James G. Blaine

“LOG CABIN TO WHITE HOUSE” SERIES.

Pine to
Potomac

LIFE OF
JAMES G. BLAINE

HIS BOYHOOD, YOUTH, MANHOOD, AND
PUBLIC SERVICES.

WITH A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF
GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN

By E. K. CRESSEY

BOSTON:
JAMES H. EARLE, PUBLISHER,
178 Washington Street.
1884.

Copyright, 1884.
By James H. Earle.

To All,
Young and Old,
THE WHOLE WORLD OVER,
WHO LOVE THE NAME
America,
IS THIS LIFE OF
JAMES G. BLAINE,
The Typical American,
DEDICATED,
By the Author.

INTRODUCTION.

Mountains are the homes of giants,—giants in brawn and giants in brain. The giants of brawn may be the more numerous, and in the sense of muscle and fisticuffs, more powerful; but not in the sense of manhood and power that achieves results that are far-reaching and that endure,—results that thrill a nation’s heart and command the admiration of the world.

Whoever makes you proud that you are a man,—that you are an American citizen,—makes you feel that life is not only worth living, but that to live is joy and glory,—such an one lifts you up toward those higher regions from which man has evidently fallen, and gives some glimmer and hint of the old image and likeness in which we were created. That man who comes from nearest to the nation’s heart and gets nearest to the world’s heart, brings with him lessons of wisdom, goodness, and love which shall work like leaven with transforming power.

Great not only in brains, but great in heart, also, are the giant men of true greatness, who come down from the mountains into the arena of the world’s activities. They need no introduction. The world awaits them, recognizes, and hails them. They know and are known; they love and are beloved. Place awaits them, and they enter; fitness fits; life is a triumph, and they are happy. Such men, fresh from nature’s mint, bring consciences with them,—consciences unseared, into the battle of life.

These are not only the germ of character and the source of joy, but chief among the elements of that stupendous strength which makes victory their birthright, and victory is the birthright of every good, true soul that will work to win. Only the false and the indolent are sure to fail; the true and industrious are ever succeeding.

Especially great in powers of will are the men who come forth from the nation’s strength and give themselves back in exalted service to a nation’s life. The great streams that flow into the ocean, went forth of the ocean in mists and clouds of rain. The great men of Rome were the products of Rome. The great men of Germany and France are the products of those respective countries. And so the great men of America are the products of America. It took generations to produce the heroes of the Revolution, but when the hour struck, they came forth, full armed with a purpose that blood could not weaken, clad in a panoply that no host could destroy. Washington blazed forth as an orb of greater magnitude in the chair of state, in time of peace, than in the saddle in time of war. As a warrior he cut out the work, as statesman he made it. Statesmanship is more the work of the whole man and of a life-time. Garfield was splendid upon the field of battle, but while there he shone as a star among suns, while in the halls of state he shone as a sun among stars. There was a steady grandeur of purpose, a magnificence of character, a wealth of intellect, a power of thought, a loftiness of courage, of that high, heroic type which moral stamina alone can produce, which created a greater demand for him in the councils of the nation than in the battle-front when warriors were the nation’s sorest need. Others could take his place in Tennessee, but not in Washington.

Among the nation’s great productions, born midway between the war of the Revolution and the war of the Rebellion; born in times of peace, for times of direst carnage and divinest peace again, a very prince of the land; born to lead, and born to rule; springing at once with the bound of youthful blood into the foremost ranks of the nation’s monarchs of forces, and emperors of kingly powers, is he who leads to-day the giant forces of the great nation’s conquering host, the Hon. James G. Blaine, not of Maine, or of Massachusetts; not of Minnesota, or the Golden Gate, but of America. He is a man of the nation’s heart, a man of the nation’s brain, a man of conscience, and a man of will; large, vivid, and powerful in his consciousness, wherein he realizes, in most brilliant conceptions, both the power and glory of men and things. He came forth from the mountains of the Alleghanies, a giant from the nation’s side.

Never since the nation’s youth was there such demand for any man. He is emphatically the typical American, and the yeomanry would have him. They caught his spirit, and would not shake off the spell of his genius. They forget not to-day that he was Garfield’s first choice, and sat at Garfield’s right hand. They remember, as only they who think with the heart can remember, that as his pride and confidant, he was by Garfield’s side in that awful hour of holy martyrdom, thrusting back the terrible assassin with one hand, and with the other catching the falling chief. Garfield knew him, Garfield loved him, Garfield sanctioned, honored, trusted, and exalted him. And the sentiments of that great heart which beat out its life-blood for the nation’s glory then, it is firmly believed, are the sentiments of the nation’s heart to-day.

CONTENTS.

“Old Hickory is Coming”

PINE TO POTOMAC

I.
THE BOY.

“OLD Hickory is coming! He will be along in his great coach to-morrow, before noon,” rang out the cheery voice of Uncle Will Blaine, who seemed glad all over at the prospect of once more seeing the Hero of New Orleans and the man of iron will.

“Well, let him come,” said the Prothonotary. “I would not walk up to the cross-roads to see him,” and the face of the old Whig grew stern with determination.

“You will let me take Jimmy, will you not, to see the old General?”

“O, yes, you can take him,” the politic use of General instead of President having relaxed, somewhat, the stern features of the sturdy Scottish face.

“He’s coming! He’s coming! Hurrah! Hurrah! Here he comes,” shouted voice after voice of the great crowd assembled on the morrow, from valley and mountain, Uncle Will leading off at last, with the regular old-fashioned continental “Hip, Hip, Hurrah,” with three-times-three.

Martial music, of the old revolutionary sort, rang out, with fife and drum, as President Jackson, who had just been succeeded by Martin Van Buren, after serving from 1829 to 1837, stepped from his carriage, and after a hearty greeting, spoke a few incisive words, as only the old hero could.

A boy seven years old was held above the crowd, just before him, by the strong arms of Uncle Will. The General saw the large, wondering eyes, and the eager face, patted him on the head, saying, “I am glad to see you, my noble lad.”

The boy was James G. Blaine.

The impression of that moment remains to this hour. Little did General Jackson think he was looking into the face of a future candidate for the presidency.

The National Road over which the congressmen and presidents, and the great tide of travel from the west and south, passed to and from Washington, was near his father’s door.

This National highway, built by the government before the days of railroads and steam-boats, was a strong band of union between remote sections of the country. It was a highway of commerce as well as of travel, and formed one of the chief features in the country, so rapidly filling up after the fearful storms of war were over and the settled years of peace had come.

It is a remarkable fact, that inspired penmen have sketched the infancy of most of the great men whose lives they have portrayed. This is beautifully true of Moses, the great emancipator and leader, a law-giver of the ancient Hebrew people. How they glorify the childhood of this great man, and make us love him at the start! So, also, are the infancy and childhood of Samuel, great among the prophets of Israel, disclosed. The voice of his heroic mother is heard as she gives him to the Lord. The infancy of John, the mighty man at the Jordan, and of Jesus, are most impressively revealed. No lovelier pictures hang on the walls of memory; no sweeter sunshine fills the home than the little ones with their joy and prattle, and with the sublime possibilities to be unfolded as they fill up the ranks in humanity’s march, or take the lead of the myriad host.

As we go back to study the beginnings of a world, so may we well look back to behold the dawning of that life, great in the nation’s love and purpose to-day.

We shall find there a child of nature, born in no mansion or city, but on “Indian farm,” upon the Washington side of the Monongahela River, opposite the village of Brownsville, and about sixty miles below Pittsburgh, in the old Quaker State of Pennsylvania.

It was at the foot-hills of the Alleghanies, a region wild, romantic, and grand, well fitted to photograph omnipotence upon the fresh young mind, and impress it with the greatness of the world. It was a section of country whose early history is marked with all that is thrilling in the details of Indian warfare, which constituted the chief staple of childhood stories.

Daniel Boone and the Wetzells had been there. The startled air had echoed with the crack of their rifles; the artillery of the nation had resounded through these mountains; the black clouds of war had blown across the skies, and the smoke of battle had drifted down those valleys.

All that is terrible in nature had its birth and home in that section of our country, which is most like the great ocean petrified in its angriest mood and mightiest upheavals. The bears and wolves, in their numbers, ferocity, and might commanded in early days the respect even of savages, while elk and deer, antelope and fowl, and fish in endless variety, birds and flowers of every hue, and foliage of countless species, won the admiration of these rude children of nature.

Here in this Scotland of America, born of a sturdy ancestry whose muscle and brain, courage and mighty wills, had made them masters of mountain and glen,—here in the heart of the continent,—James G. Blaine was born. Eternal vigilance had not only been the price of liberty in that bold mountain home for generations, but the price of life itself.

It was in a large stone house, built by his great-grandfather Gillespie, that James Gillespie Blaine was born, January 31, 1830, one of eight strong, robust, and hearty children, five of whom survive. It was midway between the war of 1812 and the Mexican war of 1848, and in a country settled nearly fifty years before by soldiers of the Revolution. Few are born in circumstances of better promise for the full unfolding of the faculties of body and mind than was this child of four and fifty years ago, cradled in the old stone house on the ancestral farm. The house itself tells of the Old World; and those mountains whose heights are in the blue, tell of Scottish and Irish clans that never lose the old fire and the old love, and that marched from the conquest of the Old to the conquering of the New World.

