence and his Pres 
 idency. He had some of those ponderous elements of mind 
 which distinguished Mr. Webster, and which, indeed, in all 
 our public life have left the great Massachusetts Senator 
 without an intellectual peer. 
 
 In English parliamentary history, as in our own, the 
 leaders in the House of Commons present points of essen 
 tial difference from Garfield. But some of his methods re 
 call the best features in the strong, independent course of Sir 
 Robert Peel, to whom he had striking resemblances in the 
 type of his mind and in the habit of his speech. He had 
 all of Burke s love for the sublime and the beautiful, with pos 
 sibly, something of his superabundance. In his faith and 
 his magnanimity, in his power of statement, in his subtle 
 analysis, in his faultless logic, in his love of literature, 
 in his wealth and world of illustration, one is reminded 
 of that great English statesman of to-day, who, con 
 fronted with obstacles that would daunt any but the 
 dauntless, reviled by those whom he would relieve as bit- 
 
386 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 terly as by those whose supposed rights he is forced to in 
 vade, still labors with serene courage for the amelioration 
 of Ireland and for the honor of the English name. 
 
 Garfield s nomination to the Presidency, while not pre 
 dicted or anticipated, was not a surprise to the country. 
 His prominence in Congress, his solid qualities, his wide 
 reputation, strengthened by his then recent election as Sen 
 ator from Ohio, kept him in the public eye as a man occu 
 pying the very highest rank among those entitled to be 
 called statesmen. It was not mere chance that brought him 
 this high honor. "We must," says Mr. Emerson, "reckon 
 success a constitutional trait. If Eric is in robust health 
 and has slept well and is at the top of his condition, and 
 thirty years old at his departure from Greenland, he will 
 steer west and his ships will reach Newfoundland. But 
 take Eric out and put in a stronger and bolder man, and 
 the ships will sail six hundred, one thousand, fifteen hun 
 dred miles farther and reach Labrador and New England. 
 There is no chance in results." 
 
 As a candidate, Garfield steadily grew in popular favor. 
 He was met with a storm of detraction at the very hour of 
 his nomination, and it continued with increasing volume and 
 momentum until the close of his victorious campaign : 
 
 No might nor greatness in mortality 
 Can censure scape; backwounding calumny 
 The whitest virtue strikes. What king- so strong 
 Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? 
 
 Under it all he was calm, and strong, and confident ; 
 never lost his self-possession, did no unwise act, spoke no hasty 
 or ill-considered word. Indeed, nothing in his whole life 
 is more remarkable or more creditable than his bearing 
 through those five full months of vituperation a prolonged 
 agony of trial to a sensitive man, a constant and cruel draft 
 upon the powers of moral endurance. The great mass of 
 these unjust imputations passed unnoticed, and with the 
 general debris of the campaign fell into oblivion. But in a 
 few instances the iron entered his soul, and he died with the 
 injury unforgotten if not unforgivrn. 
 
 One aspect of Garfield s candidacy was unprecedented. 
 Never before, in the history of partisan contests in this 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 387 
 
 country, had a successful Presidential cadidate spoken freely 
 on passing events and current issues. To attempt anything 
 of the kind seemed novel, rash, and even desperate. The 
 older class of voters recalled the unfortunate Alabama letter, 
 in which Mr. Clay was supposed to have signed his political 
 death-warrant. They remembered also the hot-tempered 
 effusion by which General Scott lost a large share of 
 his popularity before his nomination, and the unfortu 
 nate speeches which rapidly consumed the remainder. 
 The younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley, in a series 
 of vigorous and original addresses, preparing the path 
 way for his own defeat. Unmindful of these warnings, un 
 heeding the advice of friends, Garfield spoke to large crowds 
 as he journeyed to and from New York in August, to a 
 great multitude in that city, to delegations and deputations 
 of every kind that called at Mentor during the summer and 
 autumn. With innumerable critics, watchful and eager to 
 catch a phrase that might be turned into odium or ridicule, or a 
 sentence that might be distorted to his own or his party s injury, 
 Garfield did not trip or halt in any one of his seventy 
 speeches. This seems all the more remarkable when it is 
 remembered that he did not write what he said, and yet 
 spoke with such logical consecutiveness of thought and such 
 admirable precision of phrase as to defy the accident of 
 niisreport and the malignity of misrepresentation. 
 
 In the beginning of his Presidential life Garfield s ex 
 perience did not yield him pleasure or satisfaction. The 
 duties that engross so large a portion of the President s 
 time were distasteful to him, and were unfavorably con 
 trasted with his legislative work. "I have been dealing all 
 these years with ideas," he impatiently exclaimed one day, 
 "and here I am dealing only with persons. I have been 
 heretofore treating of the fundamental principles of gov 
 ernment, and here I am considering all day whether A or 
 B shall be appointed to this or that office." He was earn 
 estly seeking some practical way of correcting the evils 
 arising from the distribution of overgrown and unwieldly 
 patronage evils always appreciated and often discussed by 
 him, but whose magnitude had been more deeply impressed 
 upon his mind since his accession to the Presidency. Had 
 he lived, a comprehensive improvement in the mode of 
 
388 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 appointment and in the tenure of office would have been 
 proposed by him, and, with the aid of Congress, no doubt 
 perfected. 
 
 But, while many of the Executive duties were not grateful 
 to him, he was assiduous and conscientious in their dis 
 charge. From the very outset he exhibited administrative 
 talent of a high order. He grasped the helm of office with 
 the hand of a master. In this respect, indeed, he con 
 stantly surprised many who were most intimately associated 
 with him in the Government, and especially those who had 
 feared that he might be lacking in the executive faculty. 
 His disposition of business was orderly and rapid. His 
 power of analysis, and his skill in classification, enabled him 
 to dispatch a vast mass of detail with singular promptness 
 and ease. His Cabinet meetings were admirably conducted. 
 His clear presentation of official subjects, his well-considered 
 suggestion of topics on which discussion was invited, his 
 quick decision when all had been heard, combined to show 
 a thoroughness of mental training as rare as his natural 
 ability and his facile adaptation to a new and enlarged field 
 of labor. 
 
 With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the 
 war, with a cool calculation of the obstacles in his way, im 
 pelled always by a generous enthusiasm, Garfield conceived 
 that much might be done by his administration towards re 
 storing harmony between the different sections of the Union. 
 He was anxious to go South and speak to the people. Aa 
 early as April he had ineffectually endeavored to arrange foi- 
 a trip to Nashville, whither he had been cordially invited, 
 and he was again disappointed a few weeks later to find that 
 he could not go to South Carolina to attend the centennial 
 celebration of the victory of the Cowpens. But for the 
 autumn he definitely counted on being present at three mem 
 orable assemblies in the South : the celebration at York- 
 town, the opening of the Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, ano 
 the meeting of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. 
 He was already turning over in his mind his address foi 
 each occasion, and the three taken together, he said to a 
 friend, gave him the exact scope and verge which he needed. 
 At Yorktown he would have before him the associations of a 
 hundred years that bound the South and the North in the 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 389 
 
 sacred memory of a common danger and a common victory. 
 At Atlanta he would present the material interests and the 
 industrial development which appealed to the thrift and in 
 dependence of every household, and which should unite the 
 two sections by the instinct of self-interest and self-defense. 
 At Chattanooga he would revive memories of the war only 
 to show that after all its disaster and all its suffering, the 
 country was stronger and greater, the Union rendered indis 
 soluble, and the future, through the agony and blood of one 
 generation, made brighter and better for all. 
 
 Garfield s ambition for the success of his administration 
 was high. With strong caution and conservatism in his 
 nature, he was in no danger of attempting rash experiments 
 or of resorting to the empiricism of statesmanship. But he 
 believed that renewed and closer attention should be given 
 to questions affecting the material interests and commercial 
 prospects of fifty millions of people. He believed that our 
 continental relations, extensive and undeveloped as they are, 
 involved responsibility, and could be cultivated into profita 
 ble friendship or be abandoned to harmful indifference or 
 lasting enmity. He believed with equal confidence that an 
 essential forerunner to a new era of national progress must 
 be a feeling of contentment in every section of the Union, 
 and a generous belief that the benefits and burdens of gov 
 ernment would be common to all. Himself a conspicuous 
 illustration of what ability and ambition may do under re 
 publican institutions, he loved his country with a passion of 
 patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to 
 her advancement. He was an American in all his aspira 
 tions, and he looked to the destiny and influence of the 
 United States with the philosophic composure of Jefferson 
 and the demonstrative confidence of John Adams. 
 
 The political events which disturbed the President s se 
 renity for many weeks before that fateful day in July form an 
 important chapter in his career, and, in his own judgment, 
 involved questions of principle and of right which are vitally 
 essential to the constitutional administration of the Federal 
 Government. It would be out of place here and now to 
 speak the language of controversy ; but the events referred 
 to, however they may continue to be source of contention 
 with others, have become, so far as Garfield is concerned, 
 
390 THE LIFE AND ITBLIC SERVICES 
 
 as mucli a matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga 
 or his illustrious service in the House. Detail is not need 
 ful, and personal antagonism shall not be rekindled by any 
 word uttered to-day. The motives of those opposing him 
 are not to be here adversely interpreted nor their course 
 harshly characterized. But of the dead President this is to 
 be said, and said because his own speech is forever silenced 
 and he can be no more heard except through the fidelity and 
 love of surviving friends : from the beginning to the end of 
 the controversy he so much deplored, the President was 
 never for one moment actuated by any motive of gain to 
 himself or of loss to others. Least of all men did he harbor 
 revenge, rarely did he even show resentment, and malice 
 was not in his nature. He was congenially employed only 
 in the exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly deeds. 
 
 There was not an hour from the beginning of the trouble 
 till ihe fatal shot entered his body, when the President would 
 not gladly, for the sake of restoring harmony, have retraced 
 any step he had taken if such retracing had merely involved 
 consequences personal to himself. The pride of consisten 
 cy, or any supposed sense of humiliation that might result 
 from surrendering his position, had not a feather s weight 
 with him. No man was ever less subject to such influences 
 from within or from without. But after most anxious de 
 liberation and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, 
 he solemnly believed that the true prerogatives of the Execu 
 tive were involved in the issue which had been raised, and 
 that he would be unfaithful to his supreme obligation if he 
 failed to maintain, in all their vigor, the constitutional 
 rights and dignities of his great office. He believed this in 
 all the convictions of conscience when in sound and vigor 
 ous health, and he believed it in his suffering and prostra 
 tion in the last conscious thought which his wearied mind 
 bestowed on the transitory struggles of life. 
 
 More than this need not be said. Less than this could 
 not be said. Justice to the dead, the highest obligation 
 that devolves upon the living, demands the declaration that 
 in all the bearings of the subject, actual or possible, the 
 President was content in his mind, justified in his con 
 science, immovable in his conclusions. 
 
 The religious element in Garfield s character was deep 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 391 
 
 and earnest. In his early youth he espoused the faith of 
 the Disciples, a sect of that great Baptist Communion, 
 which in different ecclesiastical establishments is so numer 
 ous and so influential throughout all parts of the United 
 States. But the broadening tendency of his mind and his 
 active spirit of inquiry were early apparent, and carried 
 him beyond the dogmas of sect and the restraints of asso 
 ciation. In selecting a college in which to continue his 
 education he rejected Bethany, though presided over by 
 Alexander Campbell, the greatest preacher of his church. 
 His reasons were characteristic : first, that Bethany leaned 
 too heavily towards slavery ; and, second, that being him 
 self a Disciple and the son of Disciple parents, he had little 
 acquaintance with people of other beliefs, and he thought 
 it would make him more liberal, quoting his own words, 
 both in his religious and general views, to go into a new 
 circle and be under new influences. 
 
 The liberal tendency which he anticipated as the result of 
 wider culture was fully realized. He was emancipated from 
 mere sectarian belief, and with eager interest pushed his in 
 vestigations in the direction of modern progressive thought. 
 He followed with quickening step in the paths of explora 
 tion and speculation so fearlessly trodden by Darwin, by 
 Huxley, by Tyndall, and by other living scientists of the 
 radical and advanced type. His own church, binding its 
 disciples by no formulated creed, but accepting the Old and 
 New Testaments as the word of God, with unbiased liber 
 ality of private interpretation, favored, if it did not stimu 
 late, the spirit of investigation. Its members profess with 
 sincerity, and profess only, to be of one mind and one faith 
 with those who immediately followed the Master, and who 
 were first called Christians at Antioch. But however high 
 Garfield reasoned of "fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge 
 absolute," he was never separated from the Church of the 
 Disciples in his affections and in his associations. For him 
 it held the Ark of the Covenant. To him it was the gate 
 of Heaven. The world of religious belief is full of solecisms 
 and contradictions. A philosophic observer declares that 
 men by the thousand will die in defense of a creed whose 
 doctrines they do not comprehend and whose tenets they 
 habitually violate. It is equally true that men by the thou- 
 
302 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 sand will cling to church organizations with instinctive and 
 undying fidelity when their belief in maturer years is radi 
 cally different from that which inspired them as neophvtes. 
 
 But after this range of speculation, and this latitude of 
 doubt, Garh eld came back always with freshness and delight 
 to the simpler instincts of religious faith, which, earliest im 
 planted, longest survive. Not many weeks before his as 
 sassination, walking on the banks of the Potomac with a 
 friend, and conversing on those topics of personal religion, 
 concerning which noble natures have an unconquerable re 
 serve, he said that he found the Lord s Prayer and the simple 
 petitions learned in infancy infinitely restful to him, not 
 merely in their stated repetition, but in their casual and fre 
 quent recall as he went about the daily duties of life. Cer 
 tain texts of scripture had a very stronghold on his memory 
 and his heart. He heard, while in Edinburgh some years 
 ago, an eminent Scotch preacher who prefaced his sermon 
 with reading the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, 
 which book had been the subject of careful study with Gar- 
 field during all his religious life. He was greatly impressed 
 by the elocution of the preacher, and declared that it had 
 imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utter 
 ance of St. Paul. He referred often in after years to that 
 memorable service, and dwelt with exaltation of feeling upon 
 the radiant promise and the assured hope with which the 
 great Apostle of the Gentiles was "persuaded that neither 
 death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
 nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
 depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
 from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 The crowning characteristics of General Garfield s relig 
 ious opinions, as, indeed, of all his opinions, was his 
 liberality. In all things he had charity. Tolerance was of 
 his nature. He respected in others the qualities which he 
 possessed himself sincerity of conviction and frankness of 
 expression. "NVith him the inquiry was not so much what 
 a man believes, but does he believe it ? The lines of his 
 friendship and his confidence encircled men of every creed, 
 and men of no creed, and to the end of his life, on his ever- 
 lengthening list of friends, were to be found the names of 
 a pious Catholic priest and of an honest-minded and gener- 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 393 
 
 ous-hearted free-thinker. On the morning of Saturday, July 
 second, the President was a contented and happy man not 
 in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On 
 his way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in 
 conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an un 
 wonted sense of leisure and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his 
 talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that 
 after four months of trial his administration was strong in 
 its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor, and destined to 
 grow stronger ; that grave difficulties confronting him at his 
 inauguration had been safely passed ; that trouble lay behind 
 him and not before him ; that he was soon to meet the wife 
 whom he loved, now recovering from an illness which had 
 but lately disquieted and at times almost unnerved him ; 
 that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most 
 cherished associations of his young manhood, and to exchange 
 greetings with those whose deepening interest had followed 
 every step of his upward progress from the day he entered 
 upon his college course until he had attained the loftiest 
 elevation in the gift of his countrymen. 
 
 Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or 
 triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning James 
 A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No fore 
 boding of evil haunted him ; no slightest premonition of 
 danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in 
 an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident 
 in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The 
 next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary 
 weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave. 
 
 Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For 
 no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, 
 by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide 
 of this world s interests, from its hopes, its aspirations, its 
 victories, into the visible presence of death and he did not 
 quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, 
 stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of 
 its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, 
 through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because 
 silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked 
 into his open grave. What blight and ruin im-t his an- 
 onished eyes, whose lips may tell what brilliant, broken 
 
31)4 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of 
 strong, warm, manhood s friendships, what bitter rending of 
 sweet household ties ! Behind him a proud, expectant na 
 tion, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and 
 happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early 
 toil and tears ; the wife of his youth, w r hose whole life lay 
 in his ; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood s day 
 of frolic ; the fair young daughter ; the sturdy sons just 
 springing into closest companionship, claiming every day 
 and every day rewarding a father s love and care ; and in 
 his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. 
 Before him, desolation and great darkness ! And his soul 
 was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, 
 profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal 
 weakness, he became the center of a nation s love, enshrined 
 in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sym 
 pathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the 
 wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. 
 With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the 
 demoniac hiss of the assassin s bullet he heard the voice of 
 God. With simple resignation he bowed to the divine decree. 
 As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea re 
 turned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the 
 wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from 
 its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its 
 homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the 
 love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed- 
 for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should 
 will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of 
 its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face, tenderly 
 lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon 
 the ocean s changing wonders ; on its far sails, whitening 
 in the morning light ; on its restless waves, rolling shore 
 ward to break and die beneath the noonday sun ; on the red 
 clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon ; on the se 
 rene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that 
 his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt 
 and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the si 
 lence of the receding world he heard the great waves break 
 ing on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted 
 brow the breath of the eternal morning. 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 397 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Elaine Resigns his Seat in the Cabinet. Elaine s Literary Work. 
 Twenty Years in Congress. Residence in Washington. The 
 Celebrated "Count Out" in Maine. The Chicago Convention 
 of 1884. The Enthusiasm at the Mention of Elaine. The 
 Platform. Judge West s Speech Placing Elaine in Nomina 
 tion. Exciting Scenes. The First Ballot. Elaine Nominated 
 on the Fourth Ballot. 
 
 For three months after the death of Garfield, Elaine re 
 mained in the Cabinet of President Arthur and then resigned 
 his office, as did the other Cabinet officials, to give the new 
 President an opportunity to select such advisers as his per 
 sonal preferences might dictate. 
 
 Once more a private citizen, he turned to a literary task 
 which he had for some years contemplated. That work 
 was the preparation of an accurate and comprehensive his 
 tory of Congress for the twenty years from Lincoln to Gar- 
 field inclusive. To the arrangement of the facts and the 
 writing of such a history he applied himself with that ener 
 gy and those methodical ways which characterized him in 
 other spheres of life. 
 
 In his new and beautiful residence in Washington, which 
 he had just built to his liking, he began this great work. 
 For more than two years he labored zealously in the prep 
 aration of the first volume which was published in 1884, 
 and which covered the history of the causes of the war of 
 the rebellion and of the important events connected with 
 that reat struggle. 
 
398 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 It was a calm, discriminating history. It was in no 
 sense a partizan document. All parties and all classes 
 were treated with a fairness and a clearness of insight into 
 motives which were remarkable in view of his personal 
 share in the most important of them. 
 
 He avoided with a personal modesty nearly all references 
 to himself and his measures. He wrote as an observer 
 would write looking at those important historical events 
 from without. He spoke kindly and appreciatively of those 
 who had been his personal opponents, and was most discrim 
 inating in his judgment of the men and the motives of the 
 Democratic party. Not a sign of party prejudice nor polit 
 ical bias appears. Like a disinterested referee he recorded 
 the facts of history plainly, concisely, equitably. It is a 
 most valuable addition to the literature of the world. A 
 most remarkable book by a remarkable man. In that com 
 pilation and statement of valuable information the genius of 
 the author showed itself in a surprising degree. 
 
 A friend of the author, residing in Augusta, and who was 
 personally cognizant of the facts, has given for publication, 
 the following account of what was known as the Maine 
 State Steal of 1880, which caused the most intense excite 
 ment throughout the whole country. Briefly summarized, 
 the facts are these: 4t The returns of the fall election of 
 1879, for Governor, county officers, Senators and Repre 
 sentatives, to the Legislature, were submitted to Governor 
 Alonzo Garcelon (Dem.) and his seven fusion councilors, as 
 by law provided. It was their duty to open them, ascer 
 tain the result, and officially make notification of the same. 
 Instead of that, they inaugurated and partially carried out a 
 conspiracy to defeat and overthrow the will of the people as 
 expressed at the polls. This they accomplished by manipu 
 lating the returns, changing the names and the spelling of 
 the names of the Republican candidates, throwing out the 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 399 
 
 entire vote of strong Republican strongholds on the sin-Mirth 
 of these manipulations ; by cunningly devised blanks, pre 
 pared affidavits, secret protests, and illegal and ex parie 
 testimony, they reversed the result of a popular election, and 
 counted in officers who had not been elected. Thus, by 
 these processes, eight Republican Senators were counted 
 out, and eight Democratic and Greenback Senators counted 
 in. The same axe also fell on twenty-nine elected Re 
 publicans in the House of Representatives. As elected by 
 the people, the House stood ninety Republicans and sixty- 
 seven Democrats ; as reversed by Governor Garcelon and 
 his Council, it stood seventy-eight Democrats, sixty-one Re 
 publicans, and twelve vacancies. As elected by the people, 
 the Senate stood nineteen Republicans and twelve Fusionists ; 
 when the Governor and Council were through with the re 
 turns, the Senate contained twenty Fusionists and eleven 
 Republicans. The Fusionists raised recruits, made the 
 State House an arsenal, and determined to organize their 
 counted-in government at all hazards. In this emergency, 
 Mr. Blaine was summoned from Washington, and the con 
 duct of the people s cause was put into his hands. Councils 
 of the leading men of the State were held at his house, and 
 the result of those conferences would fill page after page of 
 this history. While the voices of the many were for war, 
 and for clearing out the conspirators at the point of the bayo 
 net, Mr. Elaine s was uniformly for peace, and for accom 
 plishing the result by legal and legitimate means. 
 
