James Gillespie Blaine

James Gillespie Blaine (1830-1893) was the nearest thing to a political idol in a politically uninspiring era, serving in Congress from 1863 to 1881. As secretary of state, he laid the basis for American imperialism.

Of Scotch-Irish descent, James G. Blaine was born in West Brownsville, Pa., on Jan. 31, 1830. His father was a locally prominent officeholder, so Blaine was exposed to political talk - mostly a fierce Whig partisanship - from an early age. Though he was not really the genius that his followers later claimed him to be, Blaine graduated from Washington College in western Pennsylvania at the age of 13 and, soon after, taught at Western Military Institute, Georgetown, Ky. Blaine later maintained that he quit this position because of a growing distaste for Southern society, but this seems a politically convenient hindsight. In fact, Blaine wanted to study law, and a teaching position at an institute for the blind in Philadelphia provided him the opportunity to do so.

In 1850 Blaine married Harriet Stanwood of Augusta, Maine, and through her made connections which, 4 years later, took him further east in a curious example, for that time, of reverse migration. In Maine he became editor of a weekly newspaper and, a short time after, manager of the Portland Advertiser, the largest and most influential Whig newspaper in the state. Blaine soon took the paper into the Republican party; he was in fact one of the first Republicans in the state and was a delegate to the first Republican national convention in 1856. In 1858 he was elected to the state legislature and in 1859 was elected chairman of the Republican State Committee, a post he held until 1881, helping to make Maine one of the most solidly Republican states in the nation.

Personal Attributes

Blaine served as Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives during 1861 and 1862. He was then elected to Congress, where he also served as Speaker from 1869 to 1875. In 1876 he was elected to the Senate from the state of Maine and was also a prominent candidate for his party's nomination as president. This rise in politics was due to his party regularity, in which he never faltered, his driving ambition (he virtually nominated himself as head of the House Republicans upon the death of Thaddeus Stevens), and his high dignity. Blaine was a man of great personal charm who, while he had few intimate friends, claimed a wide circle of devotees willing to stand by and support him to the end. He had few interests outside of politics, but he had numerous gifts that stood him well in the highly personalized political world of the "gilded age." His wit was as sharp in the smoking room as in the Capitol chambers, and he had an incredible memory for names and faces. One contemporary recalled standing with Blaine when a carriage stopped to greet them. "There is a man on that front seat whom I have not seen for twenty-seven years," Blaine said, "and I have got just two minutes and a half to remember his name." He did. Blaine was also known as a man who presided fairly over acrimonious debates in the touchy Reconstruction congresses, thus earning respect from many Democrats as well as from his partisans.

"Mulligan Letters" and Other Suspicions

Blaine hoped to be president in 1876 and was nominated as "the plumed Knight" by Robert Ingersoll in one of the most eloquent nominating speeches in the history of American conventions. But the Republicans were sensitive in that year to charges of political corruption, and Blaine's enemies in the party revived an affair which cast a shadow over his entire career. It had happened in 1869, when as Speaker of the House, Blaine had used his influence to preserve a land grant which the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad had been in danger of losing and, shortly thereafter, had acted as a sales agent for the railroad's bonds, pocketing a generous commission on sales to his Maine friends. The transaction had been recorded in a number of letters which Blaine had managed to secure but which were known to political enemies, who charged him with corruption. In an eloquent and emotional speech before Congress, Blaine quoted selectively from these "Mulligan letters," pleading that he was guilty of no wrongdoing and that he had actually lost money in the affair.

Most Republicans were convinced, but the incident soured the reform wing of the Republican party, which opposed Blaine throughout his career, and the affair provided regularly resuscitated campaign material for the Democrats. In fact, in an age of pervasive political corruption, Blaine's actions had been unexceptional for a man in his position; congressmen and other political leaders regularly received "favors" for services rendered or influence they could exert. But Blaine was more than an ordinary congressman, and he was ambitious to be a great deal more. His connections with the Little Rock Railroad proved to be even more costly than he realized at the time.