The father, Ephraim Lyon Blaine, was of Scottish origin, and Presbyterian of truest blood, with sign and seal and signet stamp of the old Scotch Covenanters upon life and character. His ancestors came to this country in 1720,—one hundred and ten years before the birth of James.

His mother, Maria Gillespie, was of an Irish-Catholic family from Donegal in Ireland. They belonged to the Clan Campbell, Scotch-Irish Catholics, and descended from the Argyles of Scotland. They came to America in 1764, and were Catholics through and through. They were large land-owners in America, and resided wholly in old colonial Pennsylvania.

The great-grandfather of Ephraim Lyon Blaine, father of James G., was born in 1741, and died at Carlisle, Penn., in March, 1804. He was a colonel in the Revolutionary war from its commencement, and the last four years of the war was the Commissary General. He was with Washington amid the most trying scenes, and enjoyed his entire confidence. During the dark winter at Valley Forge, he was by the side of the Commander-in-Chief, and it is a matter of history that the army was saved from starvation by his vigilant and tireless activity. It is not difficult to see how stupendous was the task of subsisting broken and shattered forces in the dead of an awful winter, upon an exhausted country. It required skill and courage, tact and force of personal power, not surpassed even in the daring march of Napoleon across the Alps. But he did it, brave, determined spirit that he was. Others might falter, but not he; others might break down from sheer exhaustion or dismay, but not General Blaine, so long as the fires of the unbroken spirit of the old Covenanters heated the furnace of his heart, and their high resolve for liberty was enthroned in his affections.

From such parent stock what shall the bloom and blossom be? What the fruitage and harvesting of other years from the seed-sowing of such splendid living? Not what the height of stature, but what the stature of soul,—not what the breadth of back, nor bigness of brawn, but what the breadth of mind and bigness of brain?

Let the history of our day and generation make reply.

Eight years before the old patriot General died, at Carlisle, his grandson, Ephraim Lyon Blaine, the father of James, was born in the same quaint old Scottish town. At Dickinson College he received his education, and settled as a lawyer in Washington County, Penn., where for years he lived an honored and useful life as Prothonotary of the Courts; and here, amid the lull in the storm of battle-years, the boy, James G. Blaine, was born.

His cradle-songs were the old songs of the New Republic. It is pleasant to think of such a personage coming to consciousness, clear and strong, among such hallowed scenes of a land redeemed, a nation born, a people free. All about our youthful hero were the scarred faces and shattered forms of those who had come back from the fields of strife.

The stories of Monmouth and Brandywine, of Concord and Lexington, of New Orleans and Yorktown, were lived over and dreamed about. Living epistles, walking histories, were all about him. Instead of reading about them, they read to him, poured out the dearly-bought treasures of a life, painted scenes that were forever impressed upon their minds; with all the shades of life and death, unrolled the panorama of the great campaigns, through those long, dread battle-years. What education this, in home and street, in shop and store, on farm and everywhere, for patriot youth! It gave a love and zest for historic reading, which must be traced when we enter more largely upon his literary and educational career.

At five years of age the systematic work of an education began by sending James to a common country school near by. The old United States spelling-book was the chief textbook. Webster’s spelling-book was not then in vogue. Nothing remarkable transpired, except to note the proficiency and steady progress he made in mastering the language he has learned so well to use.

The intensity of his life was that within, rather than the outer life. He was observing, drinking in with eyes and ears. Robinson Crusoe was his first book, as it has been with many another boy, and from this beginning he became a most omnivorous reader.

His first two teachers were ladies, and are still living. The first, a Quakeress, Miss Mary Ann Graves, now Mrs. Johnson, living near Canton, Ohio, eighty-four years of age; the other was Mrs. Matilda Dorsey, still living at Brownsville, just across the Monongahela River from Washington County, where Mr. Blaine was born. While speaking in Ohio, five years ago, during Governor Foster’s campaign, his old teacher, Mrs. Johnson, came forward at the close of his speech to congratulate her old scholar. How little these two women dreamed of the splendid future of the young mind they helped start up the hill of knowledge; how little they thought of the tremendous power with which he would one day use the words, great and small, he spelled out of that old book; the great occasions upon which he would marshal them, as a general marshals his men for effective warfare; of the great speeches, orations, debates, papers, pamphlets, and books into which he would put a power of thought that would move nations.

It was merely a country school-house, and the old frame-building has been torn down, and a new and more modern brick house substituted. It was not simply to spell words, but also to read and write, and, indeed, gain the rudiments of a thorough English education.

As a learner, he exhibited the same quick, energetic traits of mind he has since shown in the use of the knowledge gained.

It was upon the hardest kind of high, rough seats his first lessons were learned, with none of the splendid appliances of the graded school of to-day. Then was the time of the rod and fool’s cap, which many remember so distinctly. Boys that fought were compelled to “cut jackets,” as it was called. The stoutest boy in school was sent with an old-fashioned jack-knife to cut three long switches, stiff, and strong, and lithe. The offending boys were called upon the floor before the whole school, and each one given a rod, while the teacher reserved the third. They were commanded to go at it, and at it they went, to the uproarious delight of the whole school. Nothing could be more ludicrous, as stroke after stroke thicker and faster fell, on shoulders, back, and legs, while the blood flew through their veins hot and tingling. The contest ended only when the switches gave out. When one was broken and cast away, the teacher stepped up and laid his switch on the back of the boy whose switch was whole, while the other fellow had to stand and take it from the boy whose switch was yet sound. So they kept at it, stroke after stroke.

The demoralizing effect for the moment had a great moralizing power afterward. No boy ever wanted to take the place of one of these boys.

Master James was seldom punished at school, except to have his knuckles rapped with the ruler, or ears boxed for some slight offence; but he never failed to take full notes of the fracas, when other boys received their just deserts. His observations have always been very minute, and his remembrances distinct. Among his earliest recollections is one in 1834, when he was but four years of age, the building of a bridge across the Monongahela River to Brownsville, by the company that constructed the National Road. His Uncle Will took him by the hand and led him out upon the big timbers, between which he could look down and see the waters below. The building of this bridge was a great event to the people, and one of special interest in the Gillespie family, as his grandfather owned the ferry, which of course the bridge superseded, and which had been a source of revenue to the extent of five thousand dollars a year to him. But in the march of progress ferries give way to bridges, as boyhood does to manhood, and by a sort of mute prophecy that bridge made and proclaimed the way to Washington more easy. It was to him the bridge over that dark river of oblivion from the unknown of childhood to the consciousness of youth and manhood. This same uncle, William L. Gillespie, who held him by the hand while on the bridge, was often with his favorite nephew, and exerted a strong influence for good upon him. He was a fine scholar, a splendid gentleman, and a man of infinite jest. The impressions received from one so accomplished, and yet so genial, loving, and tender, during these walks and talks, of almost constant and daily intercourse, are seen and felt to-day in the character of the nephew of whom we write.

The first outbreak in the nature of young James, and which shows latent barbarism so common to human nature, was a little escapade which happened when about five years old. A Welshman, by the name of Stephen Westley, was digging a well in the neighborhood; in some way he had injured the boy and greatly enraged him. The man at the top of the well had gone away, and Master James, who never failed to see an opportunity, or to estimate it at its proper value and improve it promptly, stepped upon the scene.

He found his man just where he wanted him, and without reflection as to consequences, began immediately to throw clods and stones upon him, which of course was no source of amusement to the man below. He screamed lustily, and on being rescued went to the house and complained of the young offender, saying,—

“He has too much spurt” (spirit).

It cost James a good thrashing, but the Welshman is not the only one who has had just cause to feel that “he had too much spirit.” Indeed it is the same great, determined spirit, trained, tempered, and toned by the stern conflict of life, which is the law of fullest development, and brought under complete control, that has given Mr. Blaine his national prominence, and filled the American mind with the proud dream of his leadership.

His grandfather Gillespie was the great man of that region. His Indian Hill farm, with its several large houses and barns, was a prominent feature of the country. He was a man of large wealth for his time; built mills and engaged in various enterprises, damming the river for milling purposes, which was a herculean task. In 1811, in company with Capt. Henry Shreve, later of Shreveport, he sent the first steamer from Pittsburgh. It was not until the year following that Fulton and Livingston began building steamers in that city.

This grandfather, Neal Gillespie, was five years old when the war of the Revolution began, and as a boy received the full impression of those scenes from the very midst of the fray in his Pennsylvania home. It doubtless helped to produce and awaken in him that great energy of character, and force of personality which enabled him to amass a fortune in that western wild, and in every way help forward the country’s development.

It was the good fortune of James to spend the first nine years of his life in the closest relations of grandson to grandsire, with this remarkable man; and doubtless much of that magnetism and rich personality for which Mr. Blaine is so justly noted, may be traced to this strong-natured and powerful ancestor upon the side of his mother, as well as to Gen. Ephraim Blaine, on the side of his father. He inherits the combined traits of character which gave them prominence and success in life.

The little country school and its slow, monotonous processes, were not rapid enough for the swift, eager mind of the boy. He had learned to read, and a new world opened to him. He caught its charm and inspiration. He had read Scott’s Life of Napoleon before he was eight years old,—a little fellow of seven, on a farm in an almost wilderness, devouring with his eager mind such a work! Half of our public men have never even heard of it yet. But what is perfectly amazing, before he was nine years old he had gone over all of Plutarch’s Lives, reciting the histories to his grandfather Gillespie, who died when he was nine years of age.

