Pine to Potomac

NO one read the signs of the times with a clearer understanding of their significance, all through the winter and spring of 1861, than the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Legislature of Maine. The great duties that devolved upon him filled his mind with every important matter, but the overshadowing interests were all national,—the present and future of the country. They had become accustomed to threats and fears; this had grown to be the normal condition of the public mind. But the short, sharp question “What is the latest from Charleston, Richmond” and other points of prominence and activity in the South, showed how squarely up to the times people of the North were living; how loyal and zealous for the nation the masses were.

It was a higher compliment, in times so great in their demands for the profoundest deliberations of the best minds, to be put at the head, as the leader in positions of greatest power in the House.

Known and acknowledged worth could have been the only argument for an action so personal to the honor of the state and its power in the Union, and helpfulness to the nation in an emergency imminent with danger.

This man of one and thirty is lifted over the heads of old and respected citizens of soundest integrity. Is it an experiment, or do they know their man? The state has called to the helm a man who has been ten years in the congress of the United States; a man of largest experience and profoundest wisdom, nearly twice the age of the young speaker. But no mistake is made. He read in his youth books that Governor Morrill is reading to-day at the age of eighty-one; he has been a college-graduate for nearly fourteen years, and has won his present distinction upon the floor of the house where he now presides.

His duties are manifold. He must preside over the deliberations of the House, be a good parliamentarian, prompt and accurate in his decisions, as well as fair and impartial. He is dealing with freemen and citizens, and representatives of the people of the entire state. He must know every member, not by name, and face, and location in the House, but in characteristics and accomplishments, all the great interests of the state, as a whole, of its different sections, and in its Federal relations, so that he may wisely appoint the twenty-one important committees. He must know the business, education, experience, residence, and political principles of every member, so that he may know just who to appoint on banks and banking, on agriculture, military, pensions, manufactures, library, the judiciary, the militia, education, etc.

There are one hundred and forty-four members, twenty-three of whom are Democrats, and he must use them all. He must select two chairmen for each committee, and choose six or eight others to act with them, putting some of the more valuable men on several committees,—all must be treated with honor and fairness.

What did those one hundred and forty-four men see in James G. Blaine, away back in the stormy, perilous times of 1861, that led them to select him for that high and honorable position? He had not been a citizen of Maine six years, and had been in political life, officially, only two years. It was the man they saw, strong and splendid, just the man for the hour. They felt, instinctively, they could trust him; they knew him to be loyal and true, and capable, by the testimony of all their senses. He was quick and keen, and life itself in all of energy and endeavor; a born leader of men.

He had no wealthy and influential friend by his side, no one to say I have known him from childhood, and can recommend him as worthy of all honor, and all praise. He brought with him simply the name his mother gave him, with no prefix and no affix. He lived in no mansion, rode in no carriage, was attended by no courtiers in livery; he had no returns to make, no promises to give. The whole of him sat before them,—a refined and courteous gentleman, an elegant gentleman.

They could not mistake the powerful combination. They saw and felt its worth, and so the great party which had just come into power in the nation by electing its first president, honors itself by honoring him.

His short-cut words of acceptance are uttered. The senate and the new governor, Israel Washburn, Jr., are informed that the House is organized, and they proceed to business with energy and despatch.

But the great war for the Union is coming. The peace convention called by Virginia amounts to nothing. Mr. Crittenden’s resolutions are futile, though most conventions adopt them in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Southern states are actually seceding.

Mr. Lincoln is choosing and announcing his cabinet, with Seward as his Premier, but treason is rampant in the South, holding high carnival in state capitals, and even in the halls of congress. Mr. Lincoln is on his way to Washington. He reaches Philadelphia on Feb. 22d, at seven o’clock; is escorted to Independence Hall, where Theodore Cuyler, in whose office Mr. Blaine read law, receives him with an address of welcome, to which Mr. Lincoln replied, and “raised the national flag which had been adjusted in true man-of-war style, amid the cheers of a great multitude, and the cheers were repeated until men were hoarse.”