 "The Legislature met on the 7th of January, 1880, the 
 counted-in fusion members, with two or three noted excep 
 tions, appearing and taking the seats belonging to others, 
 and organized both branches to their own liking, the Repub 
 lican members with the exception of two (who went in for 
 parliamentary purposes) remaining away and refusing to 
 participate. The farce of the organization and the subse- 
 
400 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 quent inauguration of bogus "Gov." Smith, was allowed 
 to proceed without interruption, though there were loaded 
 revolvers in the pockets of more than two hundred men 
 present in the hall of the House, and three times that num 
 ber outside, who were anxiously awaiting the result. 
 Conferences of the Republicans were held twice a day, un 
 der the direction and advice of Mr. Blaine, until finally it 
 was decided to take peaceable possession of the State House. 
 This was accordingly done, on the evening of the 12th of 
 January, at which time an organization was effected, the 
 regular officers chosen, and questions which had been pre 
 pared under the supervision of Mr. Blaine, submitted to the 
 Supreme Court, inquiring as to the authority of the present 
 body to act. They did not permit the illegal Legislature to 
 again meet in the State House, but the fusionists for a 
 week met in a hall down town ; a favorable answer came 
 from the court, declaring the Republican decision the correct 
 one ; Gov. Davis was inaugurated ; the fusion government 
 melted away in disgrace ; most of the really elected Repre 
 sentatives and Senators returned to their allegiance to order 
 and good government ; and anarchy and bloodshed were 
 saved by the wise counsels and steady hand of Mr. Blaine, 
 who had the support of the loyal people in the State. As 
 the people of the country in the years to come, review the 
 history of the Maine count-out, they will reckon it worthy 
 to belong to the darkest period of Southern outrages. In 
 all the contests in this State, Mr. Blaine was never more 
 conspicuous in bringing order out of chaos." 
 
 Immediately after the settlement of the matter, Blaine 
 returned to Washington. 
 
 During the years of devotion to his book, he wholly re 
 tired from active political life with the exception of that first 
 given. It is apparent that he considered himself no longer 
 in the field as a candidate for the Presidency. That was 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 401 
 
 an ambition which was passed and buried so far as he was 
 concerned. A private and happy domestic and literary life 
 was his only purpose. 
 
 But the people of the Nation were not as forgetful of him 
 as Nation s often are of the tried and the great of their lead 
 ers. The Republic was not ungrateful. The cumbersome 
 machinery which had interfered with their wishes steadily 
 passed into the control of the voting population. The 
 determination to have Elaine for President outliving so 
 many defeats and overcoming so many obstacles, was 
 one of the most surprising things in the history of popu 
 lar government. Throughout the Nation, North and South, 
 East and West, a quiet spirit of determination prevailed, 
 and as the Spring of 1884 came, he in his seclusion was 
 recalled to mind with no abatement of the old enthusiasm. 
 
 As the day of the Republican Convention approached, 
 the determination to make him the candidate of the party 
 grew deeper and stronger. Schemes to prevent it arose as 
 usual. Politicial obligations and friendly alliances often 
 interfered. But the great people were determined to be 
 heard. They sent their delegates, some instructed to vote 
 only for him and some uninstructed, save to do what was 
 best for the Nation. Yet thousands and thousands awaited 
 with trembling anxiety for the session of the Convention, 
 fearing lest some partizan question or selfish combination 
 should again rob them of their choice. Other candidates, 
 and some of them most excellent and gifted men, appeaiv<l. 
 but the heart of the Nation, as represented by the Repub 
 lican party, was with Blaine. 
 
 In all the canvassing and excitement of the days preced 
 ing the Convention, Blaine took no part whatever in the 
 matter. He seemed not to care for the great honor and did 
 not expect it. He kept at his work and in no way inter 
 fered with or promoted the political designs of the people. 
 
402 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 He wholly, absolutely abstained from speaking or acting to 
 influence any man or any vote. Thus retired and unseen, 
 in his quiet mansion at Washington, Blaine worked on at 
 his desk until his friends had assembled at Chicago to do 
 him a great honor and place upon his shoulders a great 
 burden. 
 
 Startlingly sublime is the gathering of a controlling party 
 representing at least twenty-five millions of people. It 
 would be a grand spectacle if it were only considered as a 
 body of the most intelligent and influential men in a Nation 
 of fifty millions. For the most gifted in speech, in litera 
 ture, in invention, in war, in adventure, in commerce and 
 statesmanship gather then in a compact body such as neither 
 legislative halls nor public occasions call together elsewhere. 
 But when we reflect that all this intellect and enthusiasm 
 constructs or controls the affairs of a mighty people, and 
 that the consequences of the Convention s action goes direct 
 ly into every store, farm, factory, bank, and home, giving 
 plenty or producing want, then every face, speech, and vote 
 awakens the very deepest sensations of joy or alarm. 
 
 The political conventions which selected Clay, Jackson, 
 Polk v Lincoln, and Grant, were strikingly important gath 
 erings. But the five millions which were first represented 
 by a National Convention have been multiplied by five or six 
 since that day, and the importance of the event has in 
 creased in even a greater proportion. 
 
 The spectator at the Chicago Republican Convention, June 
 3d, 1884, who realized the vast interests therein to be fos 
 tered or injured, and how intimately connected with its im 
 portant action was the individual welfare of every man, 
 woman and child of this vast empire, found his nerves often 
 painfully sensitive to its delays, contests and uncertainty. 
 But out of such gatherings, and out of such scenes good 
 and stable government has come. It is a fierce furnace into 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 403 
 
 which the greatest characters of the land are ruthlessly 
 thrust and tested by the white heat of political excitement. 
 He that receives the endorsement of such a body of scholars 
 and successful men, must be a man of unusual greatness, 
 remarkable integrity, or hold a masterly influence over the 
 minds of an intelligent people. 
 
 The Convention of 1884 was the most notable assembly 
 which the Republican party ever held, in the high character 
 of its representatives. Never had so many names celebrated 
 in literature been seen in one American assembly ; never 
 so many men of great wealth ; never so many philanthro 
 pists ; never so many different nationalities, races, and 
 colors. 
 
 The first popular Presidential Convention in this country 
 which inaugurated the movement to take the National nom 
 inations out of the hands of the Congressional caucuses and 
 State legislatures, was held by the Anti-Masons in 1831. 
 The one hundred and twelve men which met in Baltimore 
 on that occasion were like William Wirt, whom they nom 
 inated for President, politically narrow, fanatical and con 
 ceited. In fact, only such a body could have burst the iron 
 bands of custom to which the American people were wrd- 
 ded. This free method of selecting candidates is one of the 
 thousand inestimable blessings which fanatics have given to 
 the nation by their erratic schemes and actions. 
 
 The National Republican Convention of 1831, which 
 nominated Henry Clay, and founded in fact the great Whig 
 party, was the first really National Convention ever hrld. 
 It was composed of 157 delegates, who, in a large part, 
 selected themselves and represented a small band of Clay s 
 admirers. 
 
 The Baltimore Convention of 1832, which selected Mar 
 tin VanBuren for Vice President, and endorsed the nomina 
 tion of Andrew Jackson, was a popular assembly, and ut- 
 
404 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 tered in its representative capacity the voice of the people. 
 But it was composed almost entirely of professional politi 
 cians. 
 
 The Democratic Convention which nominated James K. 
 Polk, in 1844, was an inharmonious body, and again con 
 sisted of professional politicians. 
 
 But the Whig Convention of 1848, which met in Philadel 
 phia and nominated General Zachary Taylor, probably con 
 tained a larger number of "stump orators" and rough sol 
 diers than any body of the kind which ever assembled under 
 one roof in America. 
 
 The Democratic Convention of 1852 met at Baltimore, 
 and was by far the ablest assembly in intellectual power and 
 culture which that party has ever called together. It has 
 often been misrepresented by prejudiced historians, but the 
 list of names contains a remarkable array of noble men. 
 Jt was, however, a very difficult convention to control or 
 lead, and it took the forty-ninth ballot to decide that Frank 
 lin Pierce should be their candidate. 
 
 The Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, in 1856, was 
 in most remarkable contrast with the convention of 1852, 
 as the Slavery question called out a class of politicians more 
 fierce and less moral. James Buchanan of Pennsylvania 
 was nominated. 
 
 The National Republican Convention of 1860, was a rep 
 resentative assembly of the elements in the Nation opposed 
 to slavery, and was largely composed of great-hearted 
 philanthropists, with some narrow-minded fanatics, and 
 a few broad and experienced statesmen. Such men as 
 S/ ward, Lincoln, Chase, Cameron, Fremont, and Suin- 
 ner, have given the Convention a name in history such as 
 few will ever again equal, but the mass of the assembly were 
 selected for their fiery and often inconsiderate opposition to 
 slavery, and were imitators in speech, of John Brown in 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 405 
 
 action. Good men they were, but wild, and often wholly 
 reckless. Now that we calmly view them through a quarter 
 of a century of bitter experience, we see that all the blood 
 shed and waste of capital might have been saved and slavi-rv 
 abolished with better effect upon the negroes themselves, had 
 men been less excitable, better informed, and more gener 
 ous. 
 
 The nominating Convention of 1864, which renominated 
 Abraham Lincoln, had in its ranks more of the mechanics, 
 farmers, and working classes, than any previous convention, 
 and was the best representation of the actual wants of the 
 constituency than any previous convention. Every citizen 
 was then interested in politics, and made his influence felt. 
 
 In 18G8 and 1872, the Conventions which nominated Gen 
 eral Grant, were, in a great part, composed of Union sol 
 diers, and everywhere in the Republican councils, the influ 
 ence of the soldiers prevailed. This was especially the case 
 in the Southern States, where many of the whites were dis 
 franchised, and negroes voted in caucuses as their liberators 
 desired. The Convention of 187G, which nominated Ruth 
 erford B. Hayes, was marked as a gathering of politicians, 
 and called together three remarkable factions, adhering re 
 spectively to James G. Blaine, Oliver P. Morton, and Ben 
 jamin H. Bristow. The primary caucuses were manipu 
 lated and controlled by one faction or the other, and so bitter 
 was their opposition to each other that a compromise on R. 
 B. Hayes was the only expedient course. The Convention 
 of 1880, was much like its predecessor in the attendance of 
 professional caucus managers and politicians, called out by the 
 excitement over the attempt of one faction to nominate Gen 
 eral U. S. Grant for a third term, and of another faction to 
 nominate James G. Blaine. It was a misfortune to both of 
 these great men that they were supported by such exrituUr 
 politicians. They were both beloved and honored by the 
 
406 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 people of the country, and either, if nominated, would have 
 been triumphantly elected. But a weary convention on the 
 thirty-sixth ballot compromised upon that second of our 
 presidential martyrs, James A. Garneld. 
 
 But the Convention of 1884 was the most complete repre 
 sentation of the best men of the Nation which have been 
 found in any such gathering. The most stable and honored 
 of the men of 1860, the bravest soldiers, the ablest states 
 men, the keenest thinkers, and the most cultivated scholars 
 were brought to the front, because of the absence of any 
 unusual factional strife, and a general determination through 
 out the country to deliberately do that which was for the 
 best of the Nation, without regard to personal friendship 
 or local pride. 
 
 There was much enthusiasm, but scarce a trace of bitter 
 ness, or of that reckless determination to win or to destroy, 
 which has been often displayed in nominating conventions. 
 It was a sublime thing to see the great Exposition Build 
 ing crowded in every nook with men and women, watching, 
 with almost breathless anxiety, every movement, and rising 
 into wild excitement, or settling into oppressive stillness, at 
 those moments big with fa^e, when the weal or woe of so 
 many people trembled in the balance. 
 
 Senator Edmunds of Vermont, Senator Logan of Illinois, 
 General Hawley of Connecticut, each had their vigorous ad 
 herents. But the principal candidates were James G. 
 Maine and President Arthur. Between the followers of 
 these two men there was a most exciting rivalry. The sus 
 pense was so great that some persons fainted at the critical 
 !,.oiut>nts during the speaking and the balloting. 
 
 The Convention met in the Exposition building at Chicago, 
 June 3d, and organized by the election of Hon. John R. 
 Lynch of Mississippi, a colored man, for temporary chair 
 man, and after the usual opening reports of committees, 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 407 
 
 adopted the platform and elected Hon. John B. Henderson 
 of Missouri, as permanent chairman. The platform adopt 
 ed contained the following articles : 
 
 The Republicans of the United States, in Convention 
 assembled, renew their allegiance to the principles upon 
 which they have triumphed in six successive presidential 
 elections, and congratulate the American people on the 
 attainment of so many results in legislation and administra 
 tion by which the Republican party has, after saving the 
 Union, done so much to render its institutions just, equal, 
 and beneficent the safeguard of liberty and the embodi 
 ment of the best thought and highest purposes of our citi 
 zens. The Republican party has gained its strength by 
 quick and faithful response to the demands of the people 
 for the freedom and the equality of all men ; for a united 
 nation assuring the rights of all citizens ; for the elevation 
 of labor ; for an honest currency ; for purity in legislation, 
 and for integrity and accountability in all departments of 
 the government, and it accepts anew the duty of leading in 
 the work of progress and reform. 
 
 We lament the death of President Garfield, whose sound 
 statesmanship, long conspicuous in Congress, gave promise 
 of a strong and successful administration, a promise fully 
 realized during the short period of his office as President of 
 the United States. His distinguished success in war and in 
 peace has endeared him to the hearts of the American 
 people. 
 
 In the administration of President Arthur we reco^ni/e 
 a wise, conservative and patriotic policy, under which the 
 country has been blessed with remarkable prosperity, and 
 we believe his eminent services are entitled to and will 
 receive the hearty approval of every citizen. It is the lir.-t 
 duty of a good government to protect the rights and pro 
 mote the interests of its own people ; the largest diversity 
 of industry is most productive of general prosperity and of 
 the comfort and independence of the people. 
 
 THE TARIFF PLANK. 
 
 We, therefore, demand that the imposition of duties on 
 foreign imports shall be made, not for " revenue only" but 
 
408 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 that, in raising the requisite revenues for the government, 
 such duties shall be so levied as to afford security to our 
 diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages 
 of the laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor 
 as well as capital, may have its just reward, and the labor 
 ing man his full share in the national prosperity. 
 
 Against the so-called economical system of the Demo 
 cratic party, which would degrade our labor to the foreign 
 standard, we enter our earnest protest ; the Democratic 
 party has failed completely to relieve the people of the burden 
 of unnecessary taxation by a wise reduction of the surplus. 
 
 The Republican party pledges itself to correct the ine 
 qualities of the tariff and to reduce the surplus, not by the 
 vicious and indiscriminate process of horizontal reduction, 
 but by such methods as will relieve the taxpayer without 
 injuring the laborer or the great, productive interests of the 
 country. 
 
 We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the 
 United States, the serious depression which it is now expe 
 riencing and the danger threatening its future prosperity ; 
 and we, therefore, respect the demands of the representa 
 tives of this important agricultural interest for a readjust 
 ment of duty upon foreign wool, in view that such industry 
 shall have full and adequate protection. 
 
 We have always recommended the best money known to 
 the civilized world, and we urge that an effort be made to 
 unite all commercial nations in the establishment of the 
 international standard, which shall fix for all, the relative 
 value of gold and silver coinage. 
 
 The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and be 
 tween the states, is one of the most important prerogatives 
 of the general Government, and the Republican party dis 
 tinctly announces its purpose to support such legislation as 
 will fully and efficiently carry out the constitutional power 
 of Congress over inter-state commerce. The principle of 
 the public regulation of railway corporations is a wise and 
 salutary one for the protection of all classes of the people, 
 and we favor legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimi 
 nation and excessive charges for transportation, and that 
 shall secure to the people and to the railroads alike the fair 
 and equal protection of the laws. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 409 
 
 PROTECTION TO LABOR. 
 
 We favor the establishment of a national bureau of labor, 
 the enforcement of the eight-hour law, a wise and judicious 
 system of general education by adequate appropriation from 
 the national revenues wherever the same is needed. 
 
 We believe that everywhere the protection to a citizen of 
 American birth must be secured to citizens by American 
 adoption, and we favor the settlement of national differences 
 by international arbitration. 
 
 The Republican party, having its birth in a hatred of 
 slave labor and in a desire that all men may be free and 
 equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our working men in 
 competition with any form of servile labor, whether at home 
 or abroad. In this spirit we denounce the importation of 
 contract labor, whether from Europe or Asia, as an offense 
 against the spirit of American institutions, and we pledge 
 ourselves to sustain the present law restricting Chinese im 
 migration, and to provide such further legislation as is 
 necessary to carry out its purposes. 
 
 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 
 
 The reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under 
 Republican administration, should be completed by the fur 
 ther extension of the reform system already established by 
 l aw to all the grades of the service to which it is applica 
 ble. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be ob 
 served in all executive appointments, and all laws at vari 
 ance with the objects of existing reformed legislation should 
 be repealed, .to the end that the dangers of free institutions 
 which lurk in the power of official patronage may be wisely 
 and effectively avoided. 
 
 The public lands are a heritage of the people of the Lmt- 
 ed States and should be reserved as far as possible for small 
 holdings by actual settlers. We are opposed to the acquisi 
 tion of large tracts of these lands by corporations or indi 
 viduals, especially where such holdings are in the hands of 
 non-resident aliens, and we will endeavor to obtain such 
 legislation as will tend to correct this evil. 
 i We demand of Congress the speedy forfeiture of all laud 
 grants which have lapsed by reason of uou-compliaiice with 
 acts of incorporation, in all cases where there has been no 
 
410 THE LIFK AM) I LT.Lir SERVICES 
 
 attempt in good faith to perform the conditions of such 
 grants. 
 
 The grateful thanks of the American people are due to 
 the Union soldiers and sailors of the late war, and the Re 
 publican party stands pledged to suitable pensions to all who 
 were disabled and for the widows and orphans of those who 
 died in the war. The Republican party pledges itself to the 
 repeal of the limitation contained in the Arrears act of 
 1879, so that all invalid soldiers shall share alike, and their 
 pensions shall begin with the date of disability or discharge 
 and not with the date of the application. 
 
 KKtiAKlUXG A FOREIGN 1 OLICY. 
 
 The Republican party favors a policy which shall keep us 
 from entangling alliances with foreign nations, and which 
 shall give the right to expect that foreign nations shall re 
 frain from meddling in America, and the policy which seeks 
 peace can trade with all powers, but especially with those 
 of the Western Hemisphere. We demand the restoration 
 of our navy to its old-time strength and efficiency, that it 
 may in any sea protect the rights of American citizens and 
 the interests of American commerce, and we call upon Con 
 gress to remove the burdens under which American ship 
 ping has been depressed, so that it mav again be true that 
 we have a commerce which leaves no sea unexplored, and a 
 navy which takes no law from superior force. 
 
 Resolved, That appointments by the President to offices in 
 the territories should be made from the bona fide citizens 
 and residents of the territories wherein they are to serve. 
 
 Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to enact such 
 laws as shall promptly and effectually suppress the system of 
 polygamy within our territory and divorce the political from 
 the ecclesiastical power of the so-called MprmOQ Church 
 and that the law so enacted should be rigidly enforced by 
 the civil authorities if possible, and by the military if need be. 
 
 DENOrXCIXd SOUTHERN OUTRAGES. 
 
 The people of the United States in their organized capaci 
 ty constitute a nation and not a mere confederacy of states. 
 The National government is supreme in the sphere of its 
 national duty, but the states have reserved rights which 
 should be faithfully maintained ; each should be guarded 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAIXK. 1 1 1 
 
 with jealous care so that the harmony of our system of gov 
 ernment may be preserved and the Union kept inviolate. 
 The perpetuity of our institutions rests upon the mainte 
 nance of a free ballot, an honest count and a ronvet return. 
 We denounce the fraud and violence practiced l>v the Dem 
 ocratic party in Southern States, by which theVill of tin- 
 voter is defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of free 
 institutions, and we solemnly arraign the Democratic party 
 as being the guilty recipient of the fruit of such fraud and 
 violence. 
 
 We extend to the Republicans of the South, regardless 
 of their former party affiliations, our cordial sympathy, and 
 pledge to them our most earnest efforts to promote the pas 
 sage of such legislation as will secure to every citizen, of 
 whatever race and color, the full and complete recognition, 
 possession and exercise of all civil and political rights. 
 
 When chairman Henderson, during his address on taking 
 the chair, made a casual reference to Blaine, although he 
 did not use his name, the feeling of the people \vas at once 
 displayed by the most extravagant demonstrations. One 
 who was present published a description of the scene in the 
 Daily Press of Philadelphia, in which he said : 
 
 The chairman said: u Maine has her honored favorite, 
 whose splendid abilities and personal qualities have endeared 
 him to the hearts of his friends and the brilliancy of wln-e 
 genius challenges the admiration of all." 
 
 Before the words were fairly out of the chairman s mouth 
 the Pennsylvanians on the front row began to cheer. The 
 faint opening applause extended and swelled until, from the 
 rear of the stage to the end of the hall, a hoarse reverber 
 ating roar arose and echoed from end to end of the building 
 and outside, until the noise was audible above the bu.-tle 
 of street traffic two blocks away. 
 