He acquired all that Isocrates and Alcibiades tell of, before he was ten years old, and it is a conviction with Mr. Blaine that the common ideas of the average boy’s ability need to be greatly enlarged. Certain it was, that he inherited a hardy mental and physical constitution. Life on that great farm kept him engaged and associated constantly with men who both enjoyed and appreciated learning, and who loved him and saw in him at least a remarkably bright boy.

Especially did his father, who was a college-graduate and member of the bar, see that he was steadily and persistently drilled, and to his father Mr. Blaine freely gives the credit so largely and justly due. His reading was not the careless, hap-hazard doing of a big-brained boy, who read from curiosity simply to while away time, but there was method in it,—a quieting hand was on him,—it was all done under intelligent, wise, and loving direction.

There was none of the hard, rough, and bitter experiences in his boyhood days or early manhood, to which so many of our nation’s great men were subjected. He had none of the long and desperate struggle with poverty and adversity which hung on Mr. Garfield’s early years. He knew nothing by experience of the privations and hardships through which Mr. Lincoln came to the high honors of the nation and the world; but sprang from the second generation after the Revolutionary War, and from a long line of ancestors who had been large land-owners and gentlemen in the sense of wealth and education, as well as in that finely cultivated sense, of which Mr. Blaine is himself so excellent an exponent.

James worked on the farm, carried water to the men, and carried the sheaves of grain together for the shockers, and did just as any school-boy on a farm would do;—hunt the eggs, frolic with the calves, feed the pigs, drive up the cows, run on errands, pet the lambs, bring in wood, and split the kindlings. He loved the sports in which boys still delight; went fishing, played ball, rowed his boat on the river, and would laugh, and jump, and tumble, and run equal to any boy. All the boys about him were sons or grandsons of old Revolutionary soldiers. They had a lesson which this day does not enjoy, to talk over and keep full of the old theme. The nation was then young, and new, and fresh. The Fourth of July was celebrated as it is not now; when old soldiers passed away, their deeds and worth were all talked over. The result was an intense Americanism, for which he has since become noted, and which has made him an American through and through, of the most pronounced loyalty and patriotic type, as to deem a stain upon his country’s honor an individual disgrace.

Empty sleeves and nothing to fill them, limbs gone and no substitute for them, were as common then comparatively as they are now, only now there is an artificial substitute.

James enjoyed the benefits and blessings of a large family home. It was the practice of his father to read aloud to his family, and thus the evening-hours were utilized in the early education of his children. Home training, so often neglected now, was in vogue then, and the legal, scholarly mind of Mr. Blaine could well choose in his fatherly love and pride, just what was best suited to the young minds about him, while he was amply competent to give intelligent and suitable answers to the numerous questions called forth by the narration in hand. That great National Road to the cities of the Union, and its larger towns, was a highway of intelligence. Not only did it bring the mail and all the news, but many a book, magazine, or other periodical they were pleased to order.

Beside, the direct communication by steamer with Pittsburgh and points above, which had been the case eighteen years before the birth of James, supplied abundant means for travel and correspondence with other quarters. Living where the steamers passed the highway, they were more highly favored with facilities of commerce and the news than perhaps any other portion of the land. They could get all there was going. There was no telegraph, and none of the swifter means of travel so common now; canal-boats were a luxury then. But all was life and energy. The enthusiasm of manhood was on the nation. Then, indeed, it was in manhood’s glory. It had grown to be its own ruler and governor; was truly of age, and did its own voting. British interference had learned its lesson of modest withdrawal, and for the same period of eighteen years no unnaturalized Englishman had been found on American soil with a uniform on and a gun in his hand.

There was a fine piano in the home of Mr. Blaine, and the good wife and mother was an excellent player, and frequently delighted the household with music. Songs abounded; a harpsichord was in the home, and it added its quaint music to the melody of the circle.

But James could not leave books alone, especially history. The history of the country was read by him over and over again. The books he had read, and that had been carefully read to him by the time he was ten years of age, would surpass in number, size, and literary value, the libraries of many a professional man, outside his purely professional works, and not only had the principal ones been read, but studied and recited. Seldom is any boy so highly favored with the interested personal efforts of such a trio of educators as were the father, uncle, and grandfather of Mr. Blaine.

It is frequently said by college-graduates, that they learn more outside of the recitation-room, from association with teachers and students from libraries and in the societies, than in the room for instruction. It was in associating with these relatives, cultured and gentlemanly, able and instructive, that he was encouraged and inspired to his task of learning. James mastered the spelling-book; in fact, he was the best speller in the school, and was called out far and near to spelling-matches, and every time “that boy of Mr. Blaine’s” would stand alone and at the head, when all the neighborhood of schools was “spelled down.”

One night the word was “Enfeoff.” It came toward the last, and was one of the test words. The sides were badly thinned as “independency, chamois, circumnavigation,” and a host of other difficult words had been given out. But the hour was growing late; some of the young fellows began to think of going home with the girls, of a big sleigh-ride down the mountain and through the valleys, and one big, merry load belonged over the river at Brownsville, and they began to be a little restless. But still there was good interest as this favorite triumphed, and that one went down. Finally the word was given, all missed it and sat down but James. Every eye was on him as the president of the evening said “Next,” and our little master of the situation spelt “En-feoff.”

No effort was made to restrain the cheers. The triumph was complete.

II.
PREPARATION.

AT the death of his grandfather Gillespie, who was worth about one hundred thousand dollars,—a large sum for that early time,—Mrs. Blaine inherited, among other things, one-third of the great Indian Hill Farm, comprising about five hundred acres, with great houses, orchards, and barns,—a small village of itself.

This, with his father’s office in the courts, and other property, placed the family in good circumstances, and it was decided to give James a thorough education. He was now nine years old, with a mind as fully trained and richly stored as could be found for one of his years. He was a ready talker, and loved discussion, and so frequently showed what there was in him by the lively debates and conversations into which he was drawn.

Thus his ability to express himself tersely and to the point, was early developed. He came to be, almost unconsciously, growing up as he did among them, the admiration and delight of the large circle of friends and loved ones, whose interest centered on and about the farm, as well as among neighbors and acquaintances.

Bullion’s Latin Grammar was called into requisition, and mastered so well that he can conjugate Latin verbs as readily now as can his sons who are recent graduates, the one of Yale, and the other of Harvard.

The thoroughness with which he did his work is a delightful feature of his career. One is not compelled to feel that here is sham, and there is shoddy; that this is sheer pretense, and that is bold assumption, or a threadbare piece of flimsy patch-work.

One word expresses the history of the man, and that one word is mastery. It fits the man. Mastery of self; mastery of books; mastery of men; mastery of subjects and of the situation; mastery of principles and details. He goes to the top, every time and everywhere, sooner or later. And it is largely because he has been to the bottom first, and mastered the rudiments, one and all, and then risen to the heights, not by a single bound, but “climbing the ladder, round by round.”

The amazing power of dispatch in the man, as well as thoroughness, are only the larger development of his youthful habit and character.

It was not so much an infinite curiosity as an infinite love of knowledge that made his young mind drink so deeply. His was a thirsty soul, and only by drinking deeply and long could the demand be met.

When ten years old, the great campaign of General Harrison came on. He was ready for it, and soon filled up with the subject. His impulsiveness was powerful and intelligent, vastly beyond his years.

Few men were fresher or fuller of the history of the colonies and states than this boy. He was, in fact, a little library on foot, filled with incidents, names, and dates, familiar with the exploits of a thousand men and a score of battles, posted as to the great enterprises and measures of the day, by reason of his distinguished relations and his abundant facilities and sources of information. Perhaps, too, no campaign was ever more intense and popular, or entered more into the heart and home-life of young and old, than that of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” “Log Cabin and Free Cider.” The great gatherings, barbecues, and speeches, and multiplied discussions and talk everywhere in house and street, in office and shop, would fire any heart that could ignite, or rouse anyone not lost in lethargy. James was not troubled that way, but was always on hand; he would sit in the chimney-corner, or out on the great porch, while the old-line Whigs gathered to read, and hear, and digest aloud the news.

The political world had dawned upon him. He was in it for sure, and in earnest. His historical mind was gathering history ripe from the boughs. It was luscious to his taste. He was somewhere in every procession that wended its way with music and banners and mottoes innumerable to the place of speaking, and absorbed the whole thing.

Few could have voted more intelligently than he when election day came, for few had taken a livelier interest in the whole campaign, or taken the matter in more completely.

In three years he was admitted to college, so this was no spurt of mental power, but a steady growth, and but marked an era of intellectual unfolding.

It was a genuine and profitable source of most practical education, for all through the great and exciting campaign he did nothing else but attend the monster demonstrations. Dr. William Elder and Joseph Lawrence, the father of Hon. George B. Lawrence, now in Congress, were particularly powerful in impressions upon him.

Among the prominent speakers going through, who stopped to address meetings, was Wm. C. Rivers, of Virginia, who is particularly remembered by Mr. Blaine.