While these patriotic cheers were resounding through the old halls of Independence, the traitorous secretaries of the navy and of war were sending vessels to southern ports and forts. Thirty-three officers, among whom was Albert Sidney Johnson, abandon their regiments of the regular army in Texas, and join the rebels. But Lincoln is inaugurated, and the most pacific measures employed, but all of no avail; determined, desperate men are ruling the destiny of the South.

The South was in no condition of want at this time, but rather in a condition of prosperity, and its proud, haughty spirit seemed rather born of luxury and extravagance.

Mr. Blaine has shown that she had increased in ten years before the war three thousand millions of dollars, and this not from over-valuation of slaves, but from cultivation of the land by new and valuable appliances of agriculture. One state alone,—Georgia,—had increased in wealth three hundred millions of dollars. But South Carolina had commenced in October,—before Mr. Lincoln’s election even,—her correspondence upon the subject of secession. No wonder she was ready in the April following to inaugurate the war of the Rebellion.

Mr. Blaine’s life could not be put into the nation, nor the life of any strong, true man, at a time when it would be more valuable than now. Men were men in earnest. They rose to par, and some, by a mathematical process which redoubles energy and intensifies life, are cubed or squared or lifted to the hundredth power; a premium is on them; they are invaluable.

The governor issues his call for ten thousand men from Maine. Will Mr. Blaine go? Mr. Garfield is in the state senate of Ohio, and president of a college, but he drops all at once, and is soon at the front with his regiment. His stay is short, however. Elected to congress, by advice of President Lincoln he lays aside the dress of a major-general on Saturday to enter the national House of Representatives, a congressman in citizen’s dress, the following Monday.

What will Mr. Blaine do? He is speaker of the House, and that gives his name a power in the state. He is wielding a powerful pen as editor of the leading daily paper at Portland. Few men in the state have more influence; some must stay; the state must be aroused and electrified; an immense work of organization is to be done. It is a less conspicuous, more quiet home-work, but it is of the utmost importance.

He stays, while many, like Garfield, go to return to do the statesman’s work and make available the resources of the nation, and strengthen the hands of the brave men at the front.

This was a work of vast importance in the conduct of the war. It was power that was felt by both governor and president, by army and navy. Mr. Blaine was on terms of intimacy with the governor of his state,—a firm supporter of a faithful man. Very soon he was instrumental in raising two regiments, and rallied thousands more to the standard of the Union.

He became at this time chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, and continued in this position for twenty years. He planned every campaign, selected the speakers, fixed dates and places for them, and so arranged all details, that no man of his ever disappointed an audience. He knows the time of departure and arrival of every train. He must do his part to see that the legislature continues Republican, that the governor and his council are Republican, that congressmen and senators of the United States are Republican, and that the war-power of the state is not broken.

The great question for him to aid largely in settling is the worth of the state of Maine to the nation. She must have governors that are in full sympathy with the president; congressmen and senators that uphold his administration.

In North’s History of Augusta, a valuable work of nearly a thousand pages, it is recorded of Mr. Blaine that “probably no man in Maine exerted a more powerful influence on the patriotic course pursued than he. Ever active, always watchful, never faltering, he inspired confidence in the cause of the Union in its darkest days.”

At the close of the first session of the legislature over which Mr. Blaine presided, the leading Democrat in the House, a Mr. Gould, from Thomaston, arose after remarks of great pathos and tenderness, and presented this resolution:—

He bore testimony to the “marvelous despatch with which the formal parts of the business had been done, and so the session greatly shortened.”

The resolution was adopted by a unanimous vote, and Mr. Blaine said,—

This was on the 18th of March, and on the 22d of April, the war having broken out, they were assembled again in extra session, Mr. Blaine in the chair. In three days and a half provisions were made for raising troops and money for the war, and legislation pertaining to militia-laws was enacted, etc. The wildest rumors filled the air. The country seemed transformed at once into a turbulent sea, but men did not lose their reckoning. Latitude and longitude were things too deeply fixed and broadly marked to be unseen or ignored. The storm blew from a single quarter. Its long gathering had made it black and fierce. It struck the gallant ship of state. She was reeling with the shock of war.

