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

Background

Secretary of State James Blaine of Maine was born in West Brownsville, Washington County, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. He was the great-grandson of Col. Ephraim Blaine (1741 - 1804), who during the American War of Independence served in the American army from 1778 to 1782 as commissary-general of the Northern Department.

With many early evidences of literary capacity and political aptitude, James Blaine graduated at Washington College (now Washington and Jefferson College) in nearby Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1847, where Blaine was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Subsequently, Blaine taught at the Western Military Institute in Blue Lick Springs, Kentucky, and from 1852 to 1854, he taught at the Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind in Philadelphia. During this period, also, he studied law. Blaine married Harriet Stanwood on June 30, 1850.

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

Editorial work was soon abandoned for a more active public career. Blaine served as a member in the Maine House of Representatives from 1859 to 1862, serving the last two years as Speaker of the House. He also became chairman of the Republican state committee in 1859, and for more than 20 years personally directed every campaign of his party. Among Blaine's adoring admirers, he was known as the "Plumed Knight."

Congressional career

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

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

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

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

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

James G. Blaine

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

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

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

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

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