Hon. Thomas M. T. McKenna, father of the present Judge McKenna, was a distinguished personage in that portion of the state, and took an active and influential part in the contest,—a contest full of vim, as it was the first Whig victory on a national scale, but as full of good nature. Jackson’s severe methods and measures, throttling the Nullifiers, sweeping out of existence the great United States Bank at Philadelphia, with its $150,000,000 of capital, and sundry other measures, had filled the people with consternation, and a great change was imperatively demanded.

Newspapers were numerous in the home of Mr. Blaine, and never escaped the vigilant eye of the young and growing journalist and statesman. The Washington Reporter made a large impression upon him, as did also the old Pittsburgh Gazette, a semi-weekly paper, and the Tri-weekly National Intelligencer (Gales and Seaton, editors) was of the strongest and most vigorous character; also, the United States Gazette (semi-weekly), published at Philadelphia, and edited by Joseph R. Chandler, of that city, and later on Joseph C. Neal’s Saturday Gazette. Surely the incoming of these nine or ten papers into the home every week, counting the semi- and tri-weekly issues, would furnish mental pabulum of the political sort in sufficient quantity to satisfy the longing of any young mind. No wonder his growth was strong and hardy. We have heard of an American boy of ten or twelve, who followed the Tichborne Claim case at its original trial through the English courts, but he was a bright high-school boy, who had every advantage of the best graded schools, and improved them steadily, and yet it was greatly to his credit. Graded schools were unknown in 1840, yet James, who had finished reciting Plutarch’s Lives the year before to his Grandfather Gillespie, watched eagerly for the heavily loaded sheets as they came by post or steam-boat, and posted himself on their contents. Besides these numerous papers, two magazines were taken and steadily read by the boy. They were both published in Philadelphia,—Graham’s Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book. The one was dinner, and the other dessert, to the ever hungry mind.

The magazines will be remembered as among the very best the country afforded at that time. But things that do not grow with the country’s growth are soon outgrown in the day of steam and lightning.

The boy who read those periodicals then has not been outgrown, but he has outgrown much that then caused him to grow. They constituted the chief part of polite literature, as it was called, of that form, and helped in the culturing process which has resulted in harvests so abundant.

Can we imagine the deep joy and satisfaction of that mere boy of ten years at the election of General Harrison, for whom he had cheered a hundred times? And when he came through on his way to Washington, to be inaugurated president, he stayed over night at Brownsville, just across the bridge over the river, and James was presented to him.

No camera obscura ever photographed a face so distinctly, and no curious eyes ever took in the details of the scene more perfectly.

In addition to the two lady teachers who bore a part in the early education of James Blaine, there are four men who held a conspicuous place as instructors in the neighboring country school he attended, and who are remembered with gratitude to-day. These are Albert G. Booth, Joshua V. Gibbons, Solomon Phillips, and Campbell Beall. Mr. Booth is still living, and has doubtless rejoiced many times that he did his foundation work so well.

Mr. Booth was one of those patient, careful, devoted workers who do good, honest work.

Joshua V. Gibbons bore a striking likeness to Abraham Lincoln. When an old man, he visited Mr. Blaine in Congress, at the time he was Speaker of the House. Mr. Blaine invited him to a seat beside him, in the Speaker’s desk. It was a worthy honor to a noble teacher, a moment of thrilling interest to the great national assembly, and attracted universal attention.

Mr. Gibbons was a man of heavy, strong mind, and forceful personality, and made himself deeply and strongly felt in the progress of young Blaine’s mental growth. He did solid, accurate, and enduring work.

Homely people, as a general thing, have quite a fund of native goodness, a sort of genial love and sympathy, to atone for physical defects. Such seemed to be the case with the man who so resembled Mr. Lincoln, and it drew all hearts to him. There was no rod or ruler in school so long as he taught, and no need of any. Such things are generally used in the school-room or family to supply deficiencies of wisdom, tact, and genuine ability. He simply won their love and respect, and it was their joy to give it. He taught them, also, things outside of the books, and told them plenty of good, wholesome stories. One day, in speaking about the heathen being away round on the other side of the world, he simply remarked,—“Of course you know the world is round,” but of course they did not.

The great eyes of James dilated, but he said nothing. He could not help thinking and taking a child’s view of it when school was out. It did not hurt much to fall down four or five times as he went home that night, with his eyes upturned toward the Heavens, and the great thought revolving in his brain. The first question his mother heard was,—

“Is this world round, anyhow, and how is it round?”

“Yes, my child,” and the old story of the ship was told, and he was examining the picture in the atlas when his father came in, and he was sounded and agreed with the assured fact of science; and that night when he went up the hill to grandfather’s house to recite Plutarch, first of all he asked,—

“Grandpa, did you know this world was round?”

Grandpa took him up in his great arms, and told him all about it, and showing him through the window the great round haystack, on whose top and sides there was room for twenty boys like him without falling off, and how “the earth keeps turning around and around all the time, and a great power holds people on, just as the roots hold the trees, so no one can fall off,—and the fact is, it is so big, and large, and round, and wide, they cannot fall off,” Jimmy thought he saw it and felt that it must be so.

But the next week when he went to Pittsburgh with Uncle Will, on the steamer, he was looking all the way for proof that the world was round.

But what puzzled the boy fully as much, was the grave assertion, made without proof, that the sun does not move, when he knew that it did rise and set. Grandpa, and his parents, and Uncle Will, had to hold court every day until these questions were all settled, the testimony all in, and the dreams of the young learner reflected other scenes.

His youth had a great sorrow. No grandson was ever loved and petted and cared for and helped in a thousand ways as his Grandfather Gillespie had helped and loved and cared for him. Though a man of affairs, and carrying on business operations on a large scale and in distant parts, he loved his home and all about him, and took special pride in this boy. The heart of James was truly won. It was his special joy to be up at grandfather’s. It was not the big red apple-tree, nor the great clock on the stairs, nor the old rusty sabre and flint-lock musket, and the many relics of the Revolution that attracted him, but grandfather himself.

But grandfather did not get up, one morning, and the doctor was there, and nobody went to work, and there was general alarm. The delirium of fever was on him, but his strong constitution resisted its ravages of inward fire for days and weeks. Now he went there oftener, walked more softly, asked more eagerly. It all seemed so very strange. There was his great chair vacant, and the hand that had so often lain on his head seemed void of touch and power now. Everything seemed to stop. Books had nothing in them now; papers were unopened. The world grew darker and darker, until one black night, amid a terrific storm, word came that grandfather had just died, and father and mother would not be home for some time. The sun seemed to set to James, and he cried himself to sleep, while the other children bewailed their loss.

The morrow was bright and clear, but full of sadness, and as he looked upon the dear old man lying there, and felt his cold face and hand,—he had never seen death before,—he was filled with wonder. The loss, indeed, was great to him. But his memory was an inspiration, and knowing what grandpa would have him do, he returned to his study with renewed energy and to feel more than ever the worth and power of books the departed one had prized so highly.

Solomon Phillips was a Quaker and a farmer, but a man of strong, powerful intellect, honest as the day was long, painstaking and persevering. Mathematics were his special delight. It is a triumph of skill in teaching to love a hard, difficult science so as to get others to love it, also. In this he succeeded. He felt its worth and power. He would divide 0 by 1 (zero by one), and get infinity, and sit and gaze out into its clear, white depths; and reversing the process he would divide one by zero, and get the same result, and again gaze upon the white depths of a world most beautiful to thought, in its clear, unclouded, not nothingness, but somethingness, and that something infinity. He seemed almost to worship at the shrine of this kingly science, and would tell again and again how brilliant and beautiful, and with what delightful accuracy, the labyrinths of the most gnarled and vexed problems opened to him.

This was the man to give Master James his great lift in preparation for college.

He followed promptly wherever the Quaker master led the way. Week after week, and month after month, and term after term, the drill went on. There were no bounds or limits then, as in academies now, so these were passed as ships pass the equator, or railroad trains pass state or county lines. Hard study was the work of the hour, but hard study made work easy, and this was the secret, of all his progress,—constant study brought constant victory.

When his Grandfather Gillespie died, his father took up the drill in history, and Hume’s England was gone over carefully, beside Marshall’s Life of Washington and a volume of Macaulay’s Essays which he got hold of as a young boy.

His father had a fine, large library, in which he delved by day and night, and aroused his son not only by example to constant application, but also by persistent pressure. Here is the real key to that early career of youthful days so thoroughly utilized,—the father’s intelligent watchfulness, and careful method, and constant direction. Only gauge the wheel to the stream, and the grist to the wheel, and there will be no danger.

The father determined his son should be educated to the utmost, and planned and wrought accordingly. No time was lost, and no undue haste made; it was the persistency of constant pressure that won the day.

His boyhood was a happy, healthy period. He could swim across to Brownsville, discarding both ferry and bridge.

He went nutting with the boys, as is their wont when autumn days are on the woods, and Nature, glorified with a thousand tints of foliage, is, in the poet’s sombre language, “in the sere and yellow leaf.” Black walnuts, butternuts, shellbarks, hickory nuts, and chestnuts rewarded their search, and gladdened winter evenings with their cheer.

There was nothing unnatural about young Blaine. He was no prodigy; no marvel, except of industry and constant training. He was simply a fair exhibition of what a good average boy, well endowed with pluck and brains may become in the hands of good teachers, and under the guidance of intelligent love and the unyielding pressure of a strong paternal will. What his Eulogy says of Garfield is equally true of himself:—“He came of good stock on both sides;—none better, none braver, none truer. There was in it an inheritance of courage, of manhood, and of imperishable love of liberty, of undying adherence to principle.”