Blaine always lived better than his visible means of support seemed to sanction. He had made some money investing in Pennsylvania coal properties in the 1850s but was never an extremely wealthy man. He steadfastly refused to discuss his financial affairs, however, insisting that they were strictly personal.

But the reform wing and the "stalwart" wing of the party, which was dedicated to blatant spoilsmanship, were strong enough in 1876 and 1880 to keep him from the presidential nomination. Finally, in 1884, the stalwarts were discredited and the reform wing was unable to resist Blaine's nomination. Unfortunately, it was not a Republican year and Blaine was narrowly defeated by the Democrat, Grover Cleveland.

Secretary of State

In 1889 Blaine was named secretary of state by President Benjamin Harrison. He had already served briefly in that post under James Garfield. He was a dynamic foreign minister. He pushed an aggressive attitude toward Great Britain and laid the basis for the Pan-Americanism and United States economic penetration of Latin America that would come to fruition later, under his admirer Elihu Root, during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Blaine resigned from Harrison's Cabinet 3 days before the Republican convention in 1892, possibly in hopes of again receiving the party's nomination, but in vain. He was taken ill soon thereafter and, though a lifelong hypochondriac, neglected himself in his final illness. He died at the age of 62 on Jan. 27, 1893.

Further Reading

The most comprehensive biography of Blaine is David Saville Muzzey, James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days (1934). All the standard accounts of the era's politics take note of him. A fair sampling of different points of view would include Matthew Josephson, The Politicos, 1865-1896 (1938); John A. Garraty, The New Commonwealth, 1877-1890 (1968); and H. Wayne Morgan, From Hayes to McKinley (1969).

Additional Sources

Tutorow, Norman E., James Gillespie Blaine and the presidency: a documentary study and source book, New York: P. Lang, 1989.

For more information on James Gillespie Blaine, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: Jan. 31, 1830, West Brownsville, Pa.
• Political party: Republican
• Representative from Maine: 1863–76
• Speaker of the House: 1869–76
• Senator from Maine: 1876–81
• Died: Jan. 27, 1893, Washington, D.C.

Aggressive in debate, bold in behavior, and greedy for wealth and power, James G. Blaine dominated American politics during the decades after the Civil War. “Other leaders were admired, loved, honored, revered, respected,” one senator observed, “but the sentiment for Blaine was delirium.” As presiding officer, Blaine used his power to recognize speakers in order to bring more order to the House by controlling floor scheduling. Blaine's forceful leadership made him a frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1876, until he was accused of having taken railroad stocks as a bribe. A brokerage firm bookkeeper, James Mulligan, produced some incriminating letters that Blaine had written. Blaine went to Mulligan's room, seized the letters, and selectively read them to the House to vindicate himself. Although he lost the Presidential nomination, Blaine went on to serve as senator and secretary of state. At last, in 1884, he became the Republican candidate for President, but suspicions about his financial dealings still haunted him, and Blaine lost what was then considered the “dirtiest campaign in history” to the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland.

Sources

• David S. Muzzey, James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days (1934; reprint, Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1963)

(1830-1893), politician and secretary of state. Blaine was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial political leaders of the late nineteenth century. He was instrumental in shifting the Republican party from the ideological issues of the Civil War to the economic and organizational appeals of the years 1877 to 1893. Born in Pennsylvania, Blaine attended Washington and Jefferson College and then taught in Kentucky at the end of the 1840s. He became a follower of the Whig leader from that state, Henry Clay. He moved to Maine during the 1850s, entered the newspaper business, and joined the young Republican party. Elected four times to the state legislature, he served as Speaker before moving on to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1862.

Blaine spent the next thirteen years in the House, including six years as Speaker between 1869 and 1875. He was identified with the moderate "Half-Breed" Republicanism that opposed the "Stalwart" faction of his bitter enemy Roscoe Conkling of New York. In general, Blaine believed that his party had to overcome its identification with the Civil War, pursue business-oriented policies such as the protective tariff, and build a national organization that would give the Republicans majority status.