Never did the beauty and worth of federal states appear to better advantage than when the impoverished and plundered government called on them for aid. It was the parent’s call upon her children for defence against their own misguided sisters. Never was mechanism more finely adjusted, or power more equally balanced, than in the Republic. Very distinct and separate are head and feet and hands, eyes and ears, yet nothing is more perfect in its unity.

It is much the same with the great union of states. They are separated far, and quite distinct in varied interests, but one in powerful unity. But the time had come to show the strength of that unity. All there was of the great mind and heart and life of Mr. Blaine was given to the nation in holiest exercise of all his powers.

While eighty thousand of the foe are opposing thirty-five thousand of our troops at Manassas Junction, and Colonel Ellsworth is losing his life at Alexandria; while Stephen A. Douglas is delivering in early June his last eloquent words, straight and heroic for the nation; while the bankers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia are casting one hundred and fifty millions of dollars into the national treasury at Washington, and the brave General Lyon with eight thousand men is routing twenty-three thousand of the enemy in Missouri, at the cost of his life,—while all the activities of that first summer of war are going on, Mr. Blaine is facing a political storm of great severity, as general-in-chief in the campaign that places Israel Washburn, Jr., again in the gubernatorial chair of the state, and keeps the reins of government in Republican hands.

It has been a question often debated whether the nation is most indebted to her warriors or her statesmen. There can be no hesitation in deciding, where the mere question of life is considered, or the hardships of camp and march and field are included in the account. And yet Lincoln, nor Garfield wore a uniform when the bullet struck.

No one thinks their patriotism less intense, or that of cabinet, or senators and members of the house, or governors and council, or members of legislatures less ardent in their love of country, and zeal for the honor of her imperilled cause. At such times all true hearts are one, and the blood that throbs in hands and heart and feet is all the same.

Mr. Blaine was re-elected to his accustomed place in the legislature of the state. The terrific war rages on. The demand for troops increases,—is indeed quadrupled,—and the state must be brought up to her quota by methods the wisest and best. And again and again the clarion voice of the speaker of the House rings over the state with no uncertain sound. Companies and regiments are formed, and these must be filled. The fires burning so brightly, must burn brighter. Intense love must be intensified. The news of terrible battles thrills over the state almost daily. The romance of war is over. Its gilt edge is gone. It is hard, desperate, bloody work. Their sons and brothers and fathers are falling by the score and hundred at the front. The bloody work has been done at Ball’s Bluff and Port Royal. Sons of Maine are in Libby Prison and at Belle Isle.

The hard, serious question is discussed in every home. It fills the dreams of yeomanry,—“Shall I go?” “Can I go?” All that is sacred in business and religion in home and country is the question. Men are lifted by appeals almost divine in eloquence, above any petty consideration, to the grave question of the nation’s life and destiny. Their names go down by scores and hundreds. Regiments and brigades seem born in a day. They come from all ranks and conditions,—from pulpit and press, from farm and shop, from bank and office, and store and halls of state,—and are transformed in an hour from citizens to soldiers, and march away to the front. Steamer and car swarm with them.

The music dies away down the river, and they are gone,—gone perhaps forever. Good-byes are cherished in heart of hearts, and kisses from mother, father, lover, friend, are carried away like cameos of thought, the sacred things of memory.

In the autumn we find Mr. Blaine in Washington, probably for the first time, but not in official relations to the government. He must have a nearer view of the great scenes being enacted. He must know the men who are wielding the nation’s power, and put his finger on the pulse of war, and gather material for the more intense activity his work at home assumes. He must see the great-hearted Lincoln, and shake his hand, and give him cheer.