Mr. Blaine could also speak of himself as “fifth in descent from those who would not endure the oppression of the Stuarts,” and had fought under Prince Charles in the affair of 1715 and 1723.

So satisfactory had been his progress thus far in the school, that the plan of his education involved, in 1841, sending him to Lancaster, Ohio, where for one term he was in a school taught by a younger brother of Lord Lyons, so long our Minister from England, who according to English law inherited nothing from his father’s estates, the eldest brother receiving all; and so he made his home in the New World, and worthily engaged in training future presidents of the great Republic.

During his term in Lancaster his home was in the family of Hon. Thos. Ewing, his mother’s cousin. Mr. Ewing was a United States Senator when James was born, and entered the Cabinet of President Harrison the year before James’s appearance there as student, as Secretary of the Treasury, and in 1849 in Taylor’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior, both of whom died soon after their inauguration. In 1849 Governor Ford appointed him to the Senate in the place of Hon. Thomas Corwin, who entered Fillmore’s Cabinet.

This first and only term of school away from home and out of that little country school-house in preparation for college, under the broadening influences of such a home and the inspiration of such a teacher, was a long stride forward toward the desired goal. It was a great journey in those days for a boy only eleven years old to make, but it added another large chapter to his already wide range of knowledge and experience.

The other James, only a year younger, was living with his mother in the woods of Orange, in the same state of Ohio, improving the modest privileges of school, and maturing slowly, the winter James G. Blaine spent at Lancaster in the spacious home of that distant relative who had enjoyed all the high honors of the government, next to the presidency.

These boys were probably not over one hundred miles apart that winter, and both at school,—investing more largely in themselves than in all besides, using themselves as capital, their own powers and endowments. Surely no course is wiser, as their careers amply prove. It is gathering what is outside that one may get out what is inside, that is the process of education; not getting what is outside regardless of what is within, that may be developed into treasures of transcendent worth, more valuable than the contents of forest and mine.

American history furnishes few examples of the practical value of cultivated brain more illustrious and potent than James A. Garfield and James G. Blaine, and each the opposite in temperament and opportunity, but both brought up on a farm, and both getting their first start up the hill of knowledge in a country school.

Where are the two boys who, forty or fifty years from now, will take the helm of state and guide the ponderous ship farther on her tireless voyage?

No ever-recurring problem for the nation’s wisdom and the nation’s choice, is greater than this one problem of presidents. It is the nation’s offer of greatness and renown to any boy who, through long years of patient and persistent endeavor, will seek full and honorable preparation for the prize she proffers.

The brief stay at Lancaster was soon over, and James once more harnessed into the old régime at home, with Campbell Beall for teacher, in the same old house that seven years before he entered, a boy of five years old.

In one year he is to pass his examination to enter Washington and Jefferson College, in the village of Washington, their shire-town of three thousand inhabitants, twenty-four miles away. Will he be ready? Much depends on Campbell Beall, much on his father, and much on himself.

The common English branches are well wrought over, languages and mathematics have come to be a delight, and in the old atmosphere, and the old ways, with the old inspiration on him, progress comes anew. Lines of reading from the library are kept up; the papers and magazines are not neglected; political matters are settled; bad news comes in from every quarter; Tyler is at the head of affairs; Ewing has sent in his scathing letter of resignation as Secretary of the Treasury, charging him with violating every promise the Whig party made to the people; but there is no campaign, no voting to be done, so the thing is settled.

Mr. Beall proves a good teacher. The Latin begun at Lancaster is renewed at home, and so the winter goes by. Time seems literally to be alive and drifts like the snow as it goes rushing by. As Benj. F. Taylor has it:—

“How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow,

And the summers, like buds between;

And the year, in its sheaf, so they come and they go

On the river’s breast, with its ebb and its flow,

As it glides thro’ the shadow and sheen.”

Father, mother, teacher, Uncle Will, all seem convinced that James can pass and enter college; so, though only thirteen years of age, his father takes him in the carriage, and they drive over to Washington.

It is a great experience for older heads, but for one so young, a veritable epoch in his history.

It does not take long to convince the president that he has drawn a prize, and he is entered with about forty other bright, smart boys, for the Freshman class in the autumn. After three months of vacation, the great work is to begin in real earnest, and the stuff those boys are made of is to be thoroughly tried and tested.

There was none of the hard, rough, and bitter experience in his boyhood days and early manhood to which so many of our nation’s great men were subjected. He had none of the long and desperate struggles with poverty and adversity which hung on Mr. Garfield’s early years. He knew nothing, by experience, of the privations and hardships through which Mr. Lincoln came to the high honors of the nation and the world, but sprang from the second generation after the Revolutionary war, and from a long line of ancestors who had been large land-owners and gentlemen, in the sense of wealth and education, as well as in that finely cultivated.

III.
IN COLLEGE.

THE summer of 1843 was bright with the anticipations of college life to the eager boy. Manhood seemed dawning upon him, in all its glory. Since his examinations, the great Dr. McConaughy had grasped his hand so kindly and drawn him to his side; then putting his arm around him had said, as he brushed the long, light hair from his forehead,—

“You are a brave boy; I am glad to see you and know you. We shall have a good place ready for you September third, and I shall be glad to see you in my home.”

The president of Washington and Jefferson College could appreciate to the full the fact before him, that this boy, without the aid of high school or academy, was more than ready for the studies and honors of college.

Washington and Jefferson College

The three months of summer were not lost. A general review was had, and particular attention paid to toning him up physically. He would plunge into the river and swim to his heart’s content; dash away on horse-back for a good ride; go over to Brownsville, where they all did their trading, on errands, and regularly for the papers and magazines; go on excursions up and down the river, and, withal, help in the field, especially at harvest-time, and fill up regular hours with his best endeavors at study. So that he was not rusty and broken in habit, when September came; and it came very soon. His going to college was quite an event for the community. The neighbors took pride in it, for James was greatly beloved. His exploits with books were known to all. Teachers had reported his progress and rejoiced in it.

It took a long while to say all the good-byes, but early Monday morning he was off, and soon nicely settled in a good boarding-place, and when the great bell rang out the beginning of new school-year, James G. Blaine was in his place taking in the situation in all its magnitude and interest.

There were one hundred and seventy-five scholars present, all boys and young men. There was a young ladies’ school, or seminary, in another part of the town, but they were entirely separated, and boys and girls were not mingled together, as now in some of our colleges.

James devoted himself strictly to study, and retired promptly at ten o’clock each night. He found himself in a large class of bright, energetic students, full of pranks, jokes, and fun, but still boys of nerve, and pluck, and ample brain; boys who had been well fitted for the task before them, many of them in the preparatory department of the institution itself, so that they were familiar with the place, and had known each other for several years. They were not long in finding that the new boy, who came from down near the big bridge, knew about Greek and Latin grammars, and could read without difficulty when his turn came.

He did not have the town-boy sort of look that many of the others had, but his good manners, and kind, easy ways made them feel and acknowledge that he was a little gentleman, anyhow. His mother had never neglected her boy, and his father, being a professional man, knew the joy and worth of being a gentleman; and, if they had done but little, his grandfather had planted seeds of kindness in him enough to produce a bountiful harvest. He moulded and shaped his ways and manners to the clear, strong model that was never wanting in the old Scottish clans and seems to remain in the very blood and very atmosphere of life and character.

There was nothing brusque or acrid about him. He took on and wore the air and atmosphere of the enlightened, quiet, and cultured home-life in which he was brought up. He was modest and retiring, there for a purpose, and devoted to its accomplishment. It was not hard, distasteful work to him, but a loved and longed-for opportunity. He had no ills or aches to nurse, or trouble him. He felt greatly the absence from home. But he was not off in Ohio now, only four and twenty miles from old, familiar Indian Hill farm. But his books absorbed him; study roused and cheered him; competition electrified and nerved him. Nothing would sting him like missing a question, or any petty failure. But these were few and simple. He took first rank at once, and held it steadily to the end.

His life at college was a comparatively quiet one. He never appeared upon a public exhibition, although he entered the societies, and took part in debates, read essays, contributed to the college paper, and delivered orations.

He was rather retiring in his disposition, and sought rather to be a worshiper at the shrine of knowledge, than as is so often the case, be worshiped.

The quiet reticence and reserve referred to may strike some, owing to their knowledge of his dashing brilliancy of later years. But as a surprise, the modest, unobtrusive habit was happily conducive to study, and served as a guard against many of the intrusions of a student’s life. While kind and affable, he was not of the hail-fellow-well-met order. But he was not a recluse,—no monk with monkish ways. He was a student, through and through, and he loved study; it satisfied him and served his aspirations.

He was a boy no longer; he had come to himself, to self-consciousness; a consciousness of his powers, to a recognition of his own personal identity. Manhood was fast coming on him; he was out of childhood. It was a new world in thought to him, and life at college a new world in fact. He was respected and honored and trusted now, in a sense different from being loved and petted and cared for at home. There was not so much praise, but more power in it. He was on his own responsibility now, and must rely largely upon his own resources. Manliness was the needful quality. It was everywhere in demand. At study it was the prelude to victory; in the recitation-room it was the well-poised harbinger of success, and in association with others it always won. This was just the quality that those who loved him had sought to develop in him, and they had not failed. He would take hold of the hardest task with a marvelous energy of resolve. His will was a strong feature of his personality. It was an element of power that served him now. He had reached a long-sought height and was pushing on.