Blaine was elected to the Senate in 1876 and became a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Then a scandal over an Arkansas railroad that he had allegedly aided as Speaker and the disclosure of documents known as the Mulligan Letters tarnished his reputation. Friends called him the "Plumed Knight" of American politics, but he was not nominated. In 1880 he supported James A. Garfield, spoke out for the protective tariff, and helped the party to victory. Garfield named him secretary of state, but the brief presidency that followed limited Blaine's accomplishments.

Blaine was nominated for the presidency by the Republicans in 1884. Although he campaigned vigorously, he could not overcome the lingering questions about his honesty and lost to the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland. (The celebrated "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" incident was not a significant element in his narrow defeat.) During the next four years, Blaine continued to champion the tariff and emphasize the Republican organization. He campaigned for Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and became secretary of state again in 1889. He pursued better relations with Latin America through the Pan-American Conference of 1889 and advocated reciprocal trade agreements and the annexation of Hawaii. Worsening relations with the president and his failing health caused Blaine to resign in June 1892 and make a futile challenge to Harrison's renomination.

Blaine's celebrated popularity did not long outlast his death in 1893. He was, however, the key figure in the organizational history of the Republican party between 1870 and 1890. His advocacy of the tariff and his stress on party unity were important elements in the quest for a national electoral majority that dominated the Republicans during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Bibliography:

H. Wayne Morgan, From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877-1896 (1969); David S. Muzzey, James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days (1934).

Author:

Lewis L. Gould

See also Elections: 1884; House of Representatives; Republican Party.

Early Career

Blaine taught school and studied law before moving (1854) to Maine, where he became an influential newspaper editor. A leader in the formation of the Republican party in Maine, he was state chairman (1859–81) and was elected to three terms in the legislature. In 1863 he entered Congress, serving in the House of Representatives until 1876 and holding the speakership from 1869 to 1875. His friendship with James A. Garfield of Ohio and William B. Allison of Iowa brought him support in the West, but a slighting personal remark he made in 1866 about Roscoe Conkling won him the lifelong enmity of that leader of the “Stalwart” Republicans.

Attempts at the Presidency

Blaine, leader of the “Half-Breed” Republicans, who were against corrupt patronage practices, was widely considered the logical Republican choice for President in 1876. Shortly before the party convention, however, a Democratic House investigating committee charged him with using his influence as speaker to secure a land grant for a railroad in Arkansas and with selling the railroad's bonds at a liberal commission. Blaine privately secured possession of the famous “Mulligan letters,” which had been named as proof, before they could be placed on record, and he never surrendered them. He read portions of them, out of chronological order, before the House in an attempt to defend himself, but the episode was an important factor in his defeat for the presidential nomination at the 1876 Republican convention. Blaine, as U.S. Senator (1876–81), loyally supported President Rutherford B. Hayes.

In 1880, Blaine was again a candidate for the presidential nomination, but the Conkling faction successfully prevented his nomination. The deadlock was broken by the choice of Blaine's friend, Garfield, with Chester A. Arthur, a Conkling man, nominated for Vice President. Blaine became Garfield's Secretary of State, but upon the President's assassination resigned. Retiring to private life, he wrote Twenty Years of Congress (2 vol., 1884–86).

He was finally nominated for President in 1884 and ran against the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland. Allusions to the “Mulligan letters” and to Cleveland's admitted paternity of an illegitimate child enlivened the bitter campaign. However, reform Republicans (mugwumps) such as Carl Schurz preferred Cleveland's untainted public record to Blaine's private virtue. Their defection was made the more important when a tactless New York Presbyterian clergyman, the Rev. Samuel D. Buchard, spoke, in Blaine's presence, of the Democrats as “the party whose antecedents are rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” Blaine's failure to disavow the remark offended the large Irish Catholic vote in New York; he lost that state by a scant thousand votes and thereby lost the election.