 The first wild burst of enthusiasm only added fuel to the 
 flame, and a second great, spontaneous, full-hearted cheer 
 rose from the floor to the rafters and fairly shook the structure. 
 
412 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Then followed a scene seldom witnessed in any public body, 
 and never equaled in National Conventions of late years. 
 The delegates, alternates and spectators rose to their feet as 
 by a common impulse and testified their admiration of the 
 people s candidate. Cheers, shouts, sharp screams and 
 animated howling broke upon the Convention with apalling 
 force. 
 
 Men tossed their hats in the air, waved pocket-handker 
 chiefs, shook their canes, mounted chairs, leaped back and 
 forth in the aisles, and acted like madmen. The New York 
 delegation, excepting a few Edmunds men, was on its feet, 
 screaming as loudly as the Pennsylvanians, while Ohio and 
 Illinois contributed liberally to the racket. 
 
 The tremendous burst of enthusiasm carried away the 
 colored brethren, and they screamed with true Methodistic 
 camp-meeting fervor. Exhausted at last, the noise abated 
 only to be again renewed with fresh force. Four times the 
 Convention rose to its feet, and four times did the vast 
 assemblage exhaust itself in noise. 
 
 When the hour came at the evening session of June 5th 
 for the nomination of candidates, Judge West of Ohio, an 
 eloquent but blind old man, was led to the stand amid in 
 describable applause. His speech, like that of Col. Inger- 
 soll, will outlive the occasion as a specimen of America s 
 finest oratory. Judge West said : 
 
 As a delegate in the Chicago Convention of I860 the 
 proudest service of my life was performed by voting for the 
 nomination of that inspired emancipator, the first Repub 
 lican President of the United States. [Applause.] Four 
 and twenty years of the grandest history in recorded times 
 have distinguished the ascendancy of the Republican party. 
 The skies have lowered and reverses have threatened, but 
 our flag is still there, waving above the mansion of the 
 Presidency, not a stain on its folds, not a cloud on its glory. 
 Whether it shall maintain that grand ascendency depends 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 413 
 
 upon the action of this great council. With bated breath a 
 nation awaits the result. On it are fixed the eyes of twenty 
 millions of Republican freemen in the North. On it, or to 
 it, rather, are stretched forth the imploring hands of ten 
 millions of political bondmen of the South, [applause] 
 while above, from the portals of light, is looking down the 
 spirit of the immortal martyr who first bore it to victory, 
 bidding to us hail and God speed. [Applause.] Six times, 
 in six campaigns, has that symbol of union, freedom, hu 
 manity, and progress, been borne in triumph ; sometime l.y 
 that silent man of destiny, the Wellington of American 
 arms, Ulyses the Great; last by that soldier statesman at 
 whose untimely taking off a nation swelled the funeral cries 
 and wept above great Garfield s grave. 
 
 Shall that banner triumph again ? Commit it to the bear 
 ing of that chief [a voice u James G. Blaine of Maine," 
 cheers] commit it to the bearing of that chief, the inspira 
 tion of whose illustrious character and great name will fire 
 the hearts of our young men, stir the blood of our manhood, 
 and rekindle the fervor of the veterans, and the closing of 
 the seventh campaign will see that holy ensign spanning the 
 sky like a bow of promise. [Cheers.] Political conditions 
 are changed since the accession of the Republican party 
 to power. The mighty issues of the freed and bleeding 
 humanity which convulsed the continent and rocked the 
 Republic, rallied, united, and inspired the forces of patriot 
 ism and philanthropy in one consolidated phalanx these 
 great issues have ceased their contentions. The subordi 
 nate issues resulting therefrom are settled and buried away 
 with the dead issues of the past. The arms of the solid 
 South are against us. Not an Electoral gun fan be ex 
 pected from that section. If triumph comes, the Republican 
 States of the North must furnish the conquering battalions. 
 From the farm, the anvil, the loom, from the mines, the 
 workshop and the desk, from the hut of the trapper on the 
 snowy Sierras, from the hut of the fisherman on the banks 
 of the Hudson, must these forces be drawn. 
 
 Does not sound political wisdom dictate and demand that 
 a leader shall be given to them whom our people will follow, 
 not as conscripts advancing by funeral inarches to certain 
 defeat, but a grand civic hero, whom the souls of the peo- 
 
414 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 pie desire, and whom they will follow with all the enthusi- 
 a.-m of volunteers as they sweep on and onward to certain 
 victory [cheers] a representative of American manhood 
 [applause] a representative of that living Republican 
 ism that demands the amplest, industrial protection and op 
 portunity whereby labor shall be enabled to earn and eat 
 the bread of independent employment, relieved of mendi 
 cant competition with pauper Europe or pagan China? 
 [Loud applause.] 
 
 In this contention of forces for political dominion, to 
 whom as a candidate shall be intrusted the bearing of our 
 battle flag? Citizens, I am not here to do it, and may my 
 tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do abate one 
 tithe from the just fame, integrity, and public honor of 
 Chester A. Arthur, our President. [Applause.] I abate 
 not one tithe from the just fame and public integrity of 
 George F. Edmunds, [applause] of Joseph R. llawley, 
 [applause] of John Sherman, [applause] of that grand, old, 
 black eagle of Illinois, [here the speaker was interrupted 
 several moments by prolonged applause] and I am proud 
 to know that these distinguished senators whom I have 
 named have borne like testimony to the public life, the pub 
 lic character, and the public integrity of him whose con 
 firmation by their votes elevated him to the highest office 
 second in dignity only to the office of the President him 
 self the first Premiership in the Administration of James, 
 A. Garfield. [Applause] A man who was good enough for 
 these great senatorial rivals to confirm in the high office of 
 the first Premiership of the Republic is good enough for the 
 support of a plain, flesh-and-blood God s people for Presi 
 dent. [Loud applause.] AVho shall be our candidate? [Cries 
 of "Blaine," "Arthur," and Logan." A loud voice yelled 
 above the tumult: "Give us Black Jack and we will elect 
 him."] Not the representative of a particular interest or a 
 particular class. Send the great apostle to the country 
 labeled the din-tors candidate) the 1 lawyers candidate, the 
 Wall-street candidate, and the hand of resurrection would 
 not fathom his November grave. [Applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, he must be a representative of that Republi 
 canism that demands the absolute political as well as per 
 sonal emancipation and disenthrallment of mankind a rep- 
 
OF JAMES G. HLAINK. 1 1 ." 
 
 resentative of that Republicanism which recognizes the stamp 
 of American citizenship as the passport to every right, priv 
 ilege, and consideration at home or abroad, whether under 
 the sky of Bismarck, under the palmetto, under the pelirun 
 or on the banks of the Mohawk that Republicanism that, 
 regards with dissatisfaction a despotism which under the tic 
 semper tyrannis of the Old Dominion annihilates by slaugh 
 ter popular majorities in the name of Democracy a Re 
 publicanism which while avoiding entangling alliances with 
 foreign powers, will accept insult and humiliation from no 
 Prince, State, Potentate or Sovereignty on earth a Re 
 publicanism as embodied and stated in the platform of prin 
 ciples this day adopted by your Convention, (ientlemen, 
 such a representative Republican, enthroned in the hearts 
 and affections of the people, is James G. Blaine of Maine. 
 His campaign would commence to-morrow, and continue 
 until victory is assured. [Cheers.] There would be no 
 powder burned to fire into the back of leaders. It would 
 only be exploded to illuminate the inauguration. The bra/en 
 throats of cannon in yonder square, waiting to herald the 
 result of this Convention, would not have time to cool be 
 fore his name would be caught up on ten thousand tongiu-s 
 of electric flame. It would sweep down from the old Pine 
 Tree State. It would go over the hills and valleys of New- 
 England. It would insure you Connecticut by 10,000 ma 
 jority. [Applause.] It would weld together with fervent 
 heat the dissensions in New York. [Applause.] It would 
 blaze through the State of Garfield, that daughter of Con 
 necticut, more beautiful than her mother. [Applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen of the Convention, it has been said that in 
 making this nomination every other consideration shonM 
 merge, every other interest be sacrificed, in order and with 
 a view exclusively to secure the Republican vote and carry 
 the State of New York. Gentlemen, the Republican party 
 demands of this Convention a nominee whose inspiration 
 and glorious prestige shall carry the Presidency with or 
 without the State of New York [applause] that will carry 
 the Legislatures of the several States and avert the sacritire 
 of the United States Senate ; that shall sweep into the tide 
 sufficient Congressional districts to redeem the House of 
 Representatives and restore it to the Republican party. 
 
41 G THE LIFE AND PUIILIC SERVICES 
 
 Gentlemen, three millions of Republicans believe that the 
 man to accomplish this is the Ajax Telamon of our party, 
 who made and whose life is a conspicuous part of its glori 
 ous history. Through all the conflicts of its progress, from 
 the baptism of blood on the plains of Kansas to the fall of 
 the immortal Garfield, whenever humanity needed succor 
 or freedom needed protection or country a champion, wher 
 ever blows fell thickest and fastest, there, in the fore front 
 of the battle, was seen to wave the white plume of James 
 G. Blaine, our Henry of Navarre. Nominate him and the 
 shouts of September victory in Maine will be re-echoed back 
 by the thunders of the October victory in Ohio. Nominate 
 him, and the camp-fires and beacon -lights will illuminate 
 the continent from the Golden Gate to Cleopatra s needle. 
 Nominate him, and the millions who are now in waiting 
 will rally to swell the column of victory that is sweeping on. 
 In the name of a majority of the delegates from the Repub 
 lican States and their glorious constituencies who must fight 
 this battle, I nominate James G. Blaine of Maine. [Wild 
 applause.] 
 
 The most extraordinary scenes followed the delivery of 
 the words which placed Mr. Blaine in nomination. The 
 audience and the Convention caught up the magic word, 
 Blaine. The applause rose and tell like the breakers rush 
 ing up on the sands. Again and again it subsided only to 
 burst forth again with increasing strength. A garlanded 
 helmet, with its snow-white plume, was raised from the plat 
 form upon the point of a color-standard. A long, loud shout 
 signaled its recognition. Flag after flag was stripped from 
 the decorations of the galleries and waved in the air. One 
 of them slipped from the fingers of its holder, and its heavy 
 standard carried it with crushing effect upon the crowd be 
 low. A Republican was struck down in its flight, and was 
 carried unconscious out of the hall. 
 
 On Thursday evening, June 5th, the great Convention 
 was prepared to receive the nomination of candidates by 
 t .ie different delegations, and as the different States were 
 called, the names of President Arthur, James G. Blaine, 
 John Sherman, George F. Edmunds, John A. Logan and 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 417 
 
 Joseph R. Hawlry were presented by orators especially 
 selected for that purpose by the friends of i-aHi candidate. 
 The scene during the proceedings whenever Elaine s 
 name was mentioned or suggested, has been graphically 
 described by an eye-witness, but the reality is said to have 
 been beyond description. When the delegations were being 
 called for nominations, State by State, the Clerk called out 
 Maine," and sank back into his seat, knowing full well 
 the response that would follow. There was an instant, 
 clear, loud, wild burst of applause that seemed to come 
 from the throat of every man in the hall. To describe, in 
 its fullness of enthusiasm, in its spontaneity of sentiment, 
 in its fervor of devotion, the scene that followed a scene 
 such as was never before witnessed in a National Conven 
 tion is well-nigh impossible. 
 
 First came the cheer rattling through the hall like a volley 
 of infantry ; then deepening as it grew in force, like the 
 roar of cannon, and swelling as it progressed, like the crash 
 of a thunderbolt across the skies. From the stage to the 
 end of the hall, a distance of the eighth of a mile, the 
 cheering, rolling in dense waves of sound, hoarse and shrill, 
 sharp and clear, commingling in a wild tumult of applause, 
 which, in the minds of all who heard it and of those who 
 witnessed the great scene, meant the nomination of James 
 G. Elaine. 
 
 With common impulse the audience, delegates and spec 
 tators, jumped to their feet. Staid old politicians on the 
 platform, venerable Senators and Representatives, long tried 
 in Congress, new delegates, who were never before in a 
 National Convention, were drawn into the whirlpool of 
 excitement, as straws are sucked into the eddies of the 
 Delaware. Every delegate, save a bare patch here and there 
 on the floor, where the friends of Arthur and Edmunds 
 eat, mounted his chair and took part in the demonstration. 
 
418 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Looking over the human sea from the stage to the l>al- 
 conies, there was a surging mob of men and women waving 
 hats, umbrellas, parasols and flags. Against the dark back 
 ground a thousand white handkerchiefs swung over the 
 heads of the excited audience, dotted the hall with specks 
 of white, like the caps of the breakers on a stormy sea. 
 Men put their hats on the tops of canes and waved thorn 
 high over their heads. Women tore their bright fichues and 
 laces from around their snowy necks, and, leaning far forward 
 over the galleries, frantically swung them to and fro, to give 
 emphasis to their shrill screams of joy. 
 
 From outside the glass Avindows under the dome of the 
 hall, where an adventurous crowd of men and boys had 
 gathered to witness the proceedings, loud cat-calls and 
 screams were heard above the roar beneath. Men hung 
 dangerously over the front of the galleries and waved the 
 ends of the banners that had been fastened there as decora 
 tions to the hall. 
 
 The same graphic writer whose description was published 
 in the Philadelphia Press, portrayed the scene when Judge 
 West, of Ohio, made his speech in nominating Blaine. He 
 said : 
 
 The man selected to present Elaine s name to the Con 
 vention is blind. He was helped to the platform by two 
 sturdy young men, who carefully guarded his progress up 
 the steep steps and along the tortuous aisles to the seat pro 
 vided for him on the left of the presiding officer s chair. 
 
 Judge West seems to be nearing the goal of three-score 
 and ten. His silver-gray hair was smoothly brushed away 
 from a noble forehead. Time has implanted deep wrinkles 
 and furrows around the sharp features of an intelligent face. 
 White chin whiskers and a white, close-cut mustache hide 
 his mouth and resolute, square-cut chin. A prominent nose 
 and bushy eyebrows give character if they do not add beau- 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 419 
 
 ty to his countenance. Dressed plainly in black, wearing 
 no ornament save a blue Blaine badge on the lapel of his 
 coat and a small watch chain, the old man leaned back in 
 his arm-chair and faced the surging mob, as, though blind, 
 he felt himself its master. 
 
 For the last time the applause rolled through the hall and 
 ended in a wild roar as the Ohio orator rose to his feet and, 
 lifting his right hand above his head, by gesture compelled 
 silence. Ten minutes of uproar and storm was followed by 
 stillness in which a whisper could be heard as the first clear, 
 distinct, sharp tones of the speaker rolled through the build 
 ing. The clean-cut sentences, brilliant delivery and confi 
 dent manner of the speaker captivated the crowd. They 
 were in sympathy with him from the start, and he retained 
 his grasp upon their feelings to the finish. 
 
 As he made point after point in the opening of his speech, 
 roar after roar of applause echoed through the hall. "Shall 
 the Republican party triumph again ?" exclaimed the orator 
 after alluding to its victories in the past. "Yes, with James 
 G. Blaine," yelled one of the delegates on the front row, 
 and the audience again leaped forward and gave a tremen 
 dous cheer. 
 
 "Who shall be our candidate?" shouted Judge West, as 
 leaning back in the chair from which he delivered the great 
 est part of his speech, he brought a big palm-leaf fan hijrh 
 above his head and seemingly awaited a reply. "Blaine !" 
 "Blaine !" "Blaine !" was the stentorian reply, and another 
 burst of applause put a temporary end to Judge West s speech. 
 
 At last the supreme moment came. When Judge Wr-: 
 formally put Blaine in nomination a scene followed of a 
 description never equalled and utterly indescribable. Com 
 pared to the first outburst, the second ovation to Blaine was 
 as the full burst of a storm after the grumblings of early 
 thunder have passed. 
 
420 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 The audience rose to their feet, impelled by an irresistible 
 impulse to testify their admiration for the great Republican 
 candidate. Grave men acted as though mad. Newspapers 
 were torn into bits and scattered high in the air; active 
 boys clambered along the high rafters over the hall and, de 
 taching the flags, passed them down to men in the front row 
 of the galleries, who waved them frantically over the heads 
 of those below, and the bands three times essayed to drown 
 the noise by playing their loudest air. 
 
 It was futile. Men drew off their coats and shook them 
 in the air. Umbrellas were hoisted and waved over the 
 heads of their owners. Again handkerchiefs were brought 
 forth and swung to and fro like snowflakes in a hurricane. 
 Those too tired to shout gave shrill whistles, and pandemo 
 nium universal and all-pervading seemed to have broken 
 forth. 
 
 The most delightful picture of the evening, and one ob 
 served by few, occurred on the stage when Mr. Elkins, 
 Elaine s life-long friend, and Senator Tom Cooper, of Penn 
 sylvania, embraced, each trying to out-tire the other in their 
 mutual contributions to the common din. The California 
 delegation, which has done some of Elaine s best work here, 
 was on its feet cheering as loudly as Rocky Mountain throats 
 could swell. The negroes from the South joined in the furor, 
 and were the noisest of the delegates. 
 
 When at last there seemed a prospect that the cheering 
 would end, some enthusiastic friend of Blaine brought into 
 the hall, before the chairman s desk, a huge American flag, 
 and placed upon the top of the staff a helmet of flowers, 
 surmounted by a long white plume, the helmet of Navarre. 
 Again did the audience cheer, until it seemed as though the 
 throats of men would burst. The flag and helmet were 
 raised to the stage, and again a deeper, longer, louder cheer 
 arose. Ladies took flowers from their belts and threw them 
 

OF JAMKS G. BLAINE. 423 
 
 in the air. The atmosphere was fanned by the waving of 
 innumerable banners. 
 
 The decorations were stripped from the wall by the ex 
 cited audience and shook madly in the air. Full fifteen min 
 utes, that seemed like hours, were consumed in this unpre 
 cedented demonstration. 
 
 "James G. Blaine," closed Judge West, and another 
 great roar went up like the noise of many waters, sweeping 
 in great waves of sound around the hall, and the crowd 
 without, by this time aware of what was under way, an 
 swered in a muffled roar, which echoed within. The old 
 man ceased, with the echo of his eloquence still filling all 
 the air, ten thousand people swaying like reeds in the wind 
 under his voice, and feebly groped to leave the platform. 
 A friend was at his side in an instant, and Edward McPher- 
 son laid about the old man s shoulders his long blue, old- 
 fashioned cloak, and, drawing it closer to him, its folds fall 
 ing straight, the speaker took a seat behind. 
 
 When the session came for balloting, the anxiety was in 
 tense, both in the hall and throughout the country. The 
 result of the first ballot was as follows: Blaine 3341-2, 
 Arthur 278, Edmunds93, Logan 63 1-2, John Sherman 30, 
 Hawley 13, Lincoln 4, W. T. Sherman 2. The vote stood 
 nearly the same on the second and third ballots. But the 
 fourth ballot, on which Blaine was nominated, stood : Blaine 
 544, Arthur 207, Edmunds 41, Logan 7, Hawley 15, and 
 Lincoln 2. 
 
 General Logan, by telegraph, especially requested his 
 friends to vote for Blaine, and their votes and example se 
 cured the victory to Elaine s friends. 
 
 The Convention, on the announcement of Elaine s nom 
 ination, was a scene of almost insane excitement. Men 
 wept, and screamed, and leaped, and wildly waved flags, 
 handkerchiefs, coats and seats, in the most frantic manner. 
 
424 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Elaine at home. Receiving the News of his Nomination. His 
 House in Augusta. His Mother s Death. His Hospitality. 
 Personal Description. Mrs. Blaine. His Children. Receiv 
 ing the California Delegation. Official Notification of his 
 Nomination. 
 
 When Blaine received the news of his nomination, he v> ;i.> 
 at his home in Augusta, Maine. Early in the week he left 
 his Washington residence, with his family, for his home in 
 Augusta. When the important dispatch was handed to him 
 he was resting in a hammock, which was stretched between 
 two interlacing apple-trees, on the lawn before his door. 
 Surprised he certainly was by the news, but all strong emo 
 tion was suppressed, and he talked coolly and cheerfully 
 about that and other matters, with the neighbors who came 
 freely into his yard to congratulate him. 
 
 Elaine s home in Augusta, where for so many years he 
 has resided, is composed of two commodious square build 
 ings, with a narrower structure between them, connecting 
 them together. The home is not extravagantly furnished, 
 but has all the modern luxuries which make a home really 
 comfortable. Delicate specimens of embroidery, and choice 
 selections of pictures, and works of art, show a refinement 
 and culture, but there is no apparent attempt at display, 
 either of wealth or taste. The house and enclosed ground! 
 are richly shaded with maple-trees, and all the surroundings 
 are after the neat, but unostentatious New England style. 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 427 
 
 / 
 
 His home is always open to his neighbors and friends, 
 and they walk into his doors, and intrude upon his time, 
 without restraint. He has been so long in public lite, that 
 he seems to regard his possessions as something to be shared 
 with his friends, and has long ago ceased to hope for pri 
 vacy, such as less-known citizens enjoy. 
 
