V.A NEW FIELD.
T
THE years at Georgetown reviewed and solidified the work of his student scholarly life thus far, beside carrying him forward to new fields of conquest. Courtship could not interfere with study and with work, and it did not.
This new relationship had changed somewhat the plan of life. Other years could be but a repetition of the two now nearly passed, so that while he was in the line of promotion and in a place to grow, it was not just the thing, so he relinquished his professorship and went northward.
These years had been eventful in the history of the country. The Mexican war had been fought, and General Taylor, its hero, elected and inaugurated president. Both were triumphs of the Slave-Power.
President Polk had taken part in the ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of General Taylor, and gone to his home in Tennesseeby way of Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, only to die on the 15th of June, 1849, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.
The cholera was raging in the South “like a desolating blast. It swept over the valley of the Mississippi, carrying off thousands with the suddenness of the plagues of the old world.” The South was surely no place for northerners at such a time.
The great gold-fever of California was on the country, and scores were hurrying to the Pacific coast. But Mr. Blaine had no taste for adventure,—no thirst for gold. He was a man of books and a man of affairs, profoundly interested in all that pertained to the country, but too young as yet either to hold office or vote.
He took his last winter’s journey to the South, and returned home to find his father near his end, at the age of fifty-five years.
James was now twenty years old, and the pressure of new responsibilities was on him. His attention is turned to business matters, and he displays the same capacity and aptitude which in fuller power have characterized him.
He early became impressed with the extent and richness of the great coal-fields of Pennsylvania, and before he was thirty years of age made those investments which have so enriched him in later years.
It is the part of wisdom and sagacity in men to make the most of their first years, or the first half of life. This is an eminent feature in the career of Mr. Blaine. There are no wasted years in his life; no baneful habits to destroy his energies or dry up the fountain of his joys. He is a clean, strong, vigorous man, and is able to celebrate the year of his majority with a more extensive preparation and experience as scholar, teacher, traveler, and man of business, and a brighter outlook for life, than falls to the lot of many young Americans.
In this year of 1851 transpired the event more propitious than any other. It was his marriage, at Pittsburgh, to Miss Hattie Stanwood, the present Mrs. Blaine, a lady of fine culture and rare good sense, who loves her home with the devotion of a true wife and noble mother.
It would require the sagacity of a sage to have predicted the future of Mr. Blaine, had it not been his kindly fortune to have his life crowned with so much of goodness, wisdom, intelligence, and love, as is found in the companion of his honors and joys.
Six children, now living, have come in these years to honor their wedded life;—a goodly family indeed.
It is perhaps not unworthy of remark thatduring an entire century of the nation’s life, but one old bachelor was ever elected president, and he the last resort of an expiring Democracy.
From 1852 to 1854 Mr. Blaine was principal teacher in the Institution for the Blind at Philadelphia, meanwhile reading law in the office of Theodore Cuyler, who became a leading lawyer in that famed city, eminent for the greatness of the members of its bar.
These quiet years of reading and study and teaching in a great degree fitted Mr. Blaine for his career as a statesman.
He fitted himself for admission to the bar, but never committed himself to the practice of the profession by assuming its functions. The love of journalism would not die. It was in his heart. The time had come to give it light and opportunity. Often had the attractions of the Pine Tree state been presented to him by Mrs. Blaine in all the glowing colors with which youth is accustomed to paint the scenes that lie near its heart. No state had the charms for her possessed by the state of Maine. Here she was born, and here those dearest to her resided.
As yet they had not settled down for life. The time had come for their decision. Her powers of argument, and its very eloquence of oratory, without aught of noise and gesture, but ofsimple and quiet way, were brought into requisition, and it was decided not to go west and grow up with the country, but go east and grow where greatness has its models.
Maine has never wanted for great men; she had them then, she has them to-day.
In 1854 Mr. Blaine removed with his family to Augusta, the capital city of Maine, where he has since resided.
He purchased, with Joseph Baker, theKennebec Journal, founded in 1823.
Now, the political field could be reviewed and studied at will; the political arena was entered. The paper had been first started by a meeting of the principal citizens to found a Republican paper, and such it was in real earnest. No longer the secluded life of the student, or the quiet life of the teacher.
Embarking in journalism at such a time was like embarking on the sea, where storms and collisions abound; where icebergs show themselves, and rocks and reefs are found. No country has more political storms and commotions, perhaps, than America. They are of all kinds and sizes, from city, town, county, up to state and national storms, and blows, hurricanes, and tempests. In those times of the slave oligarchy, they beat with a fury unknown to-day. Sometimes they were fierce in theircruelty. It was a fight of great learning and profound convictions on both sides, a fight of dearest principle and of Christian faith.
President Taylor had died on the 9th of July, 1850, and Millard Fillmore served out his term of office. March 4, 1853, Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, who, in 1846, had declined to be Attorney-general in President Polk’s cabinet; also an appointment of United States Senator by Governor Steele, and the Democratic nomination for Governor, but had plunged into the Mexican war and won his honors there, and who stood at the head of the New Hampshire bar, was inaugurated President, and ruled the nation when Mr. Blaine became an editor. He had a powerful cabinet, who, of course, were among the prominent public men of the time.
When Mr. Blaine entered political life, though not of his ilk, there were William L. Marcy, of New York, Secretary of State; Robert M’Clelland, of Michigan, Secretary of the Interior; James Guthrie, of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Secretary of War; James Dobbins, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, Attorney-general, and James Campbell, of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-general. Webster, Corwin, Stuart, Conrad, Graham, Crittenden, and Hall had been in Mr. Fillmore’scabinet. The time for Republican victory was drawing nigh, and the young editor was in position to help bring it on.
It was the centennial of the city’s history. The celebration was very beautiful, an account of which appeared in Mr. Blaine’s paper, theKennebec Journal, of July 6, 1854, and seemed auspicious of his arrival in the city, and the inauguration of his work.
Augusta is about midway between towns that boast two of the leading institutions of learning in the state, Colby University at Waterville, and Bowdoin College at Brunswick, where Longfellow graduated, and his class-mate, Hon. James W. Bradbury, who was, about this time, United States Senator from Maine, when the great men of the nation,—Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Douglas, Cass, and others,—were discussing in the senate the constitutional and slavery questions involved in the compromise measures.
It was a time and place where great historic interests centered. It had been the scene of grave military operations, a fort and outposts on the nation’s frontier, less than a hundred years before, had been conspicuous in the French and Indian wars.
The mind of Blaine was not long, with his practical methods of historic research, in threading out lines of history, entering the labyrinths ofknowledge of a mighty past, and a great and wondrous present, boxing the compass historically, as it were, until he knew the past and present of his adopted state, and of New England, as he had known his native state.
He came with no beat of drum and blare of trumpet, but quietly, with no parade or display, and went to work with good grace and strong determination. He brought his capital with him. It had not been embezzled, nor squandered, nor stolen. It was in a portable bank in which he had been depositing his investments, or investing his deposits, steadily for nearly twenty years. Already he had drawn compound interest, and yet, unlike air, water or money, the more he drew, the more there was on deposit, bright and clear with the polish of the mint. He had invested in solid, reliable knowledge and education. He had taken stock in James G. Blaine, taught and trained him to think, to know, to talk, to write, and act. There is always a demand for just such men. Communities want them, the state and nation wants them. From the distant South, explored and carefully surveyed and estimated, he had come to the farthermost North and East, and here for life his home is to be.