In 1888, Blaine unexpectedly declined to run for President, supporting Benjamin Harrison, who, upon becoming President, made him Secretary of State again. Three days before the Republican convention of 1892, Blaine resigned to seek the nomination for President, but Harrison was renominated. Thereafter Blaine's health failed rapidly, and he died the next year.

Secretary of State

As Secretary of State, Blaine was particularly energetic in fostering closer relations with the Latin American nations. During his second term in office he was able to bring about and preside over the first Pan-American Congress (see Pan-Americanism), thus laying the foundation for subsequent meetings, and the Pan-American Union was established. Blaine hoped to increase commercial relations among American nations by reciprocal tariff treaties, and although the McKinley Tariff Act prevented this, his idea of tariff “reciprocity” gained some credence. He also concluded a treaty with Great Britain to submit the fur-seal controversy to arbitration (see under Bering Sea).

Bibliography

See biographies by E. Stanwood (1908) and D. S. Muzzey (1934, repr. 1963); A. F. Tyler, The Foreign Policy of James G. Blaine (1927, repr. 1965).

James Gillespie Blaine
28th United States Secretary of State 31st United States Secretary of State
In office March 7, 1881 – December 19, 1881 March 7, 1889 – June 4, 1892
Preceded by	William M. Evarts Thomas F. Bayard
Succeeded by	Frederick T. Frelinghuysen John W. Foster
Born	January 31 1830(1830--) West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	January 27 1893 (aged 62) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Harriet Stonwood Blaine
Profession	Lawyer, Politician
Religion	Congregationalist

James Gillespie Blaine (January 31, 1830 – January 27, 1893) was a U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine and a two-time United States Secretary of State. He was a dominant Republican leader of the Third Party System, obtaining the 1884 Republican nomination, but lost to Democrat Grover Cleveland.

Background

Blaine was born in West Brownsville, Washington County, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. He was the great-grandson of Colonel Ephraim Blaine (1741 - 1804), who during the American War of Independence served in the American army from 1778 to 1782 as commissary-general of the Northern Department. With many early evidences of literary capacity and political aptitude, Blaine graduated at Washington College (now Washington and Jefferson College) in nearby Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1847, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Subsequently he taught at the Western Military Institute in Blue Lick Springs, Kentucky and from 1852 to 1854, he taught at the Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind in Philadelphia. During this period, also, he studied law. He married Harriet Stanwood on June 30, 1850.

Settling in Augusta, Maine, in 1854, he became editor of the Kennebec Journal, and subsequently on the Portland Advertiser.

Editorial work was soon abandoned for a more active public career. He served as a member in Maine House of Representatives from 1859 to 1862, serving the last two years as Speaker of the House. He also became chairman of the Republican state committee in 1859, and for more than twenty years personally directed every campaign of his party. Among his adoring admirers, he was known as the "Plumed Knight."

Congressional career

James G. Blaine in his younger years.

Blaine was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth Congress and to the six succeeding U.S. Congress and served from March 4, 1863, to July 10, 1876, when he resigned. He was Speaker of the United States House of Representatives for three terms—during the 41st through 43rd Congresses. He served as chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Rules during the 43rd through 45th Congresses, followed by over four years in the Senate.

The House was the fit arena for his political and parliamentary ability. He was a ready and powerful debater, full of resource, and dexterous in controversy. The tempestuous politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction period suited his aggressive nature and constructive talent. The measures for the rehabilitation of the states that had seceded from the Union occupied the chief attention of Congress for several years, and Blaine bore a leading part in framing and discussing them. The primary question related to the basis of representation upon which they should be restored to their full rank in the political system. A powerful section contended that the basis should be the body of legal voters, on the ground that the South should not be given more seats as long it it disenfranchised Freedmen. Blaine, on the other hand, contended that representation should be based on population instead of voters, as being fairer to the North, where the ratio of voters varied widely, and he insisted that it should be safeguarded by security for impartial suffrage. This view prevailed, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was substantially Blaine's proposition.

James G. Blaine in about 1885.