 He has six children, viz : Walker Blaine, of Washington, 
 D. C. ; Emmons Blaine, of Colorado ; Alice Blaine, now 
 the wife of Col. Coppingcr ; Margaret Isabella Blaine ; 
 James G. Blaine, Jr., and Harriet S. Blaine. The last 
 three named were living at home, with their father and 
 mother, at the time of Blaine s nomination. 
 
 Elaine s mother never made her home with him, but 
 after the breaking up of her home at Brownsville, she went 
 to reside with her daughter, in the West, where she died May 
 5th, 1871. Her remains were brought back to Brownsville, 
 and buried beside her husband. A few years ago Blaine 
 erected a substantial granite monument over their graves, 
 in the old Catholic churchyard, and had this inscription 
 wrought on one side of the shaft : 
 
 EPHRAIM LYON BLAINE, 
 
 Born Feb. 28th, 1795, 
 
 Died June 28th, 1850. 
 
 MARIE GILLESPIE, 
 
 Wife of 
 
 EPHRAIM LYON BLAINE, 
 
 Born May 22d, 1801. 
 
 Died May 5th, 1871. 
 
 Rc^uescat in pace. 
 
 Blaine is a most social man, and has the dignified, yet 
 agreeable, manner of the good, old, hospitable days among 
 the gentry of Scotland and early New England. Of his 
 
428 THE LIFE AND IMT.LIC SKUVICES 
 
 manners and peculiarities, one who knew him, long and well 
 (Mr. Randall), gave a written sketch in 1880, and it ap 
 plies equally well now. He said : u Mr. Blaine is the most 
 popular of men. The charm of his manner is beyond ex 
 pression, and nobody comes within the circle of his presence 
 that is not overcome with his fascinations. With his great 
 brilliancy he has that exquisite show of deference to his 
 companions, a sort of appeal to them to verify or deny his 
 words, that is very taking. He is also a very good listener, 
 and has a familiar way of speaking one s name, and of 
 placing his hand on one s knee, that is an agreeable salve to 
 one s vanity. There is no acting in the heartiness of his 
 manner. He is an impulsive man, with a very warm heart, 
 kindly instincts and a generous nature. 
 
 One element in his nature impresses itself upon my mind 
 in the most emphatic manner, and that is his coolness and 
 self-possession at the most exciting periods. I happened to 
 be in his library in Washington when the balloting was going 
 on in Cincinnati, on that hot July day in 187C. A tele 
 graph instrument was on his library table, and Mr. Sher 
 man, his private secretary, a deft operator, was manipulat 
 ing its key. Dispatches came from dozens of friends, giving 
 the last votes, which only lacked a few of a nomination, and 
 everybody predicted the success of Blaine on the next bal 
 lot. Only four persons besides Mr. Sherman were in the 
 room. It was a moment of great excitement. The next 
 vote was quietly ticked over the wire, and the next an 
 nounced the nomination of Mr. Hayes. Mr. Blaine was 
 the only cool person in the apartment. 
 
 It was such a reversal of all anticipations and assurances 
 that self-possession was out of the question, except with 
 Mr. Blaine. He had just left his bed after two days of un 
 consciousness from sunstroke, but lie was as self-possessed as 
 the portraits upon the wall. lie merely gave a murmur of 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAINE. 429 
 
 surprise, and before anybody had recovered from tin- shock 
 he had written in his firm, plain, fluent hand, three dis 
 patches one to Mr. Hayes, of congratulations ; one to the 
 Maine delegates, thanking them for their devotion ; and 
 another to Eugene Hale and Mr. Frye, asking them to L;<> 
 personally to Columbus and present his good will to Mr. 
 Hayes, with promises of hearty aid in the campaign. The 
 occasion affected him no more than the news of a servant 
 quitting his employ would have done. Half an hour after 
 wards he was out with Secretary Fish in an open (-amain-, 
 receiving the cheers of the thousands of people who gath 
 ered about the telegraph bulletins. 
 
 Mr. Blaine s knowledge of facts, dates, events, men in 
 our history, is not only remarkable, but almost unprece 
 dented. In his college days he was noted for his early love 
 of American history, and for his intimate knowledge of its 
 details. That field of reading has been enlarged and culti 
 vated in all his subsequent years, until it would be difficult 
 to find a man irithe United States who can, on the instant, 
 without reference to book or note, give so many facts and 
 statistics relating to current interests, to our financial and 
 revenue system, to our manufacturing industries of all kinds, 
 to our river and harbor improvements, to our public lands, 
 to our railway system, to our mines and minerals, to our 
 agricultural interests in fact, to everything that constitutes 
 and includes the development, achievement, and succe. 
 the United States. This has been the study of his life, and 
 his memory is an encyclopaedia. He remembers because it 
 is easier than to forget." 
 
 When he was a member of Congress a correspond- nt 
 wrote as follows of Mr. Blaine : "He has grown gray, but 1m 
 is physically but slightly touched by the passing years. He 
 looks surcharged with tremendous nervous energy, so irre 
 sistibly impelling him that the steam-brakes eouJdn t slow 
 
430 THE LIKE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 him down to three hundred revolutions per minute. When 
 there is nothing to work it off it seems to effervesce in boy 
 ish exuberance of spirits, or lie darts hither and thither 
 across the hall, up and down the aisles, or through the lobby 
 with incessant activity. His habitual air is that of a man 
 intent upon overtaking to-morrow, and driving ahead at 
 such tremendous speed that nobody would be surprised if he 
 did it. Physically he is a splendid type of manhood ; of 
 commanding stature, straight as a Maine pine, broad- 
 shouldered and of stalwart, muscular frame, a trifle stout, 
 but with step quick as a boy s, and every movement as free 
 and supple as that of a trained athlete, lie has a full, high 
 forehead ; large, keen, observant eyes ; nose slightly aqui 
 line, and of the sort that adds to the look of a push-ahead- 
 ativeness that is imprinted on his every feature. His short, 
 cropped beard, which half conceals his lower face, gives 
 him an air of military precision. In speech he is rapid, 
 but distinct in utterance and clear cut in expression ; makes 
 no apparent attempt at rhetorical graces, but is forcible, 
 pungent, and at times stirringly eloquent, while always 
 terse and pointed and marvelously quick at repartees, and 
 when most intense is most master of himself and thoroughly 
 self-poised. lie does not seek occasion to speak, but as 
 often as he takes the floor letter-writing and conversation 
 cease and everybody listens, for it is expected he will say 
 something, which expectation he has thus far been very far 
 from disappointing at this session." 
 
 Mrs. Blaine is a woman of striking appearance, being as 
 easy yet dignified in manner as her husband. She is tall, 
 graceful and strong, a fit type of a cultured American lady. 
 
 Blaine was the recipient of congratulatory dispatches 
 from President Arthur, General Logan, General Long- 
 street, and thousands of other citizens of the Nation, and 
 for a time the facilities of the telegraph office at Augusta 
 
OF JAMES G. BLAIXE. 433 
 
 could not care for the dispatches which were addressed to 
 him only. 
 
 The following was also received : 
 
 "CLEVELAND, OHIO, June 8, 1884. 
 
 MRS. JAMES G. ELAINE : The household joins in one 
 great thanksgiving. From the quiet of our home we send 
 a most earnest wish that through the turbulent months to 
 follow, and in the day of victory, you all may be guarded 
 and kept. 
 
 "LUCRETIA R. GARFIELD." 
 
 A cordial dispatch was also sent by General Garfield s 
 sons. 
 
 The citizens of Augusta and the neighboring cities came 
 to his house by the hundreds when they heard of his 
 nomination, and a flood of congratulations in every shape 
 for many days rolled in upon the family. 
 
 At the adjournment of the Chicago Convention the Cali 
 fornia delegation, which had been among the leading pro 
 moters of Elaine s nomination, determined to go all the 
 way to Augusta and congratulate Elaine in person. 
 
 All along their route, from Illinois to Maine, they wore 
 received with enthusiasm, and the press recorded their 
 progress from city to city with the attention granted to 
 princes. When they arrived in Maine the enthusiasm in 
 creased, and at every station where the special train stopped 
 crowds of men and enthusiastic shouts bade them welcome . 
 At Augusta they were met at the station by a throng of 
 people, although the day \vas rainy, and after being joined 
 by long processions from Lewiston and Bangor the people 
 of Augusta escorted the Californians to Elaine s residence, 
 with bands playing and banners flying. They were re 
 ceived by Mr. Elaine, after an introduction by Congress 
 man Boutelle, and were entertained in that simple, gentle 
 manly, hearty manner which is an indescribable charm with 
 him. 
 
434 TUP: LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 A few days later the Committee of the Convention, con 
 sisting of one delegate from each State, with General Hen 
 derson as Chairman, made their official visit. Elaine 
 received them on the lawn in front of his house, the day 
 being fine, and there General Henderson officially ten 
 dered the nomination of the Republican party for President 
 of the United States. It was a delightful scene to witness, 
 and once seen will not be forgotten. 
 
 General Henderson read the letter of notification aloud, 
 which read as follows : 
 
 Mil. ELAINE : Your nomination for the office of Presi 
 dent of the United States by the National Republican Con 
 vention, recently assembled at Chicago, is already known 
 to you. 
 
 The gentlemen before you, constituting a committee 
 composed of one member from each State and Territory of 
 the country, and also one from the District of Columbia, 
 now come, as the accredited organ of that Convention, to 
 give you formal notice of that nomination, and to request 
 your acceptance thereof. 
 
 It is of course known to you that, beside your own, 
 several other names, among the most honored in the coun 
 cils of the Republican party, were presented by their 
 friends as candidates for this nomination. Between your 
 friends and the friends of gentlemen, so justly entitled to 
 the respect and confidence of their political associates, the 
 contest was one of generous rivalry, free from the taint of 
 bitterness, and equally free from the reproach of injustice. 
 
 At an early stage of the proceedings of the Convention 
 it became manifest that the Republican States, the States 
 whose aid must be invoked at last to insure success to the 
 ticket, earnestly desired your nomination. It was equally 
 manifest that the desire, so earnestly expressed by the dele 
 gates from these States, was but the truthful reflection of an 
 
OF JAMES G. ELAINE. 437 
 
 irresistible popular demand. It was not thought nor pre 
 tended that this demand had its origin in any ambitious de 
 sires of your own, or in the organized work of your 
 friends ; but it was recognized to be, what it truthfully is, 
 the spontaneous expression, by a free people of their love 
 and admiration of a chosen leader. 
 
 No nomination would have given satisfaction to every 
 member of the party. This is not to be expected in a 
 country so extended in area and so varied in its interests. 
 The nomination of Mr. Lincoln in 1860 disappointed so 
 many fond hopes and overthrew so many cherished am 
 bitions that, for a short time, disaffection threatened to 
 ripen into open revolt. 
 
 In 1872 the discontents was so pronounced as to impel 
 large masses of the party into organized opposition to its 
 nominees. For many weeks after the nomination of Gen 
 eral Garfield in 1880 defeat seemed to be almost inevitable. 
 In each case the shock of disappointment was followed by 
 the u sober second thought." Individual preferences gen 
 erally yielded to convictions of public duty. The prompt 
 ings of patriotism finally rose superior to the irritations and 
 animosities of the hour. The party in every trial lias 
 grown stronger in the face of threatened danger. 
 
 In tendering you this nomination it gives us pleasure to 
 remember that those great measures which furnish the 
 causes for party congratulation by the late Convention at 
 Chicago and which are now crystallized into the legisla 
 tion of the country measures which have strengthened and 
 dignified the Nation, while they have elevated and advanced 
 the people at all times and on all proper occasions re 
 ceived your earnest and valuable support. 
 
 It was your good fortune to aid in protecting the Nation 
 against the assaults of armed treason. You were present 
 and helped to unloose the shackles of the slave. You as- 
 
438 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 sisted in placing the now guarantees of freedom in the F-<1 
 eral Constitution. Your voice was potent in preserving tin 
 National faith. When false theories of finance would hav< 
 blasted National and individual prosperity, we kindly re 
 member you as a fast friend of honest money and commer 
 cial integrity. In all that pertains to the security and reposi 
 of capital, the dignity of labor, the manhood, elevation am 
 freedom of the people, the right of the oppressed to demand 
 and the duty of the Government to afford protection, you 
 public acts have received the unqualified endorsement o 
 popular approval. 
 
 But we are not unmindful of the fact that parties, likt 
 individuals, cannot live entirely on the past, however splen 
 did the record. The present is ever charged with its imme 
 diate cares ; the future presses on with its new duties, it; 
 perplexing responsibilities. Parties, like individuals, how 
 ever, that are free from the stain of violated faith in the 
 past, are fairly entitled to the presumption of sincerity ir 
 their promises for the future. 
 
 Among the promises made by the party in its late Con 
 vention at Chicago are : Economy and purity of adminis 
 tration ; the protection of the citizen, native and naturalized, 
 at home and abroad ; the prompt restoration of the navy 
 a wise reduction of surplus revenues, "relieving the tax 
 payer without injuring the laborer ;" the preservation oi 
 the public lands for actual settlers ; impost duties, when 
 necessary at all, to be levied, not for "revenue only," bul 
 for the double purpose of revenue and protection ; the regu 
 lation of internal commerce ; the settlement of international 
 differences by peaceful arbitration, but coupled with the 
 reassertion and maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine as 
 interpreted by the Father of the Republic ; perseverance in 
 the good work of civil service reform, "to the end that the 
 dangers to free institutions which lurk in the power of offi- 
 
OF JAMES G. RLAINE. 439 
 
 cial patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided ;" hon- 
 est currency, based on coin of intrinsic value, adding 
 strength to public credit, and giving renewed vitality to 
 every branch of American industry. 
 
 Mr. Elaine, during the last twenty-three years the Re 
 publican party has builded a new Republic a Republic far 
 more splendid than that originally designed by our fathers. 
 Its proportions already grand may yet be enlarged. Its 
 foundations may yet be strengthened, and its columns be 
 adorned with a beauty more resplendent still. To you as 
 its architect-in-chief will soon be assigned this grateful work. 
 
 Blaine responded as follows : 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the National Committee. 
 
 I receive not without deep sensibility your official notice 
 of the action of the National Convention already brought to 
 my knowledge through the public press. I appreciate more 
 profoundly than I can express the honor which is implied in 
 a nomination for the Presidency by the Republican party of 
 the Nation speaking through the authoritative voice of duly 
 accredited delegates. To be selected as a candidate by such 
 an assemblage from the list of eminent statesmen whose 
 names were presented, fills me with embarrassment. I can 
 only express my gratitude for so signal an honor and my 
 earnest desire to prove worthy of the great trust reposed in 
 me. 
 
 In accepting the nomination, as I now do, I am im 
 pressed, I might almost say oppressed, with a sense of the la 
 bor and responsibility which attach to my position. The bur 
 den is lightened, however, by the hosts of earnest men who 
 support my candidacy, many of whom add as does your 
 honorable committee the cheer of personal friendship to 
 the pledge of political fealty. 
 
 A more formal acceptance will naturally be expected and 
 
440 THE LIFE AM) ITIiLlC SERVICES 
 
 will in due season be communicated. It may, however, r/ot 
 be inappropriate at this time to say that I have already mad-.- 
 careful study of the principles announced by the National 
 Convention, and that in the whole and in detail they have 
 my heartiest sympathy and meet my unqualified approval. 
 
 Apart from your official errand, gentlemen, I am extreme 
 ly happy to welcome you all to my home. With many of 
 you I have already shared the duties of the public service 
 and have enjoyed the most cordial friendship. I trust your 
 journey from all parts of the great Republic has been agree 
 able, and that during your stay in Maine you will feel that 
 you are not among strangers but with friends. Invoking 
 the blessing of God upon the great cause which we jointly 
 represent, let us turn to the future without fear and with 
 manly hearts. 
 
 Mr. Blaine concluding, Chairman Henderson took a step 
 forward and said "to one and all of you I introduce the 
 next President of the United States." 
 

BIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 TT/ X VA V inTV M 
 
 ENERAL OHN . lOGAN 
 
 OF ILLINOIS, 
 
 IN CHILDHOOD, MANHOOD, PEACE, AND AR, 
 
 BY 
 
 RUSSELL H. CONWELL. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 1884. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The first time the writer saw Gen. Logan, that chieftain 
 was riding at a wild rate across the fields at Dallas, Ga., 
 May 28th, 1864. A fierce battle was raging with Har- 
 dee s battalion of infantry. In smoke and dust, in brush 
 and plowed field, his swiftly passing form appeared and 
 disappeared like an eagle flying low. When the battle was 
 over, wounded and begrimed, he appeared at headquar 
 ters, the fiercest and wildest human figure on which the 
 writer ever looked. 
 
 The second time the writer saw him was when the noble 
 McPherson lay dead by the breastworks before Atlanta. 
 
 The last time the writer saw him was in June, 1884, 
 after the Republican Convention of 1884. 
 
 When comfortably seated in an easy-chair on the lawn 
 before Elaine s house in Augusta, he talked of the nomina 
 tions, What a history these intervening twenty years 
 contain. 
 
 No other man from all those terrible fields, except Gen. 
 Grant, remains so conspicuously before the country, and 
 has so continuously supported and strengthened the Nation 
 in the equally trying fields of peace. 
 
 Gen. Logan s life has been one of such activity in youth, 
 in wars, in political campaigns and congressional debate, 
 that it is full of most romantic situations and daring deeds. 
 As a lawyer, as a private soldier, as a colonel, as a briga 
 dier-general, as a major-general, as a commandant of an 
 
446 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 army, as a congressman, as a senator, and as a popular 
 orator, Gen. Logan has had few equals in the history of 
 the Nation. He has spared no pains, nor hesitated to im 
 peril his life, whenever and wherever the country he loved 
 would be made safer or more prosperous. Of him it can 
 be said by the most conservative citizen, that he is a noble 
 patriot, a wise statesman, and one of the greatest battle 
 heroes of history. 
 
 For much of the information contained in the following 
 pages, and for some of the most important descriptions, the 
 writer is indebted to intimate friends of General Logan. 
 
THE 
 LIFE A^D PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN A. LOGAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Logan s Parents. His Early Years. The Farm. The old Mill 
 School. Habits and Peculiarities. The Squirrels. Knights of 
 the Golden Circle. College Life. Enlists in the United States 
 Army. The War with Mexico. 
 
 John A. Logan s life presents one of the most brilliant 
 examples of America s many "self-made" men, and must 
 serve as an incentive and encouragement to the great num 
 ber of young men in the Nation whose success in letters, 
 influence, or wealth, depends upon their own energy and skill. 
 His father, Dr. John Logan, came to this country from 
 the North of Ireland in the year 1818, and penetrated into 
 the interior of the "wild West" until he made his settlement 
 in Missouri where he married a French lady. She was ;i 
 daughter of a wealthy planter and by her he had one 
 daughter, still living. But his wife died about a year after 
 their marriage and Dr. Logan removed to Southern Illinois. 
 He took up his abode at what was then called Brownsville. 
 Brownsville was afterwards the county seat of Jackson 
 County. Lieut-Governor A. M. Jenkins was also a resi- 
 
448 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 dent of Brownsville and with him lived his sister Miss 
 Elizabeth Jenkins. It was at the home of Governor 
 Jenkins that Dr. Logan first met Elizabeth and the acquaint 
 ance thus made was shortly after followed by marriage. The 
 doctor took his bride to reside on a large farm a short dis 
 tance out of Brownsville. But those acres are now hidden 
 by the prosperous town of Murphysboro, Illinois. 
 
 The rude log cabin, which was made more comfortable 
 and more ornamental by weather boarding, stood then 
 almost alone on the prairie, but compared with .some habi 
 tations of that time and place would be called a mansion. 
 It was destroyed by fire two years ago. 
 
 On the 9th of February, 1824, and on a night, it is said, 
 when nature was in its wildest mood, John A. Logan was 
 born. Some few of the distant neighbors heard of the 
 event and took occasion to joke the doctor about his Irish- 
 American heir, but outside the little household it was an 
 event of no moment, and about which none seemed especial 
 ly to care. The contrast between the birth of European- 
 titled rulers, surrounded by the pomp, the music, the parade, 
 the congratulations of kings, and the birth of America s 
 greatest rulers, in the obscurity of the wilderness, or in the 
 rude habitation of a wood-chopper, furnishes themes for 
 constant study either to the philosopher or statesman. 
 Logan s birth, childhood, and occupation, his opportunities 
 and his appearance gave no special evidence of future great 
 ness. Many children in his own county had better training 
 and far more years of education. But out of the thousands 
 who dwelt around him, the w r hirl of providential events 
 brought but two or three to the surface. A child of the 
 prairies, a daring, lively playmate and a faithful friend, he 
 is said to have had no especial desire or aptitude for 
 educational acquirements. 
 
 John was the eldest of eleven children born to Dr. 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 449 
 
 Logan in that old, log farmhouse. Dr. Logan was a most 
 skillful physician and surgeon. Calls for his services came 
 from far and near. In all kinds of weather, and at all 
 hours, he was called to visit the settlers far and near. He 
 often traveled so constantly for weeks that all the sleep he 
 secured was in his stout wagon, behind his wonderfully in 
 telligent horse. He had but little time to work at or to 
 oversee the farm. He was too busy to take upon himself 
 the education of his children, although Dr. Logan was a 
 man of superior educational attainments. Hence his farm 
 was placed under the charge of a hired superintendent, 
 under whom, in his young days, John found his first em 
 ployment. The doctor also employed a tutor to give the 
 children lessons, as the only means then known to give 
 them an education. The schools were distant and exceed 
 ingly rudimentary, and never taught the higher branches of 
 mathematics Greek or Latin. In this way John obtained 
 an unusually thorough and advanced education for a boy of 
 that wild country. Latin was a favorite study with John, 
 and when in after years he came in contact with the Span 
 ish tongue in Mexico he was able, from his knowledge of 
 Latin, to acquire the language in a wonderfully short 
 period. Dr. Logan was noted as a man and physician of 
 remarkable ability, and one who being descended from 
 the best of the old country stock himself was exceedingly 
 democratic and impartial in all his habits and social be 
 havior. He hated aristocracy. The rich and the poor 
 were treated alike in his hands. Honesty and uprightness 
 were the only badges of nobility which he recognized. 
 