Good teachers are not long in finding good scholars in a new class. They look for them as a miner watches for gold, and prize them as highly. There was such a teacher in the faculty at Washington, and to Professor Murray Mr. Blaine feels a deep and lasting debt of gratitude.

Like all good teachers, he felt the dignity and power of his profession. He could help the weakest into strength, and put a window in the darkest mind by his varied questionings, illustrations, suggestions, and explanations. He was quiet, but forceful, genial, but severe if laziness or wanton disregard showed its hydra head. In his own peculiar way, by virtue of an immense personality, he would light up and enthuse a whole class-room.

The Professor found in young Blaine a pupil to his mind, and James found in the teacher just the man of his heart. He learned to love him. A genuine teacher can incarnate himself in his pupils, just as Napoleon seemed to reproduce himself in his armies, firing them with his spirit, arming them with his purpose, so that they would move with the solid impetuosity of his own daring, scaling the Alps, triumphing at Austerlitz, until they came to look, and breathe, and act him out long after; but Professor Murray was training men and citizens of the great Republic. His was a solemn, sacred work, of grave responsibility. It was worthy of life and manhood’s strength and prime, as the great ideals which burned in the heat of his glowing life fully assured him.

To sit in such a light, to dwell in such a presence, was to be lead over the fields of conquest by the hand of Alexander after he had conquered the world. No wonder this man is loved and honored, and his memory cherished sacredly.

Outside of the regular college course, Mr. Blaine read through the New Testament in Greek with him three times. This was a Sunday Bible-class exercise, and shows how deeply his mind became imbued with the truths of the Christian religion, which have since made him a devoted member of the Congregational Church in Augusta, Maine.

James was no book-worm in college. He was a severe, close student. This was his chief business there. He was on his honor, and loved his work, and so did it well.

Prof. E. B. Neely, superintendent of schools in St. Joseph, Mo., an old class-mate, says of him:—

“James G. Blaine was always looked up to as a leader, by his class-mates, being universally recognized as such. While a close student, he was genial in his habits, and decidedly popular with all, being the very reverse of what is known as a book-worm.”

This is just what those who know him now have reason to expect was the case, and yet it is very remarkable, from the fact that he was seventeen and a half years of age when he graduated, and in a large class of thirty-three, seventeen of whom entered the Christian ministry.

At the end he was one of those to divide the honors of his class, and here again we are indebted to Professor Neely.

“Third, by reference to my class-book you will see that at the time he graduated Mr. Blaine was given the second of the three honors of the occasion. The first, the Latin salutatory, was delivered by Jno. C. Hervey, of Virginia; the second, English salutatory, by James G. Blaine, of Pennsylvania; and the third, Greek salutatory, by T. W. Porter, of Pennsylvania.”

When Mr. Blaine graduated he delivered a masterly oration, most of which he can speak to-day, after a lapse of thirty-seven years. The subject was,—“The Rights and Duties of American Citizens.” How fitting such a theme for such a man, and how admirably it shows his trend of mind!

During his course at college, in 1844, occurred the great campaign of Henry Clay. It had been Mr. Blaine’s privilege to meet Mr. Clay, and he took the liveliest interest conceivable in the contest. He was a very positive man, decided and aggressive, especially in his political opinions. Of course the great question of the day was debated in the college-society, and Mr. Blaine was on hand. He usually was on such occasions, and had a large part in the discussion. He was so well read in the history of the country and of parties, had entered so into the merits of the campaign of General Harrison, four years before, that with all his growth and acquisitions since, he was well qualified to take his position and maintain it against all who chose a tilt with him. His was the force of accumulated strength, the weight of reserved power. He was so full of his subject, that it seemed to require no effort to bring out the facts and figures and formulate the arguments that demolished his antagonist. He joined, as if by instinct, the fresh young Whig party of progress and of power. Clay was their idol, and this was the hour of his destiny. No young life was ever given with more ardent devotion to any cause than did the young collegian give heart and thought, sympathy and endeavor, to the star so surely rising. He lead in the fight among the boys, and won the day; and wherever voice or influence could reach, he energized others with the wholesome truths of political equity, justice, and common sense that filled his soul. No wonder his theme on Commencement day was so near the nation’s life. It was near his heart, and so his first great triumph was celebrated by considering, back in those times of the slave-power, Rights and Duties of American Citizenship.

Washington and Jefferson College was famous in those days for sending forth great men. It was a great institution of the times. Indeed, it was two colleges united. Jefferson College had been located at Connersburgh, some four miles distant, and was merged into Washington College at Washington.

This gave increased advantage in picked teachers, fuller endowment, larger classes, and better appliances. To go to such an institution, a mere boy and a total stranger, and take the lead and keep it through his entire course, argues for the mental power and furnishing of the boy, as well as his other qualities of heart and character. He led his class in mathematics, as a fellow-student testifies, and thus showed the unabated influence of his old Quaker teacher, Solomon Phillips.

The college-library was a great resort for him, a sort of second home. Here he could delve, with no thought of time or weariness. It was his delight and joy. Books seemed a part of him; he was seldom without them, and yet he utilized, by good mental digestion and strong powers of assimilation, the substance of what he read. He ranged over a wide field, principally of English works then, as works of American authors were comparatively few. Indeed, it is only within the last quarter of a century the sneer, “Who reads an American book?” has ceased to sting. Vacation was his busiest time with books. He was never empty, but always full.

But all his study and meditation; all his reading, thought, and observation; all he had gleaned, gathered, and garnered from books, teachings, and associations; all that had come to him from newspapers, periodicals, travel, great men, found their fitting and powerful culmination in the great oration he delivered on Commencement day, in June, 1847. It was sound and convincing, patriotic and manly, and would do credit to any graduate to-day, though twice his age. It was the key-note of a life-long career, which has ever since been urging in a most potent way the rights, and discharging the duties of American citizenship.

IV.
TEACHING IN KENTUCKY.

THE world opened grandly to young Blaine at his graduation. His college course had been a triumph, his reception home an ovation. The heart of the great class beat with his; their hopes were justly high, and high especially for him whom they had learned to love and honor. His power to make friends and hold them was remarkable. Those who knew him best loved him most.

One who knew so much of the world must see some of it, and as yet he had traveled but little; but a good rest is taken, and the summer spent at home. Old, familiar scenes are viewed through larger eyes. Books are reviewed, fresh volumes read; the news, home and foreign, is seized with a new avidity by one whose business of life is just beginning. As yet, though, he has not been earning money, he has gained something he can never lose, and that can never be stolen or borrowed from him. It is his fortune; his father’s wise plan has been carried out, and he is ready for business now. A call comes for a teacher in Blue Licks Military Academy, at Georgetown, Kentucky, and he is selected and recommended by the faculty for the place. He has never taught an hour. Shall he go? He knows enough, has good command of himself, and from careful observation, a fair knowledge of methods. He believes he can do it, for, as yet, he has never failed, and has always been able to make himself understood, whether in private conversations and discussions, or society debates in college.

The question is decided. He is to receive a salary of five hundred dollars a year, while boys of his age are working for eight and ten dollars a month. It is a man’s work. He is to start September first, and he will not be eighteen years old until January. There is not a hair on his face. But there is a man within, strong in manly powers, and rich in stores of knowledge.

He had a fine address, clear and strong of speech, large lustrous eyes, fine conversational powers, and in all respects, of good appearance. His youth was in his favor, since it made his accomplishments all the more marvelous. He had been well written up and highly recommended before going, so that anticipations were high on both sides.

It was harder than ever to say good-bye, especially for mother and son, but it must be done. They recalled the time when their ancestors left native land across the seas, to come to this country, and were reconciled. His father and Uncle Will tried the name of Professor on him before he started, and it seemed to fit, though at first it startled him. It weighed him down with the gravity of his position, and drove the last remnant of pedantry from him. He declined a tall hat and discarded a cane. He was simple, genuine, and true, and went for just what he was worth.

The trip to Pittsburgh, and down the river to Louisville, and out to Georgetown by public conveyance, was full of interest to him, because it was his country he was seeing. A steam-boat explosion, and talk of an insurrection among the negroes, made him a little nervous. But the fact that he was going to the state of Henry Clay, gave him a sort of home feeling, and made him feel they were his sort of folks, and then some of the students were from down that way, and he had met several of the public men from Kentucky, besides Mr. Clay.

There happened to be an old Jacksonian Democrat in the stage-coach, who had been attracted to the young professor by his manly bearing, his quiet urbanity, which cost him no effort, and especially by his politeness in giving a lady from the Blue Grass region a back seat, insisting “that she take it” in a most gentlemanly manner, while he took a far less comfortable one, riding backward. This brought him face to face with a full-blooded Kentuckian of the old type.

“You are a native of the soil, I take it, sir?”

“Yes, sir, but not of this state.”

“Of what state, may I ask?”

“The Keystone state of Pennsylvania, sir,” with a suppressed air of pride.

“Indeed, then you are from the North?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Clay has a good many friends up there, has he not?”