Blaine opposed the Radical republican scheme of military governments for the southern states, insisting there be a clear path by which they could release themselves from military rule and resume civil government. He was the first in Congress to oppose the claim, which gained momentary and widespread favor in 1867, that the public debt, pledged in coin, should be paid in greenbacks. He took up the cause of naturalized American citizens who, on return to their native land, were subject to prosecution on charges of disloyalty. His work led to the treaty of 1870 between the United States and Britain, which placed adopted and native citizens on the same footing.

When President Andrew Johnson appointed General Hugh Ewing as U.S. Minister to Holland in 1866, Blaine urged for Ewing to be recalled and replaced with his brother Charles. Blaine told the President that Hugh was 'acting badly', although this seems to have arisen out of Blaine's personal conflict with President Johnson.^[1] Blaine himself was disingenous, having represented to prominent politicians in Ohio including Senator John Sherman that he was doing everything possible to nominate his close personal friend Ohioan General Roeliff Brinkerhoff for the post.^[2] Nonetheless, Blaine's request to recall General Ewing was never acted upon, and he served until 1870.

In 1875, allegedly to promote the separation of church and state, Blaine proposed a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the use of public funds by any religious school. The amendment did not pass at the federal level, falling only four votes of the required two-thirds majority in the Senate, but a majority of states subsequently adopted similar laws, which are commonly known as Blaine Amendments. The amendment did not forbid generic religious instruction at public schools, so long as it was not under the control of a particular sect. (Indeed, public schools continued to teach Biblical studies and religious instruction for some years even in states which adopted Blaine Amendments.)

James G. Blaine

Catholics denounced the Blaine Amendment as anti-Catholic, but it was strongly supported by pietistic Protestants, especially Methodists, Baptists and Congregationalists.

Blaine was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination for President on the Republican ticket in 1876. (See U.S. presidential election, 1876, U.S. presidential election, 1880.) His chance for securing the 1876 nomination, however, was damaged by persistent charges that as a member of Congress he had been guilty of corruption in his relations with the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway. By the majority of Republicans, he was considered to have cleared himself completely, and at the Republican National Convention he missed the nomination for President by only 28 votes, being finally beaten by a combination of supporters of all the other candidates going to dark horse nominee Rutherford B. Hayes. He was mocked by political opponents as Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the State of Maine!

Blaine was appointed and subsequently elected as a Republican to the United States Senate. He served for four years, and his political activity was unabated— currency laws were especially prominent in his legislative portfolio. Blaine, who had previously opposed greenback inflation, now resisted depreciated silver coinage. He championed the advancement of American shipping, and advocated liberal subsidies, insisting that the policy of protection should be applied on sea as well as on land.

He was re-elected and served from July 10, 1876, to March 5, 1881, when he resigned to become Secretary of State. While in the Senate, he held the minor chairmanships of the U.S. Senate Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment (45th Congress) and U.S. Senate Committee on Rules (also 45th Congress). During this period he tried again for a Presidential nomination: The Republican national convention of 1880, divided between the two nearly equal forces of Blaine and former President Ulysses Grant—John Sherman of Ohio also having a considerable following—struggled through 36 ballots, when the friends of Blaine, combining with those of Sherman, succeeded in nominating James A. Garfield.

Blaine/Logan campaign poster

Secretary of State and run for the presidency

Blaine was Secretary of State in the cabinets of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. After Garfield was assassinated President Arthur kept him on until December, 1881.

He was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for President in 1884, the only nonincumbent Republican nominee to lose a presidential race between 1860 and 1912. (See U.S. presidential election, 1884.) Republican reformers called "Mugwumps" supported Cleveland because of Blaine's reputation for corruption. After heated canvassing, during which he made a series of brilliant speeches, he was beaten by a narrow margin in New York. Many, including Blaine himself, attributed his defeat to the effect of a phrase, "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion", used by a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. Samuel D. Burchard , on October 29, 1884, in Blaine's presence, to characterize what, in his opinion, the Democrats stood for. "Rum" meant the liquor interest; "Romanism" meant Catholics; "Rebellion" meant Confederates in 1861.