 He was honored by all, and he was loved by many. He 
 never went into dissipation and never used profane lan 
 guage. He loved blooded stock ; he enjoyed hunting and 
 all the oldtime sports of his own native land. His house 
 was always open to friends and to traveling preachers, 
 
450 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 without pay or obligation so far as he was concerned. He 
 died in 1851, from an abscess on the liver. 
 
 Dr. Logan s wife, and the mother of John, was of 
 Scotch extraction, and had the decided, and yet generous, 
 Scotch character. She was a tall and stately woman of 
 modest demeanor, and very self-possessed in all circum 
 stances. She was a thorough disciplinarian and most de 
 voted mother. She died in 1877, after seeing her son 
 sitting in the "high places" of the land. 
 
 John was not afraid of work in his boyhood, and as the 
 eldest son, and in the frequent absence of his father, was 
 often placed in positions of responsibility connected with 
 the farm or the house far beyond those usually borne by 
 children of his age. The groceries were purchased at a 
 distant store ; the farm produce was sold in a market 
 several miles away ; and the grist-mill, the most important 
 establishment connected with a new civilization, was so far 
 away that when John was sent with bags of corn for 
 grinding he was often obliged to stop all night at the mill. 
 
 One incident connected with his experience in carrying 
 corn to mill has found its way into the public prints, which 
 illustrates the hard and awkward way men lived and 
 labored in those days : 
 
 John, with one of the slave boys which the doctor then 
 owned, and afterwards gave his freedom, went on a jour 
 ney to the mill. They arrived at the mill in a terrible 
 storm, and were obliged to spend the night in an open 
 shed. The mill was run by horse-power, with the animal 
 traveling in a circle at the end of a pole. The belting 
 became soaked, and fell down in the night, where the 
 hungry dogs found it and ate it. So John and the slave 
 boy had to stay for three or four days at the mill while the 
 miller killed an ox, tanned the hide, and made a new belt. 
 
 John was by nature energetic and active, and by train- 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 451 
 
 ing, as the eldest boy of a large family, was not afraid of 
 taking responsibility. So he was always a leader among 
 the boys, and even among the older, white farm-hands. For 
 a few months John attended the district school, and while 
 there was the universally acknowledged head in all tlu-ir 
 sports and youthful enterprises. He read much and stored 
 away in his retentive memory, many an interesting or humor 
 ous story, which he often reproduced to an admiring crowd 
 of listeners, with brilliant additions and observations of his 
 own. He was esteemed to be an excellent performer on 
 the violin, and for this accomplishment was sought and 
 courted by all the young people within his social territory. 
 
 A good story is told of John s characteristics while a boy, 
 which illustrates well one phase of his character. The 
 doctor had a field of corn in which the squirrels made 
 great havoc. When the doctor ordered John to kill the 
 squirrels, the boy gave the unfortunate animals one more 
 chance, by posting for twenty-four hours, on a tree, this 
 placard : 
 
 "I give notice to all the squirrels to keep out of this corn 
 field, If they don t, they will be shot. 
 
 "JonN A. LOGAN." 
 
 John s mother was reminded of that notice by the similar 
 one which, years later, he sent to the Knights of the 
 Golden Circle, who had threatened his life. The let in- 
 read about as follows : 
 
 "If you don t keep out of the Golden Circle, some of you 
 
 will be strung up. 
 
 "Joiix A. LOGAN." 
 
 Professor Thomas, of the Smithsonian Institute, at 
 Washington, who was a playmate of John s, and who after 
 wards married one of John s sisters, says that "when 
 John was fifteen years old, he took into his head to build 
 
452 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 a flat-boat for the muddy river which ran near the 
 homestead. The boat was duly built and launched on a 
 creek. But the river was at that time a rapid and danger 
 ous stream, and who would pilot it out? All were afraid 
 to venture upon it. But John, who never hesitated to ac 
 cept such responsibility, jumped aboard and steered her 
 out in triumph." 
 
 Of John s college life, which he entered upon when but 
 seventeen years of age, there was nothing remarkable, ex 
 cept that same characteristic adaptability for leadership and 
 an indomitable perseverance in whatever task he wished to 
 perform. 
 
 At Shiloh College, then in its infancy, John remained 
 three years. The last year of his stay at college the coun 
 try was greatly agitated over the boundary questions, and 
 other matters which disturbed the relations of our country 
 with Mexico. John took a decided interest in the discus 
 sions, and displayed a warlike spirit which some were in 
 clined to ridicule. But they laugh best who laugh last. 
 
 He volunteered in the first regiment raised in the State, 
 being himself then but twenty-one years of age. He was 
 at once appointed Second Lieutenant of Company H., First 
 Illinois Volunteers. He entered the war at its very begin 
 ning, and remained until it was finished, being twice de 
 tached for important service. When the regiment returned 
 from their victorious campaign, John was acting quarter 
 master of the regiment. He was a brave and obedient 
 officer, and had the respect and love of those who served 
 under him. 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 453 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Selects the Law for a Profession. His First Public Office. Resig 
 nation. Study of Law. Louisville University. His Practice. 
 Personal Courage. Elected to the State Legislature. Dis 
 trict Attorney. His Legal Ability. Marriage with Miss Cun 
 ningham. Re-election to Legislature. The "Black Eagle." 
 
 As far back as his college days, Logan had selected the 
 law for a profession, and looked forward with eagerness to 
 the time when he could enter fully into the work. He was 
 interested in all the important cases and decisions, and 
 eagerly perused such law books as he could secure. On his 
 return to Illinois from Mexico, the popular young lieutenant 
 was elected forthwith to the office of Clerk for Jackson 
 County. 
 
 But his great desire to enter the legal profession was 
 fanned into uncontrollable flame by being in the courts, and 
 so intimately connected with the lawyers and their cases. 
 
 In 1850, less than a year after his election as Clerk, 
 he resigned the office, and entered the Law Department of 
 Louisville University. In his legal studies he made re 
 markable progress, and graduated with the honors of his 
 class. Then his uncle, ex-Governor Jenkins, invited him 
 to go into partnership, which he gladly accepted, as it gave 
 him at once a profitable and prominent place in the profes 
 sion. He had an excellent adviser in Governor Jenkins, 
 and the most severe training in the courts with those law 
 yers which have since become great jurists or great states 
 men. 
 
454 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 During this early period of his legal career, the farmers 
 of Southern Illinois lost great numbers of valuable horses, 
 through the incursions of gangs of desperate horse thieves, 
 who came over from the wilds of Missouri. No one of the 
 farmers dared to pursue the villains, and hideous tales were 
 current with regard to their numbers and blood-thirsty char 
 acter. 
 
 But none of these things daunted young Logan, who con 
 ceived the idea of following the horde, and retaking their 
 booty. The next foray which they made was into his own 
 county, and Logan at once took his gun to follow them into 
 their haunts. He could get but two men to go with him. 
 The three, under Logan s lead, entered the dismal swamps 
 of Southeastern Missouri, and so hotly and closely pursued 
 the thieves that they abandoned their stolen gains and fled 
 into the wilds. Logan brought back eighteen of the horses 
 with him. 
 
 When the people elected Logan to the Legislature, two 
 counties were in his district, viz : Jackson and Franklin. 
 Dr. Logan was once a Representative from the same district. 
 
 After the expiration of his term in the Legislature, he 
 was elected prosecuting attorney for the Third Judicial Dis 
 trict of Illinois. In that position he was an unflinching 
 public servant, and the guilty criminals felt the weight of 
 the law. 
 
 Yet he was a faithful and vigilant counsel as an attorney, 
 and could use anything of every-day life to influence the 
 jury. His arguments and illustrations were practical, and in 
 accordance with good common sense. 
 
 Once a frightened lamb, fleeing from voracious dogs, took 
 refuge by the judge s bench in the courthouse, where Logan 
 was defending a man ace-used of manslaughter, and Logan 
 so aptly used the event, as an illustration of his innocent 
 client, crouching before the jury, asking protection from his 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 455 
 
 inhuman persecutors, that the effect was a verdict of "not 
 guilty." 
 
 On the 27th of November 1855, Logan married Miss 
 Mary S. Cunningham. She was the daughter of an old 
 friend in the Mexican War, Captain J. M. Cunningham of 
 Marion, 111. She was then but sixteen years of age but as 
 gifted and noble as a girl, as she has been since as a woman. 
 The Philadelphia Times published a sketch of her eventful 
 life which said that "the American ancestry of Mrs. Logan 
 goes back to a sturdy Irish settler of Virginia and a French 
 pioneer of Louisiana. Her great-grandfather, Robert Cun 
 ningham, of Virginia, was a soldier of the war for Indepen 
 dence, after which he removed to Tennessee, thence to Ala 
 bama, and thence to Illinois, when still a Territory, and 
 there manumitted his slaves. Her father, Captain John M. 
 Cunningham, served in the fierce Black Hawk w r ar. He 
 was a member of the Legislature of Illinois in 1845 and 46 
 and served in the Mexican war. Her mother was Miss 
 Elizabeth Fontaine, of a distinguished family of that name 
 which had arrived in Louisiana during the French occu 
 pancy of that country and had thence journeyed up the 
 Mississippi River and settled in Missouri. It was here that 
 John Cunningham met his bride and it was near the present 
 village of Sturgeon, then known as Petersburg, in Boone 
 County, Mo., that Mary Simmerson Logan was born, on 
 August 15, 1838. When she \vas one year old her parents 
 removed to Illinois and settled at Marion, in Williamson 
 County. It was here that the mother and her oldest daugh 
 ter, then but nine years old, shared the dangers of a frontier 
 home and the cares and solitude of a growing family, when 
 the husband and father w r ent forth to fight the battles of his 
 country upon the parched plains of Mexico and braved the 
 trials and privations of a miner s life in the Sierras of Cali 
 fornia. 
 
456 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 "This courageous and dutiful little girl relieved her mother, 
 who was not strong, of most of the household work, and 
 still found time to attend the primitive school of the neigh 
 borhood and train herself in useful needlework. 
 
 4 The father felt a just pride in his eldest daughter. The 
 assistance which she had rendered her mother during his 
 long absence in Mexico and California had even more close 
 ly endeared her to his heart, and her love of study had 
 prompted him to give part of his income to her proper edu 
 cation. Accordingly, in 1853 the daughter was sent to the 
 Convent of St. Vincent, near Morgan field, Ky., a branch of 
 the Nazareth Institute, the oldest institution of the kind in 
 the country. This was the nearest educational establish 
 ment of sufficient advancement in the higher branches of 
 knowledge. The young lady was reared a Baptist ; after 
 her marriage she joined the Methodist Church, the Church 
 of the Logan family." 
 
 Having graduated in 1855, Miss Cunningham returned 
 to her father s home at Shawneetown. In her younger 
 days, when a mere child, she had aided her father as Sheriff 
 of the County, Clerk of the Court, and Register of the Land 
 Office in preparing his papers. Those were not the days of 
 blank forms for legal documents. Accordingly the father 
 drpended upon the daughter to make copies for him. While 
 Mary Cunningham was thus aiding her father in his official 
 duties John Logan was Prosecuting Attorney of the district. 
 He had known Father Cunningham and was his warm 
 friend. He had known the daughter as a little girl. In 
 
 1855 they were married and at once went to the young at 
 torney s home at Benton, Franklin County. 
 
 The young wife immediately installed herself in the place 
 of companion and helpmeet to her husband. She accom 
 panied him on all his professional journeys, an undertaking 
 in those days of wildernesses and no roads, often requiring 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 
 
 great endurance and privation. In 185G the devoted wife 
 saw her husband triumphantly elected a member of the 
 Legislature, and in the famous Douglas and Lincoln Sena 
 torial contest he was elected as a Douglas Democrat to 
 Congress. In all these hard-fought political campaigns the 
 noble wife went with her husband, assisting in much of his 
 work of correspondence and copying, and frequently receiv 
 ing his friends and conferring with them on the details of the 
 campaign. When Mr. Logan came to Congress as a Rep 
 resentative Mrs. Logan came with him. She remained 
 with him in Washington until the outbreak of the rebellion, 
 when he resigned his seat in Congress to return to Illinois 
 to go into the service of his country. 
 
 The war having commenced and Mr. Logan having 
 raised and been assigned to the command of the Thirty-first 
 Illinois Volunteers, Mrs. Logan, with her only living child, 
 (now Mrs. Tucker) then three years old, returned to her 
 father s home at Marion. The Illinois troops having been 
 ordered into camp at Cairo, Mrs. Logan joined her hus 
 band there. During the fierce battle of Belmont, Mrs. 
 Logan heard the booming of the guns across the turgid 
 flood of the Mississippi. In the midst of painful and 
 anxious suspense for the safety of her own, of whom she 
 felt that he was in the thickest of the conflict, she gave a 
 helping hand to the care of the wounded and suffering sol 
 diers as they were brought back from that bloody field. 
 
 When the army entered upon the Tennessee River cam 
 paign Mrs. Logan again returned to her home, but was soon 
 shocked by the news from Donelson that her husband had 
 fallen at the head of his charging columns, dangerously 
 wounded. She hastened to the scene to care for her hus 
 band. For days it was a struggle between life and death. 
 
 At Memphis, in the winter of 1862-3, Mrs. Logan again 
 joined her husband, now a general, and remained there un- 
 
458 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 til he led his troops in the campaign which ended in the 
 surrender of Vicksburg. 
 
 During this time, and to the end of the war, Mrs. Logan 
 remained at Carbondale, where, out of the General s salary, 
 they had bought an unpretentious home. Upon his return 
 from the war General Logan was nominated by acclama 
 tion for Congressman -at-large. After his election Mrs. 
 Logan returned to Washington and has been one of the 
 prominent figures in Washington society ever since. 
 
 After his marriage Logan removed at once to Benton, 
 Illinois, where he opened a law office. He was elected 
 again to the Legislature in 1856, as a Democrat, in the cele 
 brated Fremont campaign. During this term in the Leg 
 islature he became quite prominent through his advocacy of 
 very important measures, and as early as 1857, was called 
 by a colleague in the Legislature the "Black Eagle of the 
 South." The title being suggested by his vigor and inde 
 pendence and very dark complexion. 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 459 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Elected to Congress. A Delegate to the Charleston Democratic 
 Convention of 1860. Views of Slavery. Trying to Stem the 
 Tide of Secession. His own Account of his" Action. Hasty 
 Return to Illinois. The Secession Sentiment about his Home. 
 His Speeches. His Personal Influence. Raising Troops. 
 Colonel of the 31st Illinois. Departure for the Field. 
 
 In 1858 he was nominated and elected to Congress from 
 the Ninth Congressional District of Illinois. He was so 
 popular that his majority is said to have been the largest 
 ever given to a candidate in that district up to that time. 
 He was then an Independent Democrat and received a great 
 many votes from the Whig party. He was not fanatical or 
 a partizan in the narrow sense in which those terms are 
 usually spoken. He was larger than party and looked first 
 for the good of the entire Nation. 
 
 He was a friend of Stephen A. Douglas, and did what 
 he could for Douglas advancement to the highest place in 
 the Nation. In 1860 he was elected to the Thirty-seventh 
 Congress with even greater enthusiasm than at first. He 
 was also elected a Delegate to the Democratic Convention 
 held at Charleston, S. C., in 1860. That Convention and 
 what he observed of slavery in other places while on that 
 trip, decided the question in his mind that the curse of sla 
 very was too great to be upheld or countenanced in a land 
 that claimed to be free. 
 
 In December of 1860, soon after Congress met he em 
 phatically declared that "slavery was an evil which none 
 
460 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 could reasonably deny." On the 7th of January he voted 
 for the resolution then before Congress approving the action 
 taken by the President for the preservation of the Union, 
 and said that it had his unqualified approbation. He open 
 ly, in public speech and private counsel, opposed secession. 
 
 When the news came that the rebels had fired on Fort 
 Sumpter, it was the end of all thoughts of compromise with 
 him. 
 
 When the troops so hastily collected crossed the Potomac 
 into Virginia, he decided to go with them, and although but 
 a private citizen he took a soldier s part in the battle of 
 Bull Run and fought till he was left alone. 
 
 Of that battle of Bull Run, it borders on the ludicrous 
 to read how Logan in a black suit and tall silk hat, went 
 into the fight utterly unconscious of anything but that his 
 Nation s flag was in danger. He went over into Virginia as 
 an anxious spectator, but when he saw the troops were 
 giving way, he could not resist the old warlike desire in his 
 luvast, and seizing a musket which some flying coward had 
 thrown away, he rushed into the fight and bravely covered 
 the retreat of many uniformed soldiers after the field was 
 hopelessly lost. 
 
 As soon as Logan reached Washington, after the battle 
 of Bull Run, he set himself eagerly at the task of awaken 
 ing loyalty to the Union among the people of Southern Il 
 linois. He wrote to many of his friends, urging them to 
 raise troops for the war. 
 
 As the end of the Congressional session approached, he 
 determined to go himself and do what he could to stay the 
 storm which was setting in against the Union in Southern 
 Illinois. At the adjournment of Congress Logan went 
 directly to his home with the avowed purpose of raising 
 troops for the war. His constituents had almost unani 
 mously passed resolutions in favor of Secession. All his 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 461 
 
 old friends were active sympathizers with the Rebellion. 
 He seemed to stand alone. On reaching home there seemed 
 "none so poor as to do him reverence." His bold stand for 
 the Nation had ostracised him almost completely. In his 
 energetic and patriotic wife, only, did he seem to find sym 
 pathy in his patriotism. 
 
 A trustworthy writer, who was personally acquainted with 
 the people at that time, says that "the tide of public opinion 
 among his constituency was overwhelmingly against him. 
 Those who had been his closest political and personal friends 
 turned against him with a keen hatred. The bitterness of 
 the feeling cannot at this day be appreciated. They threat 
 ened to mob and kill him when he should return." 
 
 His home was at that time at Marion, Williamson County, 
 and almost every one there was an open secessionist at that 
 time. But Logan seemed all the more anxious to go back 
 and to face them all. He was greeted sullenly, and treated 
 at first with contempt and scorr. But when he mounted the 
 rostrum and spoke of his devotion to the Union, his auditors 
 began to waver. When he called on his old Mexican com 
 rades to once more fight under the flag, some of them were 
 won completely over. They secured a fife and a drum, and 
 with "Yankee Doodle" and the "Star Spangled Banner," 
 they began recruiting "for the Nation and for Logan." 
 With a nucleus of a half-dozen old soldiers, the actual en 
 listment of troops began. Soon Logan s eloquence and 
 earnest example began to tell more powerfully. Soon some 
 influential men joined his recruits. Then came a general 
 break of the secession ranks, and Southern Illinois was 
 wholly saved to the Union. 
 
 Logan soon had a regiment enlisted, of which he was ap 
 pointed colonel, and it was numbered the 31st of the Illi 
 nois Infantry. Three other regiments were organized with 
 in three months, and all four became a brigade, commanded 
 
462 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 by General McClernand, and in General Grant s Depart 
 ment. 
 
 Colonel Logan s services to the Nation were but little ap 
 preciated by the Government, owing to the great dangers 
 which pressed more immediately but not more threateningly 
 upon it. Colonel Logan s regiment, when it left its native 
 county, was made the recipient of a beautiful flag, and in the 
 speech which Colonel Logan made on that occasion he said : 
 
 "Should the free navigation of the Mississippi River be 
 obstructed by force, the men of the West will hew their 
 way through human gore to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 463 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Logan s First Charge with His Regiment. Horse Shot Under Him. 
 Fort Henry. Fort Donelson. Dangerously Wounded. 
 A Brigadier-General. New Command. Before Corinth. 
 In Command at Jackson. His Celebrated Reply to His Con 
 stituents. No Politics, but Love for the Union. The North 
 ern Mississippi Campaign. Feats of Logan and His Men. 
 The Battle of Jackson and Champion s Hill. 
 
 The first battle in which Logan and his regiment was 
 engaged was at the town of Belmont, in Missouri. It was 
 not more than five weeks after the regiment left Williamson 
 County before they were under a severe fire, being placed 
 on the left wing of Grant s forces. It was a wonderfully 
 contested engagement, considering the freshness of all the 
 troops engaged on both sides. Hand-to-hand conflict was 
 frequent, and charge after charge was made. But the 
 Union troops made no substantial advance, being obliged 
 to fall back at last to the cover of the gunboats "Tyler" 
 and "Lexington," stationed at the river s bank. It appears 
 that the troops would have met with a most disastrous 
 defeat if Logan had not been on the alert. For once, 
 when the enemy had fled, the whole force gave up pursuing, 
 and broke up in disorder to congratulate one another on 
 their first victory. But the enemy rallied, and had not 
 their advance been detected by the alertness of Col. Logan, 
 an ignominious and bloody rout must have been the end. 
 As it was he saved the field, and was thanked for it in the 
 official report. 
 
