d political
enemies charged that it was due to jealousy of President Grant. Mr.
Blaine was a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination the
following year. It was a well-known fact that President Grant was not
favorable to Mr. Blaine's nomination, but was in sympathy with the
movement to have Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York, Mr. Blaine's
bitterest political enemy, nominated. Mr. Blaine was afraid, his enemies
asserted, that, if the Federal Elections Bill,--under the provisions of
which great additional power would have been conferred upon the
President,--had become a law, that power would be used to defeat his
nomination for the Presidency in 1876; hence his opposition to the Bill.
But, whatever his motives were, his successful opposition to that
measure no doubt resulted in his failure to realize the ambition of his
life,--the Presidency of the United States. But for the stand he took
on that occasion, he would probably have received sufficient support
from Southern delegates in the National Convention to secure him the
nomination, and, had he been nominated at that time, the probabilities
are that he would have been elected. But his opposition to that bill
practically solidified the Southern delegates in that convention against
him, and as a result he was defeated for the nomination, although he was
the choice of a majority of the Northern delegates.

Even when Blaine received the nomination in 1884 it was developed that
it could not have happened had the Southern delegates been as solidly
against him at that time as they were in 1876. But by 1884 the Southern
Republicans had somewhat relented in their opposition to him, and, as a
result thereof, he received sufficient support from that section to give
him the nomination. But he was defeated at the polls because the South
was solid against him,--a condition which was made possible by his own
action in defeating the Federal Elections Bill in 1875. In consequence
of his action in that matter he was severely criticised and censured by
Republicans generally, and by Southern Republicans especially.

Although I was not favorable to his nomination for the Presidency at any
time, my relations with Mr. Blaine had been so cordial that I felt at
liberty to seek him and ask him, for my own satisfaction and
information, an explanation of his action in opposing and defeating the
Federal Elections Bill. I therefore went to him just before the final
adjournment of the