An 1884 cartoon in Puck magazine ridicules Blaine as the tattooed-man, with many indelible scandals.

The phrase was not Blaine's, but his opponents made use of it to characterize his hostility toward Catholics, some of whom probably did switch their vote. Blaine's mother was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent and his sister was a nun, and speculation was that he might gain votes from a heavily Democratic group. However, Catholics were already suspicious of Blaine over his support of the Blaine Amendments, and this confirmed many suspicions.

Refusing to be a presidential candidate again in 1888, he became Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Benjamin Harrison from 1889 to 1892.

His service at State was distinguished by several notable steps. In order to promote the friendly understanding and co-operation of the nations on the American continents he projected a Pan-American Congress, which, after being arranged for and led by Blaine as its first president, was frustrated by his retirement. (Its most important conclusions were the need for reciprocity in trade, a continental railway and compulsory arbitration in international complications.) Shaping the tariff legislation for this policy, Blaine negotiated a large number of reciprocity treaties which augmented the commerce of his country.

James Blaine in his office (1890)

He upheld American rights in Samoa, pursued a vigorous diplomacy with Italy over the lynching of 11 Italians accused of being Mafiosi who murdered the police chief in New Orleans in 1891, held a firm attitude during the strained relations between the United States and Chile over a deadly barroom brawl involving sailors from the USS Baltimore; and carried on with Britain a controversy over the seal fisheries of Bering Sea—a difference afterwards settled by arbitration. Blaine sought to secure a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and in an extended correspondence with the British government strongly asserted the policy of an exclusive American control of any isthmian canal which might be built to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Blaine resigned on June 4, 1892, on the eve of the meeting of the Republican National Convention. His name, when once again submitted for consideration by the delegates, drew little support.

Later life and death

During the leisure of his later years he wrote Twenty Years of Congress (1884-1886), a brilliant historical work in two volumes.

Blaine played a role in founding Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and he served as a longtime trustee (1863-1893) of the college . Blaine received an honorary degree from Bates in 1869.

Blaine died in Washington at the age of 62 and was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery. Reinterment took place in the Blaine Memorial Park, Augusta, Maine, in June 1920.

Monuments and memorials

• Counties named in his honor include Blaine County, Idaho; Blaine County, Montana; Blaine County, Oklahoma; and Blaine County, Nebraska.
• The cities of Blaine, Washington, and Blaine, Minnesota, and the towns of Blaine, Maine, and Blain, Pennsylvania are named after him.
• There is a James G. Blaine school in Chicago, Illinois.
• His house, Blaine Mansion, is now the official residence of the Governor of Maine.
• There is a James G. Blaine Memorial in downtown Portland, Maine.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Blaine was the only Mainer to ever receive a major-party Presidential nomination, and the only presidential candidate on a major party ticket whose name rhymed with his home state.
• Blaine is the second and last United States Secretary of State to serve two non-consecutive terms. Daniel Webster was the first.
• Blaine was with Garfield when he was shot by Charles Julius Guiteau. According to Sarah Vowell (in “Assassination Vacation”) Guiteau spoke (apparently more than once) to Blaine about the Paris consulship that he wanted. Blaine was irritated by his persistence. Guiteau stalked Garfield and watched Blaine and Garfield walking together happily ( “It's a pretty picture-nice that Garfield enjoyed the last walk he'd ever take.”) the night before the assassination.
• In the alternate history novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, Blaine is portrayed as President, incompetently pursuing a second Civil War some twenty years after a Confederate victory in the first.
• In the 1960s, Portland Oregonian columnist Stewart Holbrook founded the imaginary "James G. Blaine Society" to promote conservation and controlled growth.* Catalyzed with Oregon's "quality of life" agenda and politics of the era, the fanciful society survived Holbrook, remaining a popular notion into the early 1970s. "Membership cards" and "certificates" were distributed, and lapel buttons bearing Blaine's visage were worn. The certificates said the society's motto was "vague but sinister."
• Blaine was only the second Republican presidential candidate to lose a presidential election. The first was John Charles Frémont in 1856.