Fessenden, Hamlin, and Morrill are there, for congress is in session in a city fortified, and its streets patrolled by soldiers. Andrew Johnson is the only senator present from eleven seceded states. Breckenridge, mortified by the vote of his state, and the rebuke and the castigation the dead Douglas had given him in the early spring, was present from Kentucky; and Lane and Pomeroy were in their seats from the new, free state of Kansas, as her first senators. And the two Union senators were there,—Messrs. Willy and Carlisle,—from the western portion of seceded Virginia. Only five free states had other than Republican senators. Bright, Breckenridge, and Polk were expelled.

Chase, and Cameron, and Seward had entered the cabinet, but an impressive array of talent remained in the senate, to be studied by our rising young statesman to best advantage. Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson were there from Massachusetts; Zachariah Chandler, and Bingham, of Michigan; Wilkinson of Minnesota; John P. Hale and Daniel Clark, of New Hampshire; Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman, of Ohio; Wilmot and Cowan, of Pennsylvania; James R. Doolittle and Timothy O. Hone, of Wisconsin. Jacob Collamore, formerly in General Taylor’s cabinet, a ripe, scholarly man, was a senator from Vermont, and Simmons and Anthony, from Rhode Island.

On his first visit to the National Capital, Mr. Blaine could not fail to visit the House where he himself was destined to have a career so famous and honorable alike to himself, his state, and the nation. There was his friend, Anson P. Morrill, who had desired him to take the nomination to congress the present session, rather than himself, and Galusha A. Grow, from his native state, a member of the convention which has just nominated him for the presidency, and of the committee notifying of the same, was then in the chair to be reserved for him as speaker of that house. Thaddeus Stevens, fearless, able, of intrepid spirit and strong character, the best hater of slavery on the continent, hating even those who did not hate it, was the natural leader of the House, assuming his place by common consent. He attracted Mr. Blaine’s special attention.

John Hickman and Edward McPherson were with him from Pennsylvania; and from New York there were Reuben E. Fenton, experienced and strong in public affairs, Elbridge G. Spaulding, the financier, William A. Wheeler, since vice-president, secretary Seward’s friend and confidant, Theodore Pomeroy.

“The ablest and most brilliant man of the delegation,” says Mr. Blaine, “was Roscoe Conkling. He had been elected to the preceding congress when but twenty-nine years of age, and had exhibited a readiness and elegance in debate that placed him at once in the front rank. His command of language was remarkable. In affluent and exhuberant diction Mr. Conkling was never surpassed in either branch of congress, unless, perhaps, by Rufus Choate.”

Massachusetts had a strong delegation, headed by Henry L. Dawes, and with him were A. H. Rice, since governor of the state, Elliott, Alley, and William Appleton. Missouri sent Blair and Rollins, from the battle-field. Crittenden, who had been six times elected to the senate, in two cabinets, appointed to the supreme bench, was then in the house, seeking with Charles A. Wickliffe, to save Kentucky to the Union, against the treasonable conspiracies of Breckenridge. With Crittenden and Wickliffe strong for the Union, were Robert Mallory, James S. Jackson, and William H. Wadsworth, keeping up the almost even balance of power in their state. Gilman Marston was there from New Hampshire, soon to become conspicuous in the field. Justin S. Morrill from Vermont, Frederick A. Pike, and the brother of senator Fessenden from Maine, in company with Ex-Gov. Anson P. Morrill. Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana had strong men there also, as did Iowa and Minnesota.

Elihu B. Washburn, Owen Lovejoy, William A. Richardson, and John A. Logan, represented the state of Lincoln and Grant; Schuyler Colfax, George W. Julian, Albert G. Porter, Wm. McKee Dunn, and Daniel W. Voorhees, were there from Indiana; and from the state of Garfield, Bingham, Shellabarger, Horton, and Ashley. Pendleton, Vallandigham, and S. S. Cox were on the Democratic side.

It must have been the dawn of an era of new inspirations and of fresh aspirations, to look in upon such a body of men, only a few of the leaders of whom we have mentioned.

Anson P. Morrill had written him, six months before he let anyone else into the secret, that he should not run again for congress. His business required his attention, having extensive woolen mills some twelve miles from Augusta, and he did not enjoy life at Washington, and away from home.

