n years thereafter, being governor of the
state at the time of his death in 1883. A more contradictory, obstinate,
prickly-conscienced man never appeared in American politics.

* * * * *

So passed the era of the Civil War. Have we had any great statesmen
since? Some near-great ones, perhaps, but none of the very first rank.
Great men are moulded by great events, or, at least, require great
events to prove their greatness. Let us pause a moment, however, to pay
tribute to one of the most accomplished party leaders in American
history--a man almost to rank with Henry Clay--James G. Blaine.

As a young editor from Maine, he had entered Congress in 1863. There he
had encountered another fiery youngster in Roscoe Conkling, and an
intense rivalry sprang up between them. They were very different in
temperament, Blaine being the more popular, Conkling the more brilliant.
Blaine had a genius for making friends and keeping them; Conkling's
quick temper and hasty tongue frequently cost him his most powerful
adherents. Three years later, this rivalry came to an open clash, in
which each denounced the other on the floor of the House in words as
stinging as parliamentary law permitted. Blaine's tirade was so bitter
that Conkling became an implacable enemy and never again spoke to him.
It was almost the story of Hamilton and Burr over again, except that the
age of duelling had passed.

That quarrel on the floor of the House was to have momentous
consequences. Blaine became speaker of the House and the most popular
and powerful man in his party, so that it seemed that nothing could
stand between him and the desire for the presidency which gnawed at his
heart, just as it had at Henry Clay's. But always in the way stood
Conkling.

In 1876, at Cincinnati, Blaine was nominated by Robert G. Ingersoll in
one of the most eloquent addresses ever delivered on the floor of a
national convention, and on the first ballot fell only a few votes short
of a majority. But his enemies were at work, and on the seventh ballot,
succeeded in stampeding the convention to Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes,
however, was pledged to a single term, and Blaine was hailed as the
nominee in 1880; but when the convention assembled, there was Conkling
with a solid phalanx of over three hundred delegates for Grant. The
result was that neither Blaine nor Grant could get a majority of the
votes, and the nomination fell to Garfield. Finally,