464 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 In one of the charges of that bloody day Col. Logan s 
 horse was killed under him, and the Colonel s belt cut from 
 his waist by another ball. The withdrawal of the troops 
 after the battle being a part of the original plan and 
 instructions, it was not considered in any sense a defeat. 
 
 The next movement in which Col. Logan was engaged 
 was against Fort Henry, at the mouth of the Tennessee 
 River. Col. Logan was the first to enter the fort after its 
 abandonment, and with some cavalry companies he suc 
 ceeded in capturing several of the retreating enemy s guns. 
 
 Then followed the siege of Fort Donelson, with its 
 tedious marches, its cold, its mud and rain, its snow and 
 ice, its fearful hardships, and its splendid victory. The 
 soldiers suffered for food, for fire, and for drink during 
 those days of battle, and Col. Logan s regiment were com 
 pelled for a long time to stand under fire, with no ammuni 
 tion with which to defend themselves. That is the severest 
 trial to which soldiers are ever put. Col. Logan was 
 severely wounded, and his Lieutenant-Colonel killed. 
 Three hundred of his men were killed or wounded. 
 Gen. McClernand, in his official report, mentioned the 
 bravery of Col. Logan and the noble behavior of his men. 
 Gen. Grant noticed it in particular, and recommended to the 
 War Department that Col. Logan be appointed a Hriga- 
 dier-General. 
 
 For two months after the surrender of Fort Donelson, 
 Col. Logan was confined to his bed by his wounds. But 
 so impatient was he to get back to his troops, that he went 
 to them before he could wear his coat. 
 
 Col. Logan s first command as a Brigadier-General was 
 the Third Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps. His 
 brigade was not severely engaged in any open fight in the 
 campaign about Corinth which followed, but it was called 
 upon to make some of the most severe forced marches of 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 466 
 
 the campaign. On the capture of Corinth, Col. Logan was 
 placed in command of the post at Jackson, and his brigade 
 were employed in rebuilding the railroad from Jackson to 
 Columbus. 
 
 Gen. Sherman, in his official report of the siege of 
 Corinth, said : 
 
 "I feel under special obligation to this officer, Gen. 
 Logan, who, during the two days he served under me, 
 held critical ground on my right, extending down to the 
 railroad. All that time he had in his front a large force of 
 the enemy, but so dense was the foliage that he could not 
 reconnoiter their strength, save from what he could see on 
 the railroad track." 
 
 While General Logan was in command at Jackson, some 
 of his old friends wrote to him, urging him to be a candi 
 date for Congress from the Fourteenth District. His reply 
 was so vigorous as to seem half indignant at the proposed 
 honor. In the letter he said : "I express all my views and 
 politics when I assert my attachment for the Union. I have 
 no other politics now, and, consequently, no aspiration for 
 civil place and power." * * "This Government must be 
 preserved for future generations in the same mould in which 
 it was transmitted to us, if it takes the last man and the 
 last dollar of the present generation within its borders to 
 accomplish it." 
 
 In the campaign in Northern Mississippi, General Logan 
 was promoted to Major-General. He was commissioned 
 November 29th, 1862. In that severe march and siege, 
 General Logan commanded the First Division of the 13th 
 Corps, under General Grant. In January, 1863, when the 
 Seventeenth Corps was organized, General Logan was 
 placed in command of the Third Division. It was com 
 posed of some of the best troops in the service. Yet, at 
 one time, in 1863, there was created considerable discon- 
 
466 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 tent and some few desertions, by the criticisms of Northern 
 newspapers on the Government and the disheartening effects 
 
 of some defeats of the Eastern Army. General Logan 
 drove that feeling out of his camp by one bold and stirring 
 address. He told his men that "upon your faithfulness and 
 devotion, heroism and gallantry depends the perpetuity of 
 the Nation. Let us stand firm at our posts of duty and 
 of honor, yielding a cheerful obedience to all orders from 
 our superiors until by our united efforts the stars and stripes 
 >hall be planted in every city, town and hamlet of the re 
 bellious States." In the winter of 1863, Logan s division 
 was sent on transports to the great bend in the river near 
 Vicksburg, and directed to dig the proposed canal through 
 the peninsula via. Lake Providence. When the Govern 
 ment abandoned the project, on General Logan s recom 
 mendation, a large detail of Logan s men were placed on 
 the cotton-padded transports and successfully ran the gaunt 
 let of the terrible Vicksburg batteries. The transports thus 
 obtained were used by General Logan to cross the river 
 for the capture of Port Gibson. General McPherson, then 
 in command of the Seventeenth Corps, and General Logan, 
 planned the order of march, and, according to the official 
 report, Logan and his men carried the day in the victory 
 which followed. The enemy retreated precipitately before 
 his division, and the next day evacuated Port Gibson alto 
 gether. 
 
 On the second week in May, General Logan and his men 
 bore the principal part in the battle of Raymond. It was 
 said by those who witnessed that contest, that it was one 
 of the most daring and desperately fought battles of the 
 war. 
 
 On the fourteenth of May came the battle of Jackson, in 
 which General Johnson, of the Confederate Army, was 
 defeated by the Seventeenth Corps, under McPherson. In 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 467 
 
 that battle, Logan led his men, and, in the engagement, 
 captured several cannon and many men. 
 
 Again, on the sixteenth the same corps was desperately 
 engaged at Champion s Hill. The charge up that hill to 
 the deep cut made by the highway, was one of those steady 
 but sure advances seldom seen in war. Many soldiers can 
 charge and rush who could not coolly, step by step, mount 
 a hill with the enemy at the top pouring volley after volley 
 down upon them. It was a fearful battle. There were 
 over three thousand of the rebels left on the field. In 
 Badeau s History of the War, he describes with minute 
 ness the charges and counter-charges, the flanking and the 
 firing of that fearful day wherein Logan and his division 
 had a most conspicuous and sadly deadly part. The same 
 historian, speaking of the close of the battle, says : 
 
 "Before the result of the final charge was known, Logan 
 rode eagerly up to Grant, declaring that if one more dash be 
 made in front, he would advance in the rear, and complete 
 the capture of the rebel army. Grant at once rode forward 
 in person, and found the troops that had been so gallantly 
 engaged for hours withdrawn from their most advanced 
 position, and refilling their cartridge-boxes. Explaining 
 the position of Logan s force, he directed them to use all 
 dispatch and push forward as rapidly as possible. He pro 
 ceeded himself in haste to what had been Pemberton s line, 
 expecting every moment to come up with the enemy, but 
 found the rebels had already broken and fled from the field. 
 Logan s attack had precipitated the rout, and the battle of 
 Champton s Hill was won." General Grant, in his official 
 report of that battle, said that "Logan rode up at this time, 
 and told me that if Hovey could make another dash at the 
 enemy, he could come up from where he then was and capture 
 the greater part of their force; which suggestions were acted 
 upon and fully realized." "The Comte de Paris in his His- 
 
468 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 tory said of Logan s victory that "This battle was the crown 
 ing work of the operations conducted by Grant with equal 
 audacity and skill since his landing at Bruinsburg. In out 
 flanking Pemberton s left along the slopes of Champion s 
 Hill he had completely cut off the latter from all retreat 
 North. Notwithstanding the very excusable error he had 
 committed in stopping Logan s movement for a short time, 
 the latter had through this manoeuvre secured victory to 
 the Federal army." 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 469 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Siege of Vicksburg. Logan s Division before Fort Hill. Three 
 Bloody Assaults. The Explosion. Logan s Division the first 
 to Enter the Town. Logan Made Military Governor. A Gold 
 Medal. General Logan as an Orator. Placed in Command 
 of the Fifteenth Corps. The Atlanta Campaign. Battles of 
 Reseca, Dallas, and Kenesaw Moutain. Enters Marietta. 
 
 In the renowned siege of Vicksburg, General Logan was 
 a conspicuous figure. No other place in all the South dur 
 ing the war, with the exception perhaps of Richmond, was 
 so heavily armed and so completely defended as Vicksburg. 
 It was the stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi 
 River. The approaches to it were through deep swamps, 
 overgrown and undergrown with vines and stout tropical 
 vegetation, deep, and thick, and dark. The fortifications 
 were planned by the highest military skill, and aided by the 
 river, the bluffs, and the deep ravines, made a natural fortress 
 stronger than anything man could build. In this city so 
 grandly fortified, were thirty thousand experienced troops 
 under one of the ablest generals of the Confederacy, Gen 
 eral Pemberton. General Grant s army, when it reached 
 the swamps and ravines, did not number over forty thousand 
 men, and they were worn and sick with long and difficult 
 marching. From the nineteenth of June to the Fourth of 
 July the siege was pressed with determination, and every 
 approach to the city had to be gained by the severest fight 
 ing, or by the slow process of mining. General Logan 
 commanded the center of the seventeenth corps which was 
 
470 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 * 
 
 stationed opposite Fort Hill, the strongest citadel of all the 
 fortresses about the city. Logan took part in the two ter 
 rible and general assaults which failed, and then began 
 mining under Fort Hill. He was often consulted by Gen 
 eral Grant, and after General Logan had blown up Fort 
 Hill and pressed his men forward into the crater of the ex 
 plosion, he advised the general assault which would have 
 been again made on July 6th, if the enemy had not sur 
 rendered as he did, July 4th. The great French historian 
 says, that "Logan s Division was the first to enter Vieks- 
 burg. It had deserved that honor. General Grant rode at 
 the head." 
 
 It appears that the Forty-fifth Illinois Infantry of Logan s 
 Division was the first to enter Vicksburg, and they placed 
 their flag on the courthouse. General Logan had been so 
 heroic personally, and his military ability was so strikingly 
 shown in the fearful daily battles of the siege, that General 
 Grant gave him the place of honor as Military Governor of 
 the town after its surrender. His bravery and conspicuous 
 valor as a warrior was recognized by a gold medal, struck 
 in his honor and presented by the 1 7th corps at Vicksburg. 
 
 Following the capture of Vicksburg, General Logan and 
 his men had a respite of a few months from the trials of 
 actual battle. There was a lull all along the border, owing 
 to the extensive preparations necessary to the great campaign 
 of 1864, in which the question was the support of Lincoln s 
 official acts. General Logan being then so noted a warrior, 
 and such an acknowledged orator, he was urged by his superior 
 officers to go North and speak in the campaign. This he 
 did, and seldom, if ever, in the history of the Nation has 
 a political speaker received such honor and created such 
 patriotic fervor. The great issue was the Emancipation 
 Proclamation, and it received his hearty support. 
 
 In one of the most remarkable speeches of our time, which 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 471 
 
 General Logan made at Chicago, and from which extracts 
 have found their way into school books as examples of 
 oratory, he used the following strong language : 
 
 "My countrymen, let us look back for a few years and 
 view the prosperity and happiness that blessed all our land ; 
 and then cast your eyes around and see the condition of 
 our country now. Do not ask yourselves who is Presi 
 dent, or what may be his politics ; but ask, have we not 
 hitherto had a good and beneficent Government ? And if 
 so, have we not the same Government yet? Your answer 
 must be in the affirmative ; and, my friends, if we are but 
 true to ourselves, true to our cause, true to the principles 
 we have been educated in from our earliest infancy, we shall 
 have that Government still. 
 
 "How is it possible for any man in a country like this to 
 be disloyal to his Government? How is it possible for any 
 man in this country to conceive the thought or idea of sym 
 pathizing with rebellion against such a Government as this ? 
 * * * Where is the cause for it? Where is the reason 
 of it? Where the justification ? There is none to be found, 
 not one ; and if any man becomes disloyal, it is because 
 there are devilish designs and corruptions at his heart. 
 
 "I am taunted about being an Abolitionist. If every man 
 in this country is called an Abolitionist, that is willing to 
 fight for and sustain his Government, let him be called so. 
 If, belonging to the United States, and being true and val 
 iant soldiers, meeting the steel of Southern revolutionists, 
 marching to the music of this Union, loving the flag of our 
 country, and standing by it in its severest struggles if that 
 makes us Abolitionists, let all of us be Abolitionists. If it 
 makes a man an Abolitionist to love his country, then I 
 love my country, am willing to live for it, and willing to die 
 for it. If it makes a man an Abolitionist to love to hear the 
 Star Spangled Banner sung, and be proud to hear that such 
 
472 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 words were ever penned, or could ever be sung upon the bat 
 tle-field by our soldiers, then I am proud to be an Abolition 
 ist, and I wish to high heaven that we had a million more ; 
 then our rebellion would be at an end, and peace would 
 again fold her gentle wings over a united people, and the 
 old Union, the old friendship again make happy the land 
 \vlu- re now the rebel flag flaunts dismally in the sultry 
 Southern air. 
 
 * * # * * 
 
 4 See what it cost our sires to establish this Government! 
 Did they not pour out their blood freely as water to accom 
 plish this, to give us their priceless heritage of National 
 liberty and independence, under a form of Government that 
 should exist forever? Consider those sacred remembrances 
 of those illustrious men, and then tell me whether it is 
 worth preserving, tell me whether this rebellion, begun in 
 infamy, perjury and crime, carried on by crime, curried on 
 by blood, pillage and treason, and to the end, if success 
 ful, in destroying forever the last hope of mankind, tell me 
 if this shall succeed? [Cries of no, never!] 
 
 "In all these facts we may realize a lesson clearly point 
 ing out our duty. It is to lay fast hold of that old flag, keep 
 step to the music of the Union, unfurl its ample folds, and 
 with a heart of courage, a will that knows no faltering or 
 dismay, let it flutter over every burg, and wave over every 
 town and hamlet, until all traitors, like the wicked prince of 
 Babylon, shall smite their knees in terror and dismay, as if 
 the handwriting was upon the wall. Let them know that 
 they must bow before it, or kiss its untarnished folds, and 
 s\\ car by all that is great and good never to violate its sanc 
 tity or infringe a right it represents, let this be done and all 
 will be well. And I appeal to, and entreat you all, my 
 countrymen, by all that you hold sacred, by the glorious 
 memories of the past, the once bright hopes of the future, 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 473 
 
 by the memory of the gallant ones who have fallen on the 
 gory fields of the South ; by the wounded and suffering who 
 still languish in our midst ; by the sorrow and mourning 
 that this wicked rebellion has brought upon our once happy 
 and favored land, to be faithful, vigilant, untiring, unswerv 
 ing, determined, come what may, dare to be men and do 
 what is right. Stand by your country in all her trials, at 
 every hazard or at any cost. 
 
 "Let it not be said that those glorious boys who now 
 sleep beneath the red clay of the South, or the green sod of 
 our own loved State, have died in vain. Let those who are 
 traducing the soldiers of the Government know the enor 
 mity of their crimes and their error ; try to reclaim them, 
 and bring them back to duty and to honor. If they heed 
 not your appeals, if they still persist in their error and her 
 esies, if they will not aid in maintaining the Government 
 and laws that protect them, and continue in their wicked aid 
 and encouragement to this rebellion, send them to the other 
 side where they belong, for the man who can live in this 
 peaceful, happy, and prosperous land, and not be loyal and 
 true to it, ought, like Cain, to be branded by an indelible 
 mark, and banished forever from his native paradise. No 
 traitor, no sympathizer, no man who can lisp a word in 
 favor of this rebellion, or impair the chances of the Union 
 cause, is fit for any other ruler than Jeff Davis. He should 
 be put in front of the Union army, where he will get jus 
 tice." 
 
 Immediately after the election, General Logan was placed 
 in command of General Grant s old soldiers the Fifteenth 
 Army Corps, General Sherman its last General being pro 
 moted to the command of the Western Army and given the 
 duty to capture Atlanta. In the spring of 18G4, after a 
 winter of preparatory marching and gathering of supplies, 
 the campaign from Tennessee to Georgia began. General 
 
474 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 Logan s corps with the 16th and 17th corps formed the 
 Army of the Tennessee, under command of McPherson. 
 The first great battle was fought at Resaca. In that bat 
 tle Logan s Corps withstood three terrific charges and won 
 the final victory after dark. The storm of shot and shell 
 was fearful and the heroic conduct of the enemy called out 
 the admiration of all who saw the fearful slaughter and the 
 determined rallies. General Logan was wounded in that 
 battle and it seems a marvel that he could have escaped 
 with his life after riding for hours along a field plowed with 
 shell, and being so conspicuous a figure for the enemy s 
 skirmish line. He never asked a soldier to go into any 
 place of danger where he would not go himself. 
 
 On the 28th of May came the v battle of Dallas. On that 
 day General Logan again came face to face with General 
 Hardee. The charges by the rebels were most astonishingly 
 heroic. The charge upon Logan s Corps was so sudden and 
 so desperate that he could not get time to arrange for artil 
 lery or cavalry, but rode along in the very front of battle, 
 shouting to the men to be strong, and keeping them in place 
 and in courage by the inspiration of his personal presence. 
 Over three hundred dead Confederates were buried along 
 one line of battle, and General Logan was again wounded. 
 It was a frequent prediction among the soldiers that u Black 
 Jack will go under one of these times. He gets a loud 
 call about every day." 
 
 On the morning of the 15th of June, the writer saw 
 General Logan in consultation with McPherson at Big 
 Shanty, and when he left, the officers remarked that 
 * something was going to happen, for Logan rides like it." 
 Something did happen and it was one of the severest and 
 bloodiest charges of the campaign. It cleared the ravines 
 of the stubborn rebel hosts and drove them back upon Big 
 Kenesaw Mountain. For two weeks there was not a day 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 475 
 
 when Logan did not find himself under fire. The roar of 
 cannon was continuous, and the little clouds of powder 
 smoke could be seen incessantly arising in every southern 
 direction. A continual battle day and night went on for 
 many days, and the enemy were driven but a few yards at 
 a time, save in some such desperate and deadly charge as 
 Logan made on the 15th of June. 
 
 On the 27th, Logan and his men charged up Little Ken- 
 esaw Mountain. The mountain is most precipitous and 
 was covered with a rough growth of trees and brush, and 
 ragged piles of shelving rocks, and perpendicular ledges 
 barred the way. Through these woods, rushing through 
 thickets of brush, climbing the cliffs, and clambering over 
 rocks, the Fifteenth Corps passed up the mountain. The 
 enemy on the top of this natural fortress hurled down 
 lighted shells and rocks, and kept up a constant discharge 
 of musketry. All the way for half a mile up the moun 
 tain, by every exposed rock, and along the edge of every 
 prominent ledge, lay scores of soldiers, bleeding, dying, or 
 dead. 
 
 When the scaling columns reached a space near the top, 
 and within sight of the enemy s cannon, a perpendicular 
 wall of smooth rock, thirty or forty feet in height, stopped 
 their further progress. There was no means of scaling it, 
 while from the edge above them the rebels poured down 
 upon them a constant shower of bullets and ignited shell. 
 But Logan s men bravely held their own until night set in 
 and the movement of the Union troops on the right com 
 pelled the rebels to abandon the mountain altogether. 
 
 Logan s loss that day was sixty officers and four hundred 
 men. On July 4th, Logan entered Marietta and celebrated 
 Independence Day, as did Dodge s, and Blair s, and Hooker s 
 old corps, in following close upon the retreating columns of the 
 enemy, and firing after them whenever they could be seen. 
 
476 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Siege of Atlanta. The Battle of Jonesville. Evacuation of 
 Atlanta. Return to speak in Presidential campaign. Refuses 
 to supersede Gen. Thomas. Joins his corps for the Carolina 
 campaign. Surrender of Lee. Farewell address to his 
 troops. 
 
 The last of July came the siege and battles of Atlanta and 
 the death of General McPherson, the gallant commander of 
 the Army of the Tennessee. At the time of McPherson s 
 death there was no man but Logan who could have saved 
 the army from a fearful defeat. It is almost sure to cause 
 a panic in any army to let it go from mouth to mouth, amid 
 the shriek of shells and the crack of musketry, the deep 
 boom of a thousand cannon, and the yells of charging col 
 umns, that "the General is dead." Never was there a more 
 trying minute than when, in the heat of one of the mightiest 
 conflicts of the war, the cry went forth "McPherson is 
 killed ! McPherson is shot !" Its effect could be seen in 
 the cessation of firing, the dying out of the fierce yells, and 
 the clearing of the long line of battle from the smoke that 
 enveloped it. The strange action puzzled the enemy, fortu 
 nately, and led General Hood to expect some change in the 
 attack, or he would have charged surely on to victory. 
 But as soon as General Sherman heard of McPherson s 
 death, he ordered Logan to assume command of the Army 
 of the Tennessee. No sooner did General Logan get the 
 order than he rode swiftly along the sad lines and urged the 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 477 
 
 men to take vengeance on the enemy for the death of Mc- 
 Pherson. 
 
 He faced every danger and appeared in the most exposed 
 places along the line, and soon the sadness of the troops 
 gave way to indignation and they fought with even greater 
 desperation than before their beloved leader s death. Logan s 
 tact and bravery saved the day. 
 
 General Logan s official report of the battle, although 
 modestly omitting his own share in the greatest victory of 
 the campaign, yet shows by its figures how fearful and fatal 
 was the conflict. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS DEP T OF ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE ) 
 BEFORE ATLANTA, GA., July 24, 1862. j 
 General: 
 
 I have the honor to report the following summary of the 
 result of the battle of the 22d inst. : Total loss in killed, 
 wounded and missing, three thousand five hundred and 
 twenty-one (3,521), and ten pieces (10) of artillery. 
 