“Yes, sir, a great many.”

“Well, it was an awful whipping he got.”

“Yes, and he did not deserve it.”

“Didn’t deserve it?”

“I think not; he is a royal man, and would have made an excellent president, in my judgment.”

“If he had not been a Whig; that spoils him. Strange how much good and smartness a man may have, and not have good sense.”

“But he has good sense, in my judgment, if you will pardon me.”

“Young man, slavery is a Divine institution. That is fixed; the Bible decides that!”

These words were said with great emphasis.

“Then what of the Declaration of Independence; does that conflict with the Bible? Is that a Divine institution?”

The man was puzzled, but finally said,—

“Well, the Bible don’t have to agree with everything.”

James had just finished the study of the Constitution, of Political Economy, of Moral Science, was thoroughly posted regarding political parties and all the great questions of the day, and slavery had a black, villanous look to him. Some of the sights he had witnessed had roused his blood, and taking it altogether he was ready for quite a campaign.

He had never been placed under any particular restraint, but had talked right out the best he knew how, and so followed the person up who encountered him pretty closely, until the questions were all answered to their satisfaction, and a few difficult ones asked to his satisfaction. But when the identical lady whom he had favored with a seat, asked right out,—“Would you marry a nigger?” he seemed lifted from his moorings all at once, and replied almost instantly, without inspecting his words,—“No, ma’am, would you?” A fair amount of indignation was in the air, without any perceptible delay, and sundry epithets, so common in those days, such as “nigger-lover,” “nigger-stealer,” and “black abolitionist,” found expression. James’ only apology was,—

“Madame, I only asked you the very respectful and lady-like question you had so kindly asked me.”

“I admire your courage and independence of character, sir,” said a young lady opposite, with some warmth, who, though rather large, and with a look of rare intelligence, and a voice of peculiar sweetness and volume, was evidently still in her teens,—possibly sweet sixteen, in its fullest glory.

The driver stopped at the foot of a big hill, and, as was their privilege, several passengers got out to walk up the hill. James was among their number. It was a real relief to be in the open air.

“Give us your hand, young man,” said a fellow-passenger, as the stage passed on. “I like yer pluck; brains is good, but it ain’t much without pluck. I tell you, you sot the truth right home that time. You are a right smart kind of a boy. Do they raise meny sich up in the old Keystone or Yellowstone—What did you call it? I reckon that that Missis was right down put out when you axed her what she axed you. But, then, they do say a heap of jokers don’t like to be joked. But my rule is, tit-for-tat. I tell you, a little nip and tuck now and then is a mighty edicating sort of thing, and I guess you’ve been educated, haven’t you?”

James shook hands and followed up the conversation until the top of the hill was reached.

All had a good dinner, and felt better.

It was a simple act of courtesy which the occasion demanded, to help the young lady of sixteen, more or less, from the coach, as she was ready to step out after James had alighted, and as she thanked him very graciously he could but offer to escort her to the table, and with rare good grace she assented.

James had done such things before, and done them very handsomely, in connection with their college-exhibitions and socials in the town, to which he occasionally went.

Kentucky is a great country for quail, and the colored cook had broiled and buttered them that day exactly to the taste of an epicurean. They were simply delicious, and just in season. They enjoyed them hugely, and chatted with the cheer and gusto of old friends, mostly speaking of the glories of the North, in which they perfectly agreed, and upon their homes. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin” may be true or not, but that little touch of nature in the stage-coach had made them kin.

Another fresh brace of the savory quails had just been placed before them, when the coach dashed around to the door, and the lusty voice of the driver crying “All aboard!” resounded through the hall and open door of the dining-room.

There was no alternative, so without delay they resumed their old seats, and conversation was discontinued.

The political status of the company had been pretty well defined, and James had made two friends, the names of neither of whom, however, he had learned.

There was a lull in the conversation, and James was going over his scheme of study and recitations for the twentieth time, when at three o’clock Georgetown was announced. He bade his two friends good-bye, and expressed the hope that all would enjoy their journey.

The stage had but just started, when the old Jacksonian said, “I dunno but the boy is more n’r half right, anyhow.” The young lady knew he was, but the lady number one did not know about it.

“Well, it’s mighty sartin the Declaration is agin’ Slavery, and the Bible can’t stand up for both, nohow,” said the man who walked up the hill with James.

James was now in his lodgings, and liked the looks of things. He had just brushed and dusted up when he heard the tap of a drum, and looking out he saw a line of cadets forming, and ascertaining that that was the academy, he walked over and saw one hundred and fifty fine-looking young men, handsomely uniformed, each with a musket, marching to music of fife and drum. They stood erect and stepped together. It was a fine sight to him. They went through the evolutions, marked time, marched, and countermarched.

The entire faculty were present. He ventured in, and soon heard a messenger announce that Mr. Blaine had come, but he had missed him. He simply said, “I am Mr. Blaine,” and the Principal grasped his hand with evident delight, placing his left hand upon his shoulder and saying, “I am glad to see you, Mr. Blaine,” and introduced him to the other teachers, and then turning to the students he said, “Battalion, permit me to present to you our new professor, James G. Blaine, of Washington, Pennsylvania; you will please receive him at present arms”; instinctively Mr. Blaine removed his hat in recognition of his reception. “Perhaps you have a word for the boys,” said the Principal, and the battalion was brought to a “shoulder arms,” an “order arms,” and then to a “parade rest,” when, stepping forward, he said,—“I am glad to see you, gentlemen, in such fine form and spirit, and so accomplished at your drill, for I watched you several moments yonder, unobserved. We had nothing of this kind where I studied, but I think it must be a fine thing for you. I hope you will never be needed in your country’s service, though it does begin to look a little as though there might possibly be war with Mexico. But as I have been nearly two weeks on my journey, and as we shall have ample time to get acquainted, I will not detain you longer.”

Three cheers were proposed for Professor Blaine, and given with a will. The Professor was the lion of the hour.

The Principal said, “You will take tea with me, Professor Blaine?”

“With great pleasure.”

And to the other professors, “You will please take tea with Professor Blaine, at my house.”

The hour spent in the study with the Principal was not without a purpose on his part. It confirmed all that Doctor McConaughy and Professor Murray had written about him, and afforded certain knowledge that they had drawn a prize. By an adroit, yet careless method of conversation, introducing a general discussion of the textbooks of the day, with their general contents, their defects and excellences, the great knowledge of the new man was made evident, and it was not restricted to the mere curriculum of studies.

“Surely,” thought he, “I am in for it now in earnest,” as he was left alone for a few moments while his host went down to receive his other guests.

There was not a soul within three hundred miles who would think of calling him Jim Blaine, or Jimmy, nor dare to, if by some strange, unnatural process it did occur to him.

He was treated, respected, and honored as a man and a scholar. The world had opened to him, and he had entered. It was well there was no show or shoddy about him, and he knew it. The stamp of the mint was on him, and he passed at par, with the ring of honest coin.

There is a power in some men to meet any emergency when it is fairly on them. They rise with the tide, become a part of the occasion, and adjust themselves to it with a quiet dignity. He had this power, and felt it on him now. As he was going down-stairs to be presented to the ladies, he said to himself, as he threw back his hair with a quick, decided toss, “No politics to-night”; and this prolific subject was mentally abjured.

They received him as an equal, spoke of the favorable opinion they all entertained of him, and the joy his coming had given them.

He thanked them, and spoke of the pleasure he experienced in coming to a state so great in the nation’s life.

It was a matter of conscience with Professor Blaine to know where he was going and where he had been, so that he had made his own state as well as that of Ohio where he had spent the term at school, and the state of Kentucky, a special study; so that when they were fairly seated at table, and after repeated questions had been asked, he fairly eclipsed all his former attempts at conversation, by the brilliancy of his historical allusions, extending far back into colonial days.

He had learned, by his early drill in Plutarch’s Lives, where a brief biography of a Roman and a Greek are alternately given, and then comparisons and contrasts between them introduced, so to deal with states and individuals. He had thus dealt with political parties and their leaders, but not to-night. This method helped him greatly.

Events, dates, names, places, fell into line and were marshalled like troops just when the drum tapped, or the word of command was given. They all seemed amazed; an hour passed by; material sufficient for a half-dozen Fourth of July orations had been given. A veritable panorama of those three great states, three of the greatest in the Union, seemed to march before them in sections and decades.

The members of the faculty, who understood very well what it was to know and to talk, had some very complimentary things to say. He had won them all, so unobtrusive was he, and entirely at his ease, withal.

Monday morning, at nine o’clock, twenty-eight young men marched into the school-room and faced him as their teacher, twelve of them older than himself. They had taken his measure when on drill, and felt honored to call him teacher.

They were from the best families of the state, were clad in bright uniforms, and sat erect. Mathematics was the first recitation. He looked around almost instinctively for Solomon Phillips or Professor Murray, but they were not there. He was on the platform, not in the seats. He must lead off. A list of names had been furnished him. As he read them over, calling each name by itself, the scholar came forward and received a hearty shake of the hand, and was photographed at once in the mind of the teacher. This was the work of but a few minutes, yet it recognized each one of them, and made them feel acquainted. No other teacher had done this, but it was something they could tell of, write home about, and made them say,—“He is a fine man; I like him.”