He desired Mr. Blaine, as he had before desired, to take his place, and hence gave him a note of warning, and special opportunity for preparation. This surely betokened Mr. Merrill’s large confidence in Mr. Blaine, which is certainly remarkable, when we remember that Mr. Blaine was twenty-seven years younger than Mr. Morrill, who was then in his prime, about sixty years of age; and yet he looks down upon a young man of thirty-one, and asks him to come up and take his place in the councils of the nation. Why this confidence, this unquestioned assurance of power, this high compliment of age and experience, of wealth, and extraordinary business ability of the old governor of Maine to the young and dauntless Speaker of the House at home?

First of all, because he had abundantly found him as speaker of the House winning golden opinions from those over whose deliberations he had presided.

Second, because he had just conducted, as chairman of the State Central Committee of the Republican party, a campaign, re-electing Governor Washburn, and himself to the legislature, and thus fighting unto victory the home-battle of the Union, meanwhile pushing hard and successfully the editorial work of the Daily Advertiser at Portland.

But more than either of these events or considerations, the presidential campaign of 1860 had endeared him to Mr. Morrill. Then he had stumped the state with the Hon. Anson Burlingame of Massachusetts,—he discussing the state issues while Mr. Burlingame discussed the national issues.

An old citizen high in state office to-day, who heard him frequently, says “he won the people by the skill and comprehensiveness with which he analyzed and argued the great questions of the time.”

He also said “that his editorials in the Journal of that summer and autumn, when Mr. Stevens, his old partner, was sick, furnished all the material for the campaign.” He gathered up and crowded in all there was.

It was that total exemption from indolence, his marked degree of energy, and priceless abilities, that charmed the old governor and warmed his great heart toward him. And then it was upon that same tidal wave of influence, sweeping out from the depths of that fresh, young life, that Mr. Morrill himself was swept into his seat in congress.

The Democrats had up for governor their strong man that year, Ephraim K. Smart, who had been several terms in congress, and made the biggest possible fight that lay in their power, but all to no purpose. The speeches of Mr. Blaine fixed the attention of the state upon him, as coming from a man away beyond his years. He could, we are told, “marshal statistics with great facility”; facts, figures, faces, he knew them all, and impressed the people, even the old campaigners, with a boundlessness of political and historical knowledge that is distinctly remembered to this day.

They have gotten use to this sort of thing up in Maine, and talk like men who reached their conclusions years ago. Their minds were made up as to the man in Augusta, at least over a quarter of a century ago, away back in 1856, some of them when, fresh from the Philadelphia convention, he made his Frémont and Dayton speech, twenty-eight years ago, and he has simply been expanding, and enlarging, filling up, and growing ever since. He has been watched with eager pride and rejoiced in with the devotion of brothers and friends, as wave after wave of his majestic influence has dashed across the boundary lines of the state, and broken over the nation.

It would have been something unaccountable if every round of the ladder had not been touched at last by him, and yet there is no fatality about it. He was no child of destiny, but of industry; no creature of chance, but of choice; not of luck, but of pluck; not of fortune, but of fortitude; not of circumstance, but of courage and consecrated energy.

He returned home from his first view of Washington with larger views of the nation’s greatness, and the fierceness of the contests that were testing her strength, and a holier ambition to make every power tell for Liberty’s victory, and the nation’s emancipation from wrong, and her projection upon a loftier career of service among the nations of the earth.

The state could not hold him long after the revelation of these few brief days and weeks. But he could wait his time, meanwhile reorganizing all the forces at his command for victory of a larger kind, and in a larger field than had fallen to his lot. And why not? He was fast outgrowing the places filled thus far, and others were opening to him without the asking.

The plans for the new year are all laid before the old year dies. Then he shall stand nearer the seat of war; then he shall study questions and characters, plans and persons, opinions, policies, and principles, all the great states and machinery of government. His home shall be in the great city and centre of the land, where authority, wisdom, and power reside, and where no excellence but is in demand, no great, shining quality but shall shine amid a thousand reflections, and name and place shall but increase each power to serve and save the nation’s life.