Bibliography

• Morgan, H. Wayne From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877-1896. (1969).
• Muzzey, David Saville. James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days (1934), the standard biography online edition
• Rolde, Neil, Continental Liar from the State of Maine: James G Blaine, Gardiner, Maine, 2006
• Summers, Mark Wahlgren. Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884 (2000) online version

References

• The Diary of John Beatty, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. 59
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• James G. Blaine at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Bates College 2006 Alumni Directory

Notes

1. ^ Beatty, p. 184
2. ^ Beatty, p. 185

External links

• James G. Blaine at Find A Grave
• James G. Blaine Pamphlet Collection at the University of Montana

Political offices
Preceded by Theodore M. Pomeroy	Speaker of the United States House of Representatives March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1873 December 1, 1873 – March 4, 1875	Succeeded by Michael C. Kerr
Preceded by William M. Evarts	United States Secretary of State March 7, 1881 – December 19, 1881	Succeeded by Frederick T. Frelinghuysen
Preceded by Thomas F. Bayard	United States Secretary of State March 7, 1889 – June 4, 1892	Succeeded by John W. Foster
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Samuel C. Fessenden	Member from Maine's 3rd congressional district March 4, 1863 – July 10, 1876	Succeeded by Edwin Flye
United States Senate
Preceded by Lot M. Morrill	Senator from Maine (Class 2) July 10, 1876 – March 5, 1881 Served alongside: Hannibal Hamlin	Succeeded by William P. Frye
Party political offices
Preceded by James A. Garfield	Republican Party presidential candidate 1884	Succeeded by Benjamin Harrison

Speakers of the United States House of Representatives

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United States Senators from Maine

Class 1: Holmes • Parris • Holmes • Shepley • Dana • Williams • Fairfield • Moor • Hamlin • Nourse • Hamlin • Morrill • Hamlin • E. Hale • Johnson • F. Hale • Brewster • Payne • Muskie • Mitchell • Snowe Class 2: Chandler • Sprague • Ruggles • Evans • Bradbury • Fessenden • Farwell • Fessenden • Morrill • Blaine • Frye • Gardner • Burleigh • Fernald • Gould • White • Smith • Hathaway • Cohen • Collins

United States Secretaries of State

Jefferson • Randolph • Pickering • J Marshall • Madison • Smith • Monroe • Adams • Clay • Van Buren • Livingston • McLane • Forsyth • Webster • Upshur • Calhoun • Buchanan • Clayton • Webster • Everett • Marcy • Cass • Black • Seward • Washburne • Fish • Evarts • Blaine • Frelinghuysen • Bayard • Blaine • Foster • Gresham • Olney • Sherman • Day • Hay • Root • Bacon • Knox • Bryan • Lansing • Colby • Hughes • Kellogg • Stimson • Hull • Stettinius • Byrnes • G Marshall • Acheson • Dulles • Herter • Rusk • Rogers • Kissinger • Vance • Muskie • Haig • Shultz • Baker • Eagleburger • Christopher • Albright • Powell • Rice

United States Republican Party Presidential Nominees

John C. Frémont · Abraham Lincoln · Ulysses S. Grant · Rutherford B. Hayes · James A. Garfield · James G. Blaine · Benjamin Harrison · William McKinley · Theodore Roosevelt · William Howard Taft · Charles Evans Hughes · Warren G. Harding · Calvin Coolidge · Herbert Hoover · Alf Landon · Wendell Willkie · Thomas E. Dewey · Dwight D. Eisenhower · Richard Nixon · Barry Goldwater · Richard Nixon · Gerald Ford · Ronald Reagan · George H. W. Bush · Bob Dole · George W. Bush

Persondata
NAME	Blaine, James Gillespie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine and a two-time United States Secretary of State
DATE OF BIRTH	January 31 1830(1830--)
PLACE OF BIRTH	West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH	January 27 1893
PLACE OF DEATH	Washington, D.C., U.S.

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