He then told them many things about mathematics as a science, its power in intellectual development, and its great value in the practical business of life; its place in astronomy and engineering, in naval and military operations, and the certainty with which it assures the mind.

It was a simple, quiet talk, illustrated in various ways by references to the book and the sciences spoken of. He thus drew them nearer to himself, and removed the dread with which so many approach the vexed subject of mathematics. This class was in algebra, on at cube root, doing pretty solid work. The ground was familiar to him. Problem after problem had been performed; the whole class seemed roused to a new interest, and in stepped the Principal, but the work went on. Every blackboard was in use; it was a busy scene; there were no idlers there.

“Never touch a problem hereafter,” he said, “unless you are certain you have the rule fixed in your minds. Do not forget this, and if you have that clear, then ask yourself, in case of difficulty, ‘What axiom shall I use next?’ for you must keep using them, as you do the letters of the alphabet, over and over again.

“One thing more: we are going to have hard, quick work done in this room, and be sure now that every one gets ready for it, and we will have a splendid time.”

Mr. Blaine’s resources had never been drawn on before in any real, business-like way. But it was an experience he was ready for, and he liked it. He next had a class in Latin, and then in United States history. He could not have been better suited in studies. They were just the ones that delighted him. Christmas seemed to come that year on wings, and soon the spring-time was on them, and the picnic season.

He had shut himself up closely to his work. Visitors had abounded, but he accepted but few of the invitations that were given. He did not even accept any one of several invitations to spend the holidays with students at their homes. A short trip to Lexington and Frankfort satisfied, and he was back at work.

The literature of every subject connected with his recitations must he read up carefully, and every spare hour was devoted to these lines of study.

But he did go to the annual picnic. He was part of the school, and he must go. Everybody went, seemingly. It was a sectional affair; other schools were there. He met a familiar face: it was a lady’s; who could it be?

She recognized him, and bowed. He returned it. He awoke as from a revery, he had so lived in his work; and being worried with the question, “Where have I seen that face,” traced it at once to the stage-coach. They were introduced.

It was Miss Hattie Stanwood, of Augusta, Maine. She also was teaching school, not far away. It was quite the thing in that day for well-educated New England girls or young ladies to go South and teach school.

They had remembered each other through the winter, but neither knew the other’s name, address, or occupation. Now all was clear. Thoughts and dreams were actualized. It was a marvel, almost a miracle, that they should meet.

The picnic had no further charms for them. They quietly strolled away together over the hills after the lunch was served, and for three full hours they lived in each other’s lives. They seemed strangely near to each other, and a peculiar peaceful joy seemed living in their hearts. It had evidently come to stay. None other ever seemed to be so needful to life itself. No formal words were spoken, only cards exchanged and carefully preserved. In two weeks her school would close, and she would spend the summer northward at her home, and he would take a long trip southward through various states, and see what could be seen as far down as New Orleans. They spent two afternoons in each other’s company before the time of departure came; correspondence was agreed upon, and in the autumn they would meet and renew acquaintance in the old posts of duty. Some slight tokens were exchanged, and as they must they nerved brave hearts for a long and perilous separation.

When the time for their departure came they were found seated side by side in the same old coach, for Louisville. The ride was much shorter and far more pleasant in that rich and beauteous spring-time than in the ripe and luscious autumn before.

Politics was a barren subject now. Homes were admired as they passed along; bits of sentiment indulged; snatches of song and lines of poetry; much sober, sensible talk filled in the hours which served as a needed respite to minds kept hard at thought throughout the year.

The future loomed up, real and grand. Their lives took on a glow of interest and earnestness of hope they never had known. There seemed to be a reason in them now, before unseen. They felt their worth and knew their joy, as it was never felt or known before.

Mr. Blaine took his southern trip, and made business of it. He knew the history of all that country, every state and town.

It had a vastly different look to him from any region of the North which he had visited. Slavery was the hideous monstrosity of evil that met him everywhere. It was to him the great contradiction and condemnation of the South.

He had heard and heard, but determined to see for himself, and see he did. There was much that seemed pleasant in plantation-life, but when he went to the slave-pens and the slave-auctions, and saw families broken and sold asunder, and heard their cries, and saw the blows,—their only recognition,—his patriot-blood boiled fiercely in his veins. It was enough. He sought his old home, and spent a happy month or more with its loved ones, those who rejoiced with him greatly over the achievements of the year.

Miss Stanwood made her journey northward amid all the loveliness of Nature, and arrived home far more the woman than when she left. Life was more real and earnest now, and filled with larger hopes. She was charmed with the South, and had strange longings to return. But letters are tell-tale things, for men, without any special reason, will write a great, bold hand.

James was able to lay two hundred dollars on the table on his return, and entertained them by the hour with stories of the South. He had seen much gambling and drinking, many bowie knives and revolvers, and seen many splendid specimens of men.

He was filled with its beauties and glories, and with its generous, kindly hospitalities. It was a region so historic, so immense in possibilities, so alive and magnificent with the old ante-bellum greatness, and splendor of cities and homes; so many graduates from Yale and Harvard, which had been a dream of fame and greatness ever to him; so many men of leisure, and, withal, so much to see; so much of pleasing, thrilling interest; so much stir and life, that weeks passed by.

He spent parts of two winters in New Orleans. He was, in fact, a southern man for the time. His business was in the South, and his great social powers gave him friends and entrance everywhere.

The kind letters of his fellow-teachers,—Colonel Thorndike F. Johnson, the principal of the Academy, and Colonel Bushrod Johnson, after of the Confederate army,—gave him many pleasing acquaintances. This was twelve or fourteen years before the war. The political business and educational interests of the country were a unit. There was no talk of rebels or of treason. The prominent men of the country, politically, were largely from the South. The presidents had been selected largely from that section, and the political contests throughout were carried on by parties whose strongholds were North and South. Only the summer before, President Polk had made a tour through the Middle and Eastern states, going eastward as far as Portland, Maine, and was received with every demonstration of respect. Nathan Clifford, of Maine, was his Attorney-general, and Mr. Bancroft, his Minister to England.

Mr. Blaine’s father had moved to Washington, as he was prothonotary of the courts, during his term at college, so that he had made his home with them during some of these years, and the remainder of the time with a Mrs. Acheson. He had ample opportunity to renew acquaintance with old friends; with Prof. Wm. P. Aldrich, who had drilled him so faithfully in mathematics: with Prof. Richard Henry Lee, grandson of Richard Henry Lee, of the Revolutionary war, who was his professor of rhetoric and belle-lettres; with his firm friend, Professor Murray, who so inspired him in the study of the languages, and gave Mr. Blaine a regular theological drill in the study of Greek, that most perfect receptacle of human thought, in all its shades and vastness, even now,—a language which took up Christ, his kingdom, and his mission, thoughts and doctrines, and perpetuated them for the world.

No drill is more highly intellectual, more conducive of fine taste, good judgment, and accuracy, than the study of the Greek; and this he had under the master-hand.

To Prof. Richard Henry Lee may be traced the training of power so brilliantly displayed in Mr. Blaine’s forensic efforts and on the stump.

To renew acquaintance with these men, and a multitude of other friends, was a part of his great pleasure. He was fresh and full as ever, taller by an inch, and larger every way. He no longer seemed to them a boy, but had the air and manners of a man, and yet his laugh was as merry and hearty, his shake of the hand as vigorous and friendly as ever.

The sunny South shone full upon them in the fresh report he brought. It was a goodly land, and he had made it a study, bringing to bear all his power of close observation.

He had taken his course at college principally for the sake of study, simply, and the knowledge he gained; but the prominent thought in his mind had been journalism. This had not been his purpose in education, but simply a chief idea in his mind rather than a chosen aim in life. So that with this thought within him, and the habit of seeing everything on him, but little escaped the wide range of his vision during his southern journeyings.

Of course when home he did not ignore the old college-library. It was a resort so greatly loved, and almost sacred.

But when the hour struck he was eager to be off for his post of duty,—Kentucky. Promptness and despatch were ever elements of power with him. He reached Georgetown ahead of time, and was rested and in readiness when the new year of work began, and it was a year of hard, steady, constant work with him. He not only had now a reputation to sustain, but to be greatly advanced. That a man stops growing when he is satisfied, was a thing perfectly understood by him. A man without ambition is dead while he lives, and the one content to live with his head over his shoulder may as well be turned into a pillar of salt. It is the men who look ahead, and who look up who have a future. A backward look is a downward look to them.

Competition was strong at the academy. Enthusiasm was great. Professor Blaine had done much to arouse it, but all unconsciously. He had held steadily to his fixed habits of study, preparing carefully for each recitation himself, permitting no shams in his class-room. The military discipline at the institution aided greatly its matter of discipline. Life and energy were everywhere manifest.

And so the year passed with nothing special worthy of note, except the amount of real work performed, and the large measure of success achieved.

Acquaintance with his lady friend was early renewed and pleasantly continued. It had much to do with the inspiration of the present and in shaping his future. Of course it was kept a profound secret, and no one in Kentucky permitted to know that they were aught to each other except chance friends, and indeed in point of formal fact they were not until near the close of the year, when the crisis came; but the young professor was a gallant knight, and had occasion required might readily have performed some thrilling act of knighthood that would have set the neighborhood agog, for none can doubt he had it in him even then. Milder methods have ever been his rule, except emergency arise, and then he arises with it.