 We have buried and delivered to the enemy, under a 
 flag of truce sent in by them, in front of the Seventeenth 
 Corps, one thousand (1,000) of their killed; the number 
 of the dead in front of the Fourth Division of the same 
 corps, including those on ground not now occupied by our 
 troops, General Blair reports, will swell the number of 
 their dead on his front to two thousand (2,000). The 
 number of dead buried in front of the Ffteenth Corps up to 
 this hour, is three hundred and sixty (360), and the com 
 manding officer reports at least as many more unburied. 
 The number of dead buried in front of the Sixteenth Corps 
 was four hundred and twenty-two (422) . 
 
 We have one thousand (1,000) of their wounded in our 
 hands, a large number of wounded having been carried off 
 by them during the night after the engagement. 
 
478 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 We captured eighteen stands of colors and have them 
 now ; also captured five thousand (5,000) stands of arms. 
 
 The attack was made on our line seven times, and was 
 seven times repulsed. Hood s, Hardee s and Wheeler s 
 cavalry engaged us. We have sent to the rear one thou 
 sand (1,000) prisoners, including thirty-seven (37) com 
 missioned officers of high rank. We still occupy the field 
 and the troops are in fine spirits. 
 
 Our total loss is three thousand five hundred and twenty- 
 one (3,521) ; the enemy s dead, thus far reported buried or 
 delivered to them, is three thousand two hundred and 
 twenty (3,220) ; total prisoners sent North, one thousand 
 and seventeen (1,017) ; total prisoners wounded in our 
 hands, one thousand (1,000) ; estimated loss of the enemy, 
 over ten thousand (10,000). 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obed t servant, 
 
 JOHN A. LOGAN, 
 
 Major-General. 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN. 
 
 General Grant, in his official report of the battle of 
 Atlanta, said that "about one P. M. of this day (July 
 22d) , the brave, accomplished, and noble-hearted McPher- 
 son was killed. General Logan succeeded him and com 
 manded the Army of the Tennessee through this desperate 
 battle and until he was superseded by Major-Oeneral How 
 ard on the 27th, with the same success and ability that had 
 characterized him in the command of a corps or division." 
 
 On the 22d of July was fought the battle of Ezra Chapel 
 by Logan s corps alone. Six times did the Rebels charge 
 his lines and as many times were they repulsed. It will 
 ever be a surprise that General Lojran was not continued in 
 the command of the Army of the Tennessee instead of being 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 479 
 
 returned to the command of his corps, superseded by 
 General Howard. It is almost as great a mystery as it has 
 ever been to the writer how it could be that the conserva 
 tive, careful, and cautious McPherson should be killed, while 
 Logan who pushed into danger anywhere and hesitated not 
 at any personal risk should outlive his many wounds and 
 survive to deliver the oration at the unveiling of McPher- 
 son s statue. The battle of Ezra Chapel was fought after 
 General Logan returned to the command of the 15th corps 
 and the following is his official report : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS, 
 BEFORE ATLANTA, GA., 
 
 July 29, 1864. 
 
 Colonel : I have the honor to report that in pursuance of 
 orders I moved my command in position on the right of the 
 Seventeenth Army corps, which was the extreme right of 
 the Army in the field, on the night and morning of the 27th 
 and 28th instant, and during my advance to a more desira 
 ble position we were met by the rebel infantry from Hood s 
 and Lee s corps, who made a desperate and determined at 
 tack at half-past eleven o clock in the morning of the 28th. 
 
 My lines were protected only by logs and rails hastily 
 thrown in front of them. The first onset was received and 
 checked, and the battle commenced, lasting until about 
 three o clock in the afternoon. During that time six suc 
 cessive charges were made, which were six times gallantly 
 repulsed, each time with fearful loss to the enemy. Later 
 in the evening my lines were several times assaulted vigor 
 ously, but terminated with like result. The most of the 
 fighting occurred on Generals Harrow s and Smith s fronts, 
 which formed the center and right of the line. The troops 
 <jould not hare displayed more courage, nor greater deter 
 mination not to yield. 
 
480 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 I hid they shown less they would have been driven from 
 thrir position. Brigadier-Generals Wood s, Harrow s, and 
 Smith s division commands are entitled to great credit for 
 rallant conduct and skill in repelling the assaults. Mv 
 thanks are due to Major-Generals Blair and Dodge for sending 
 me reinforcements at a time when they were much needed. 
 
 My losses are 50 killed, 439 wounded, and 83 missing ; 
 aggregate 572. 
 
 The division of General Harrow captured five battle- 
 flags. There were about fifteen hundred or two thousand 
 muskets captured ; 10G prisoners were captured exclusive of 
 73 wounded who have been removed to hospitals and are 
 being taken care of by our surgeons ; 5G5 rebels up to this 
 time have been buried, and about 200 supposed to be yet 
 unburied. Large numbers were undoubtedly carried away 
 during the night as the enemy did not withdraw until nearly 
 daylight. The enemy s loss could not have been, in my 
 judgment, less than six or seven thousand. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN A. LOGAN, Major-General, 
 Commanding Fifteenth Army Corps. 
 LIEUT. -CoL. W. T. CLARK, 
 
 Asst. Adjutant- General. 
 
 On the foregoing report General Howard added the fol 
 lowing endorsement : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE ~\ 
 
 ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE BEFORE ATLANTA, GA., > 
 
 July 28, 1864. ) 
 
 In forwarding the within report I wish to express my 
 high gratification with the conduct of the troops engaged. 
 I never saw better conduct in battle. 
 
 The General commanding the Fifteenth Army Corps, 
 though ill and much worn out, was indefatigable, and the 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 481 
 
 success of the day is as much attributable to him as to any 
 one man. His officers, and in fact all the officers of his 
 army that commanded my observation, co-operated prompt 
 ly and heartily with him. 
 
 On the 26th of August, after continuous daily battle, 
 Howard s Command was ordered to move around to Jones- 
 boro , and destroy the evening s communications with Atlanta. 
 There a desperate engagement was fought between Logan s 
 corps and a large force of the enemy. But General Logan 
 repulsed their attacks three times when they retired leaving 
 over two thousand dead on the field. That battle decided 
 the fate of Atlanta, and the following night it was evacuated. 
 
 On the llth of September, when the 15th corps went into 
 camp for rest, General Logan issued the following congrat 
 ulatory order to his command. It is a most characteristic 
 document and is given entire ; 
 
 HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS, ) 
 EAST POINT, GA., Sept. 11, 1864. j 
 Officers and Soldiers Fifteenth Army Corps : 
 
 You have borne your part in the accomplishment of the 
 object of this campaign, a part well and faithfully done. 
 
 On the first day of May, 1864, from Huntsville, Alabama, 
 and its vicinity you commenced the march. The marches 
 and labors performed by you during this campaign will 
 hardly find a parallel in the history of the war. The proud 
 name heretofore acquired by the Fifteenth Corps for soldier 
 ly bearing and daring deeds remains untarnished its luster 
 undimmed. During the campaign you constituted the main 
 portion of the flanking column of the whole army. Your 
 first move against the enemy was around the right of the 
 army at Resaca, where by your gallantry, the enemy were 
 driven from the hills and his works on the main road from 
 Vilanow to Resaca. On the retreat of the enemy you 
 
482 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 moved on the right flank of the army by a circuitous route 
 to Adairsville, in the same manner from there to KimrMnn 
 and Dallas, where, on the 28th day of May, you met the 
 veteran corps of Ilardee, and in severe and bloody contest 
 you hurled him back, killing and wounding over two thou 
 sand, besides capturing a large number of prisoners. You 
 then moved around to the left of the army, by way of 
 Acworth to Kenesaw Mountain, where again you met the 
 enemy, driving him from three lines of works, capturing 
 over three hundred prisoners. During your stay in front 
 of Kenesaw Mountain, on the 27th of June, you made 
 one of the most daring, bold, and heroic charges of the war, 
 against the almost impregnable position of the enemy on 
 Little Kenesaw. You were then moved by way of Marietta 
 to Nickajack Creek, on the right of the enemy ; thence buck 
 to the extreme left, by way of Marietta and Roswell, to the 
 Augusta railroad, near Stone Mountain, a distance of fifty 
 miles, and after effectually destroying the railroad at this 
 point you moved by way of Decatur to the immediate front 
 of the rebel stronghold, Atlanta. Here, on the 22d day of 
 July, you again performed your duty nobly "as patriots 
 and soldiers" in one of the most severe and sanguinary con 
 flicts of the campaign. With hardly time to recover your 
 almost exhausted energies, you were moved again around 
 to the right of the army, only to encounter the same troops 
 against whom you had so recently contended, and the bat 
 tle of the 28th of July, at Ezra Chapel, will long be remem 
 bered by the officers and soldiers of this command. On that 
 day it was the 15th corps that, almost unaided and alone, 
 for four hours contested the field against the corps of Har- 
 dee and Lee. You drove them discomfited from the field, 
 causing them to leave their dead and many of their wounded 
 in your hands. The many noble and gallant deeds per 
 formed by you on that day will be remembered among the 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 483 
 
 proudest acts of our Nation s history. After pressing the en 
 emy closely for several days, you again moved to the right of 
 the army, to the West Point railroad, near Fair-burn after 
 completely destroying the road for some distance, you marched 
 to Jonesboro , driving the enemy before you from Pond Creek, 
 a distance of ten miles. At this point you again met the 
 enemy, composed of Lee s and Hardee s Corps, on the 31st 
 of August, and punished them severely, driving them in con 
 fusion from the field, with their dead, and many wounded, 
 and prisoners in your hands. Here again by your skill and 
 true courage you kept sacred the reputation you have so 
 long maintained, viz : "The 15th corps never meets the 
 enemy but to strike and defeat him." On the 1st of Sep 
 tember the 14th corps attacked Hardee ; you at once opened 
 fire on him, and by your co-operation his defeat became a 
 rout. Hood, hearing the news, blew up his ammunition 
 trains, retreated, and Atlanta was ours. 
 
 You have reached during the Campaign, in your wind 
 ings, the distance of four hundred miles, have put ii hors du 
 combat" more of the enemy than your corps numbers, have 
 captured twelve stands of colors, 2,450 prisoners and 210 
 deserters. 
 
 The course of your march is marked by the graves of 
 patriotic heroes who have fallen by your side ; but at the 
 same time it is more plainly marked by the blood of traitors 
 who have defied the constitution and laws, insulted and 
 trampled under foot the glorious flag of our country. 
 
 We deeply sympathize with the friends of those of our 
 comrades-in-arms who have fallen ; our sorrows are only 
 appeased by the knowledge that they fell as brave men, bat 
 tling for the preservation and perpetuation of one of the 
 best Governments of earth. "Peace be to their ashes." 
 
 You now rest for a short time from your labors ; during 
 the respite prepare for the future action ; let your country 
 
484 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 see at all times by your conduct that you love the cause you 
 have espoused; that you have no sympathy with any who 
 would by word or deed assist vile traitors in dismembering 
 our mighty Republic or trailing in the dust the emblem of 
 our National greatness and glory. You are the defenders 
 of a Government that has blessed you heretofore with peace, 
 happiness and prosperity. Its perpetuity depends upon your 
 heroism, faithfulness and devotion. 
 
 When the time shall come to go forward again, let us go 
 with the determination to save our Nation from threatened 
 wreck and hopeless ruin, not forgetting the appeal from 
 widows and orphans that is borne to us upon every breeze 
 to avenge the loss of their loved ones, who have fallen in 
 defense of their country. Be patient, obedient and earnest, 
 and the day is not far distant when you can return to your 
 homes with the proud consolation that you have assisted in 
 causing the old banner to again wave from every mountain s 
 top and over every town and hamlet of our once happy land, 
 and hear the shouts of triumph ascend from a grateful peo 
 ple, proclaiming that once more we have one flag and one 
 country. 
 
 JOHN A. LOGAN, 
 Major-General Commanding. 
 
 Being again urged to go North and deliver addresses be 
 fore the election of President, he left Atlanta before the cel- 
 ebiated March to the Sea was undertaken, and before his 
 leave of absence expired all communications with his old 
 command were cut off. Consequently, either voluntarily or 
 in accordance with the call of the Secretary of War, he 
 reported for duty at Washington. He was immediately 
 ordered to go to Nashville and relieve General Thomas, who 
 was then holding the rebels under Hood in check. But when 
 he reached Louisville he heard that Thomas was winning 
 victories and gallantly protecting the country in every way ; 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 485 
 
 so Gen. Logan most generously telegraphed to General Grant 
 that Thomas was doing so well it would be hardly right 
 to supersede him in the face of the enemy. He also asked 
 to go back to his old command, which had then reached 
 Savannah. His request was granted, and it was a long time 
 before General Thomas knew of Logan s self-sacrificing 
 conduct. 
 
 After joining his corps at Savannah, he led them in the 
 severe campaign through South Carolina and North Caro 
 lina, where starvation often threatened, and men died by 
 the hundreds of fatigue. While at Raleigh, with his com 
 mand, Lee surrendered, and the troops marched northward 
 and homeward. 
 
 General Howard having been detailed for other work, 
 General Logan was again placed in command of the Army 
 of the Tennessee, and rode at its head in the great review 
 of the troops in Washington, before the President. When 
 the troops were mustered out, which occurred a few weeks 
 later, General Logan resigned, and went to his home and 
 family at Marion. 
 
 The following is his farewell address to his troops : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE, ) 
 LOUISVILLE, KY., July 13th, 1865. j 
 
 Officers and Soldiers of the Army of the Tennessee: 
 
 The profound gratification I feel in being authorized tc 
 release you from the onorous obligations of the camp, and 
 return you laden with laurels, to homes where warm hearts 
 wait to welcome you, is somewhat embittered by the painful 
 reflection that I am sundering the ties that trials have made 
 true, time made tender, suffering made sacred, perils made 
 proud, heroism made honorable, and fame made forever 
 fearless of the future. It is no commmon occasion that de 
 mands the disbandment of a military organization, before 
 
486 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 the resistless power of which, mountains bristling with bay 
 onets have bowed, cities have surrendered, and millions of 
 brave men been conquered. 
 
 Although I have been but for a short period your comman 
 der, we are not strangers ; affections have sprung up between 
 us during the long years of doubt, gloom, and carnage, 
 which we have passed through together, nurtured by com 
 mon perils, sufferings and sacrifices, and riveted by the 
 memories of gallant comrades, whose bones repose beneath 
 the sod of a hundred battle-fields, nor time nor distance will 
 weaken or efface. 
 
 The many marches you have made, the dangers you have 
 despised, the haughtiness you have humbled, the duties you 
 have discharged, the glory you have gained, the destiny 
 you have discovered for the country in whose cause you 
 have conquered, all recur at this moment, in all the vivid 
 ness that marked the scenes through which we have just 
 passed. 
 
 From the pens of the ablest historians of the land, daily 
 are drifting out upon the current of time page upon page, 
 volume upon volume of your heroic deeds, which floating 
 down to future generations will inspire the student of history 
 with admiration, the patriot American with veneration for 
 his ancestors, and the lover of Republican liberty with grat 
 itude to those who in a fresh baptism of blood reconsecrated 
 the powers and energies of the Republic to the cause of con 
 stitutional freedom. Long may it be the happy fortune of 
 each and every one of you to live in the full fruition of the 
 boundless blessings you have secured to the human raiv. 
 
 Only hi who.-e heart has been thrilled with admiration 
 for your impetuous and unyielding valor in the thickest of 
 the tight, can appreciate witli what pride I recount the bril 
 liant achievements which immortalize you, and enrich the 
 pages of our National history. Passing by the earlier, 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 487 
 
 but not less signal triumphs of the war, in which most of 
 you participated and inscribed upon your banners such vic 
 tories as Donelson and Shiloh. I recur to campaigns, 
 sieges, and victories that challenge the admiration of the 
 world, and elicit the unwilling applause of all Europe. 
 Turning your backs upon the blood-bathed heights of Vicks- 
 burg, you launched into a region swarming with enemies, 
 fighting your way and marching without adequate supplies, 
 to answer the cry for succor that came to you from the noble 
 but beleaguered army at Chattanooga. Your steel next 
 flashed among the mountains of Tennessee, and your 
 weary limbs found rest before the embattled heights of Mis 
 sionary Ridge, and there with dauntless courage you breasted 
 again the enemy s destructive fire, and shared with your 
 comrades of the Army of the Cumberland the glories of a 
 victory than which no soldiery can boast a prouder. 
 
 In that unexampled campaign of vigilant and vigorous 
 warfare fropr Chattanooga to Atlanta, you freshened your 
 laurels at Resaca, grappling with the enemy behind his 
 works, hurling him back dismayed and broken. Pursuing 
 him from thence, marking your path by the graves of fallen 
 comrades, you again triumph over superior numbers at 
 Dallas, fighting your way from there to Kenesaw Moun 
 tain, and under the murderous artillery that frowned from 
 its rugged heights, with a tenacity and constancy that finds 
 few parallels, you labored, fought, and suffered through the 
 broiling rays of a southern midsummer s sun, until at last 
 you planted your colors upon its topmost heights. Again 
 on the 22d July, 1864, rendered memorable through all time 
 for the terrible struggle you so heroically maintained under 
 discouraging disasters, and that saddest of all reflections, 
 the loss of that exemplary soldier and popular leader, the 
 lamented McPherson, your matchless courage turned defeat 
 into a glorious victory. Ezra Chanel and Jonesboro added 
 
488 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 nrw luster to a radiant record, the latter unbarring to you 
 the proud Gate City of the South. The daring of a des 
 perate foe in thrusting his legions northward, exposed the 
 country in your front, and through rivers, swamps and ene 
 mies opposed, you boldly surmounted every obstacle, beat 
 down all opposition, and marched onward to the sea. 
 
 Without any act to dim the brightness of your historic 
 page, the world rang plaudits when your labors and strug 
 gles culminated at Savannah, and the old "Starry Banner" 
 waved once more over the walls of one of our proudest cities 
 of the sea-board. Scarce a breathing spell had passed when 
 your colors faded from the coast, and your columns plunged 
 into the swamps of the Carolinas. The sufferings you en 
 dured, the labors you performed, and the successes you 
 achieved in those morasses, deemed impassable, form a 
 civilitahlc episode in the history of the war. Pocataligo, 
 Salkahatchie, Edisto, Branchville, Orangeburg, Columbia, 
 Bentonville, Charleston, and Kaleigh, are names that will 
 cvi-r be suggestive of the resistless sweep of your columns 
 through the territory that cradled and nurtured, and from 
 whence was sent forth on its mission of crime, misery and 
 blood, the disturbing and disorganizing spirit of secession 
 and rebellion. 
 
 The work for which you pledged your brave hearts and 
 brawny arms to the Government of your fathers, you have 
 nobly performed. You are seen in the past, gathering through 
 the gloom that enveloped the land, rallying as the guardians 
 of man s proudest heritage, forgetting the thread unwoven 
 in the loom, quitting the anvil, and abandoning the work 
 shops, to vindicate the supremacy of the laws, and the 
 authority of the Constitution ! Four years have you strug 
 gled in the bloodiest and most destructive war that i-\vr 
 divurhrd the earth in human gore ; step by step you have 
 borne our standard, until to-day over every fortress and 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 489 
 
 arsenal that rebellion wrenched from us, and over city, town 
 and hamlet, from the lakes to the Gulf, and from ocean to 
 ocean, proudly floats the "starry emblem" of our National 
 unity and strength. 
 
 Your rewards, my comrades, are the welcoming plaudits 
 of a grateful people, the consciousness that in saving the 
 Republic you have won for your country renewed respect 
 and power, at home and abroad ; that the unexampled era 
 of growth and prosperity that dawns with peace, there at 
 taches mightier wealth of pride and glory than ever before 
 to that loved boast "I am an American Citizen !" 
 
 In relinquishing the implements of war for those of peace, 
 let your conduct ever be that of warriors in time of war, 
 and peaceful citizens in time of peace. Let not the luster of 
 that bright name that you have won as soldiers, be dimmed 
 by any improper act as citizens, but as time rolls on let your 
 record grow brighter and brighter still. 
 
 JOHN A. LOGAN, 
 
 Major-General 
 
490 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Appointment as Minister to Mexico. Elected to Congress. One 
 of the Impeachment Prosecutors. Promoted to the United 
 States Senate. Originated the Observance of Decoration Day. 
 Commander of the Grand Army. Prominent Candidate for 
 the Presidency. The Speech of Senator Ciillom. Gen. Lo 
 gan s Nomination for Vice President. 
 
 His retirement to private life was but temporary. Such 
 a noble and valuable man could not be spared from the 
 councils of the Nation. President Johnson recognized the 
 fact that much power for good was lying idle and tried to 
 persuade General Logan to take an appointment as Minister 
 of the United States to Mexico. But the General did not 
 take the office for two reasons, viz : First, he preferred to 
 live in the t nitod States, and second, he did not like to re 
 ceive such an honor from such a man as Andrew Johnson. 
 
 In 1868 he was again elected to Congress and he took his 
 seat again in the Hall from which four years before he went 
 forth resolved "never to return to political life until every 
 Rebel had laid down his arms." Then followed the excit 
 ing period when" the impeachment of President Johnson was 
 before Congress. General Logan was no disinterested 
 spectator. He believed the will of the people should be 
 obeyed by every public servant. He was fearless and per 
 sistent in his patriotic desire to have the States of the South 
 restored in such a way as to make further opposition to the 
 Government useless. He sympathized with Secretary Stan- 
 ton and he was appointed one of the prosecutors on the part 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 491 
 
 of the House of Representatives to present and sustain the 
 charges against the President. 
 
 General Logan was re-elected with no noteworthy oppo 
 sition until 1871, when the Legislature of Illinois elected 
 him to the United States Senate. In 1877 he was super 
 seded by Judge Davis, which was due to the fact that the 
 Democrats, with a few Independents, obtained control of the 
 Legislature. But two years later, at the expiration of the 
 term of Hon Richard J. Oglesby, the General was again 
 elected. 
 
 In 1868 he was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Grand 
 Army of the Republic, and to him is due the honor of put 
 ting into general practice the decorating of Soldiers graves 
 and the setting apart of a National day for that purpose. 
 It is interesting to all, but especially so to the soldiers of the 
 Nation to read again his orders in 1868 for Decoration 
 Day. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, 
 ADJUTANT-GENERAL S OFFICE, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5th, 1868. 
 
 General Order No. 11. 
 
 1. The thirtieth day of May, 1868, is designated for 
 the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorat 
 ing, the graves of comrades who died in defense of their 
 country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie 
 in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the 
 land. In this observance, no form of ceremony is pre 
 scribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way 
 arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as 
 circumstances may permit. 
 
 We are organized comrades, as our regulations tell us, 
 for the purpose, among other things, "of preserving and 
 strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have 
 
492 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 bound together the soldiers, and sailors, and marines who 
 united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more 
 to assure the result than by cherishing tenderly the memory 
 of the heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade 
 between our country and its foes. Their soldier lives were 
 the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths 
 tin- tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard 
 their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the conse 
 crated wealth and taste of the Nation can add to their 
 adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory 
 of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on 
 such hallowed ground. Let pleasant paths invite the 
 coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. 
 Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of 
 time testify to the present or to the coming generations 
 that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and 
 undivided Republic. 
 
 If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other 
 hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as 
 long as the light and warmth of life remain to us. 
 
 Let us then, at the time appointed, gather around their 
 sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above 
 them with the choicest flowers of springtime ; let us raise 
 above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor ; let 
 us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and 
 assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge 
 upon a Nation s gratitude the soldier s and sailor s widow 
 and orphan. 
 
 II. It is the purpose of the commander-in-chief to in 
 augurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept 
 up from year to year while a survivor of the war remains 
 to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earn 
 estly desires the public press to call attention to this order, 
 and lend its friendly aid in bringing it to the notice of coin- 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 493 
 
 rades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous 
 compliance therewith. 
 
 III. Department commanders will use every effort to 
 make this order effective. 
 By order of 
 
 JOHN A. LOGAN, Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 N. P. CHIPMAN, Adjutant-General. 
 
 General Logan has been one of the most diligent working 
 members of the Senate, and has been a strong member of 
 the Military and Judiciary Committees for six years. He 
 was an unshaken supporter of the financial policy which re 
 sulted in specie payments and he has been the foremost pro 
 moter of those measures which expressed the gratitude of 
 the Nation to its soldiers and defenders. 
 
 It has long been the earnest desire of his State that he 
 should be the candidate for the Presidency, and three times 
 Illinois has presented his name as her choice and his failure 
 to secure that honor was owing to matters of political expe 
 diency only. Never was a word uttered in public to his dis 
 paragement that received the countenance of his party. 
 Wholly above reproach he is a gentleman of taste and cul 
 ture and a man of purity and honor, and one of whom it 
 would be a great satisfaction to give a more extended ac 
 count. 
 
 General Logan s speeches in the Senate and House have, 
 some of them, been of the ablest character, in manner, 
 phraseology, and thought. His great argument on Recon 
 struction became the household possession of nearly every 
 family in the land, and some of its oratorical passages will be 
 quoted and declaimed after he has been long in his grave. 
 
 The legal ability to mass facts and logically arrange an 
 important argument, is perhaps most clearly presented in 
 his masterly speech on the reinstatement of General Fitz 
 John Porter in his rank in the army. As a legal document, 
 
494 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 it could not be surpassed, and where he compared the court, 
 which calmly condemned Porter, to the hasty manner in 
 ^ h idi General Rosecrans dismissed officers, he was most 
 eloquent. 
 
 The Republican Convention of 1884, which nominated 
 James G. Blaine for President, also nominated General 
 Logan for the office of Vice President, by a unanimous vote, 
 no other candidates appearing to contest the honor. He 
 was also suggested by the Illinois delegation for the office 
 of President, before the vote was taken for the first place on 
 the ticket. Senator Cullom, of Illinois, made the sugges 
 tion in a speech, which shows the esteem in which he is 
 la-Id at home. The Senator said : 
 
 "Twenty-four years ago the second National Convention 
 of the Republican party met in this city, and nominated their 
 first successful candidate for President of the United States, 
 Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln led the Republican 
 party to its first great victory. He stands to-day in the 
 estimation of the world as the grandest figure, the most 
 majestic figure, in all modern times. Again in 1808 another 
 Republican Convention came together in this city and nom 
 inated as its candidate for President of the United States 
 another eminent citizen of Illinois, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. 
 And the Republican party was again victorious ; still again 
 in 1880 the Republican party turned its face towards this 
 political Mecca where two successes had been organized, 
 and the murdered Garfield led the Republican party to vic 
 tory. Mr. President and fellow-citizens, it is good for us 
 to be here. There are omens of victory in the air. History 
 repeats itself. There are promises of triumph to the Repub 
 lican party in holding its convention in this great emporium 
 of the Northwest. The commonwealth of Illinois, which 
 has iR-vcr wavered in its adherence to Republican principles 
 since it gave to the Nation and the world the illustrious 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 495 
 
 Lincoln, now presents to this Convention for its consideration 
 as the standard bearer of the Republican party another son 
 of Illinois, one whose name will be recognized from one 
 end of this land to the other, as an able statesman, a brilliant 
 soldier, and an honest man General John A. Logan. 
 
 A native of the State which he represents in the council 
 of the Nation, reared among the youth of a section where 
 every element of manhood is early brought into play, he is 
 eminently a man of the people. The safety, the permanen 
 cy and the prosperity of the Nation depend upon the courage, 
 the integrity and the loyalty of its citizens. When yonder 
 starred flag was assailed by enemies in arms, when the in 
 tegrity of the union was imperiled by an organized treason, 
 when the storm of war threatened the very life of this Na 
 tion, this gallant son of the prairie State resigned his seat 
 in the Congress of the United States, returned to his home, 
 and was among the first of our citizens to raise a regiment 
 and to march to the front in defense of his country. Like 
 Douglas, he believed that in time of war men must be either 
 patriots or traitors, and he threw his mighty influence on 
 the side of Union and Illinois, and made a record second to 
 none in the history of States in the struggle to preserve this 
 Government. His history is the record of the battles of 
 Belmont, Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, 
 Atlanta, and of the famous inarch to the sea. He never 
 lost a battle. I repeat again, Mr. Chairman and fellow- 
 citizens, he never lost a battle in all the war. When there 
 was fighting to be done he did not wait for others, nor did 
 he fail to obey orders when they were received. His plume 
 the white plume of Henry of Navarre was always to be 
 seen at the point where the conflict raged the hottest. Dur 
 ing the long struggle of four years he commanded, under 
 the authority of the Government, first a regiment, then a 
 brigade, then a division, then an army corps, and finally an 
 
496 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 army. He remained in the service until the war closed, 
 when, at the head of his army, with the scars of battle upon 
 him, he marched into the capital of the nation and with 
 brave men with whom he had bled on a hundred hard-fought 
 fields, was mustered out of the service under the very 
 shadow of the capitol which he had left four years before, 
 as a member of Congress, to go and fight the battles of his 
 country. When the war was over and general peace victo 
 riously returned, he was again invited by his fellow-citizens 
 to take his place in the councils of the Nation. In a service 
 of twenty years in both houses of Congress he has shown 
 himself to be no less able and distinguished as a citizen than 
 he was renowned as a soldier. Conservative in the advo 
 cacy of measures involving the public welfare, ready and 
 eloquent in debate, fearless, yes, I repeat again, fearless in 
 dciriise of the rights of the weak against the oppressions of 
 the strong, he stands to-day, and I say it without disposi 
 tion to take one laurel from the brow of those men whose 
 names may be presented to this Convention. I say he 
 stands to-day, in my judgment, closer to the great mass of 
 the people of this country than almost any other man now 
 enjoying public attention. 
 
 No man has done more in the defense of those principles 
 which have given life and spirit and victory to the Repub 
 lican party than has John A. Logan, of Illinois. In all that 
 goes to make up a brilliant, military and civil career and to 
 commend a man to the favor of the people, he whose name 
 we have presented here to-night has shown himself to be the 
 peer of the best. We ask you, therefore, to give him this 
 nomination because it would not be assailed and it is not as- 
 sailahle. We ask you to nominate him because his public 
 record is so clear that even political calumny dare not attack 
 it. We ask you to nominate him in behalf of the hundreds 
 of thousands of irray, veteran, volunteer soldiers who are 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 497 
 
 to-night over this broad land standing around the telegraph 
 offices waiting to know whether that gallant leader of the 
 volunteer soldiers of this country is to receive the nomina 
 tion at your hands. We ask you to nominate him in behalf 
 of the white and colored Republicans of the South, who are 
 here by the hundreds, black and white, appealing to this 
 Convention as the representatives of our grand, old party to 
 give protection and to vindicate them in their rights in the 
 South. Now, my friends, standing in the midst of this vast 
 assemblage of representative citizens of this grand Republic 
 aye, in the sumblime presence of the people themselves, 
 represented here to-night in all their majesty. If you do so 
 he will give you a glorious victory in November next, and 
 when he shall have taken his position as President of this 
 great Republic, you may be sure you will have an adminis 
 tration in the interest of commerce, in the interest of labor, 
 in the interest of finance, and in the interest of peace at home, 
 and peace abroad, and in the interest of the prosperity of this 
 great people." 
 
 To the mind of the writer the most important question 
 of our time is the matter of education, and the establish 
 ment everywhere of <t general, free school system. On this 
 most vital question in view of our free-suffrage system, 
 General Logan has been a consistent but determined agi 
 tator and legislator. In a speech delivered in the Senate of 
 the United States, Thursday March 16th, 1882, the General 
 said : 
 
 MR. LOGAN. I ask t v e Secretary to read the bill that I 
 desire to discuss. 
 
 The PRESIDENT pro tcmpore. The bill has had one read 
 ing. It will now have the second. 
 
 The bill (S. No. 850) to appropriate and expend the en 
 tire income derived from the internal-revenue taxes on the 
 manufacture and sale of distilled spirits for the education of 
 
498 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 all the children living in the United States was read the 
 second time at length, as follows : 
 
 Be it enacted, etc., That from and alter the passage of 
 this act, the entire income derived from the internal-revenue 
 taxes on the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits shall 
 be appropriated and expended for the education of all the 
 children living in the United States. 
 
 SEC. 2. That the money so received shall be expended 
 pro rata in the several States and Territories, as shown by 
 the census of 1880 and each succeeding census. 
 
 SEC. 3. That the education hereby contemplated shall 
 include such instruction as is provided in the curriculum of 
 the public schools of the country, and also the establishment 
 and maintenance of normal schools, teachers institutes, and 
 instruction in the industrial and mechanical arts. 
 
 SEC. 4. That any State or Territory, before receiving 
 the benefits of this act, shall be required, by local enactment, 
 to make obligatory upon all children between the ages of 
 seven and twelve years, school attendance for at least six 
 months in each year. 
 
 SEC. 5. That the Secretary of the Interior is charged 
 with the proper administration of this law, through the 
 Commissioner of Education ; and they are authorized and 
 directed, under the approval of the President, to make all 
 needful rules and regulations to carry this law into effect. 
 
 SEC. 6. That no part of this fund shall be used for the 
 erection of schoolhouses or buildings of any kind for school 
 purposes. 
 
 MR. LOGAN. If the bill now before the Senate becomes 
 a law it will have the effect, as heretofore remarked, of dis 
 tributing to the States and Territories, according to the pop 
 ulation as shown by the census returns, about $60,000,000 
 annually of the National revenue, to be expended by them 
 in educating the children of the country, provided the tar 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 499 
 
 on and production of distilled spirits remains substantially 
 the same as at present. 
 
 The reasons for distributing this fund to the States and 
 Territories, and having them expend it in educating the 
 children, are doubtless apparent to every one. In most, if 
 not all, of these there are already systems of free schools 
 and organized plans of education aided and fostered by the 
 State, and also the appliances and corps of officers necessary 
 to carry on this work. For the General Government to at 
 tempt to inaugurate and operate a separate National system 
 of education would, as a matter of course, not only entail 
 upon the people an unnecessary expense, but would bring 
 the National and State authorities into constant conflict. In 
 other words, it is impossible to carry on in the same terri 
 tory two distinct and different systems of public schools for 
 the same children. 
 
 The bill presented seeks, therefore, to avoid this very se 
 rious objection by distributing the fund to the States and 
 Territories, and allowing them to apply it to the purpose in 
 tended, the distribution to be pro rata according to popula 
 tion. 
 
 The principal reason for selecting the total population as 
 given by the census returns, as the guide in making the dis 
 tribution, instead of the number of children of a prescribed 
 age, was on account of the greater accuracy of this enumer 
 ation. Another reason is, that it is the only reliable enu 
 meration that is made under the Federal authority. 
 
 If an exact or thoroughly reliable enumeration of the 
 children between the ages fixed in the bill could be obtained, 
 year by year, this would be a preferable guide in the dis 
 tribution, as it would give a slightly larger proportion to the 
 rural districts and the sections most needing such assistance. 
 
 For example, it has been found in enumerating the chil 
 dren in France between the ages of six and thirteen, that 
 
500 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 the proportion in the rural districts (communes of less than 
 two thousand inhabitants) is a little higher than in cities, 
 (communes of more than two thousand inhabitants.) In 
 the former the average number out of every hundred inhab 
 itants was found to be 12.67, and in some cases even as 
 high as 15.72, while in the latter it was only 11.53. I pre 
 sume this would also be found true to a certain extent in 
 this country if we had the data necessary for the comparison. 
 
 The bill further requires that a State or Territory, in or 
 der to be entitled to the benefits of its provisions, must in 
 augurate, and keep in existence, an organized public school 
 system, open to all children thereof of the prescribed age, 
 and must also provide for enforced attendance at least six 
 months in the year. As it will be necessary for some com 
 petent authority of the General Government todecide whether 
 or not a State or Territory is entitled to the benefit of the 
 bill, this is left to the Secretary of the Interior and Commis 
 sioner of Education, subject to the approval of the President. 
 
 Tln-se provisions, as will be admitted, I presume, by all, 
 are necessary, in order that the funds so distributed shall be 
 properly applied to the purposes for which they are granted. 
 Another object in view in introducing them is to bring 
 about, as soon as possible, a uniformity in the school sys 
 tem throughout the entire country. In defining the term 
 4 education" as used in the bill, it will be seen that I have 
 included not only the usual curriculum of instruction in 
 public schools, but also that of normal schools and teachers 
 institute. The advantages of, and I may say necessity for, 
 normal schools are now so well understood and so generally 
 admitted that it is hardly necessary for me to say anything 
 on this point ; still a few words in reference to them may 
 not be amiss. 
 
 As an evidence of the felt necessity throughout the coun 1 
 try for their establishment and maintenance I have only to 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 501 
 
 mention the fact, as shown by the last report of the Com 
 missioner of education (page 77), that schools of this kind 
 have been established in all of the States except Delaware, 
 Florida, and Nevada, eighty of which are supported in part 
 or whole by the States and thirteen by cities. How the 
 opposition to these schools which has manifested itself 
 in a variety of attacks, open and covert, has been re 
 ceived by the body of the people is shown by the returns to 
 the office of the Commissioner of Education for the year 
 1879, from which it appears that the number of these insti 
 tutions and the students attending them are about four times 
 what they were in 1870, and that the increase in 1879 over 
 1878 was fifty-one schools. 
 
 A proposition was introduced in the New York Legisla 
 ture in 1878 to abandon the State Normal school, which 
 resulted in appointing a committee to investigate the subject. 
 The report of this committee, transmitted to the Legislature 
 May 19, 1879, presents (report of Commissioner of Educa 
 tion, 1879, page 79) the following conclusions : 
 
 1. That the normal schools are performing intelligently, 
 efficiently, and in good faith the work expected of them by 
 the State. 
 
 2. That the normal schools are an essential part of our 
 public-school system, and as such should be liberally and 
 unwaveringly supported. 
 
 3. That without normal schools there would be waste in 
 public expenditures which must result from the employment 
 of unskilled and incompetent teachers ; and hence that true 
 economy requires their maintenance. 
 
 4. That normal schools should have a settled place in the 
 the permanent policy of the State, and that henceforth the 
 only question should be, How can they be improved and 
 extended ? 
 
 It was well said by an experienced Michigan superintendent 
 
502 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 of schools that if he were to undertake the education of the 
 children of the State as an individual enterprise, with the 
 school fund as the fixed price, he would use a tenth of the 
 fund to train a body of competent teachers, and with the 
 other nine-tenth as wages would accomplish more than the 
 whole would do as then used in the payment of unprepared 
 instructors. (Report Commissioner of Education, 1879, 
 page 80) . 
 
 In order to become efficient as an instructor in any pro 
 fession or art, it is absolutely necessary that the person 
 should first pass through a course of instruction that will 
 prepare him or her therefor, and this is as true of the 
 teacher s as of any other profession. 
 
 For similar reasons the bill includes also instruction in 
 the industrial and mechanical arts. I confess, agricultural 
 schools have so far failed to meet fully the expectations of 
 those who have advocated and supported them ; but this 
 has arisen chiefly from three causes : first, the want of 
 properly prepared and experienced teachers ; second, the 
 want of adequate support, and, third, a kind of inherent 
 prejudice against "scientific farming." That it is possible, 
 by properly conducted institutions of this kind, to render 
 instruction in the various agricultural and industrial 
 branches advantageous to a Nation is proven by what has 
 been accomplished in Europe. Germany has at present 
 over one hundred and fifty schools of agriculture, horticul 
 ture, arboriculture, viniculture, and meadow culture, each 
 of which has its farms, gardens, etc., attached. (Report 
 of Commissioner of Education, page 133.) 
 
 Prussia alone had, in 1876, 6 higher agricultural acade 
 mies, 46 agricultural schools, 29 schools of arboriculture 
 and viniculture, and 6 schools of forestry. Even in Fin 
 land, which is ever associated in our minds with the land 
 of the Esquimaux, they have both higher and lower grades 
 
OF JOHN A. LOGAN. 503 
 
 of agricultural institutions ; and even schools for instruc 
 tion in the manufacture of butter and cheese, one of the 
 chief industries of the country, are maintained. (Report 
 of Commissioner of Education, page 132.) 
 
 While our soil was new and possessed its virgin produc 
 tiveness, labor only, with but little knowledge of science 
 or art, was all that was needed to insure a bountiful har 
 vest. But that condition is fast disappearing, and the de 
 mand made upon the soil in the mean time is rapidly 
 increasing. The supply of meat, fuel, and lumber are 
 great questions, which will be pressing heavily, not only on 
 the minds of the people, but of our legislators, in another 
 generation. 
 
 To meet these and other important kindred questions, it 
 is our duty to begin now to train a corps of active minds to 
 aid our agriculturists in meeting these demands. In other 
 words, agriculture and the cognate branches of industry 
 must be placed upon scientific bases, and made to take their 
 position side by side with the most elevated professions. 
 Some signs of a movement in this direction are beginning 
 to be seen already in certain sections of the country. Let 
 the Nation and States foster and aid it. 
 
 Thus, as will be seen, it is the object of this bill to carry 
 this stimulus of education into every avenue of industrial 
 life, from the daily duties of the good housewife and her 
 farmer husband to those of the architects who plan the 
 magnificent structures that adorn this and other cities. 
 
 The effect of this bill, even on the supposition with which 
 I am now proceeding, would be to distribute this amount of 
 tax in such a manner that it would be felt in a far less de 
 gree than at present. Nor could those who are engaged in 
 the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits find in this ar 
 rangement any just cause for complaint, as it would not add 
 one cent to the tax already imposed upon them. 
 
504 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
 
 It would require too much time for me to enter into the 
 details to prove the correctness of these assertions, but I 
 feel assured this will be conceded by every Senator. 
 
 The inability of some parents, the neglect of others, and 
 the unwillingness of others to educate their children, was 
 felt, at a very early day in the history of our country, to be 
 detrimental to its best interests, and a waste of mental 
 force that should not be allowed by society. The attempt 
 to remedy this began at first in small communities. 
 * * * * # 
 
 It may be assumed that as the present generation shall re 
 ceive and educate its children, and welcome the annual 
 swarms of emigrants crowding to our shores, so will the 
 land increase in all that makes a people worthy of everlast 
 ing remembrance. And the same conditions which secure 
 this will also establish our country in all that a free people 
 can desire : power, honor, comfort, intelligence and wealth. 
 AVI nit some of these conditions are it is not hard to declare, 
 for knowledge universally diffused is so clearly the great 
 force that even a statement to this effect is unnecessary. 
 That "knowledge is power," is a truism now denied by 
 none. 
 
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