_After Fifty
Years_ (1893), an account of the Disruption Movement in the form of
letters of a grandfather; _Thomas Chalmers_ (1896). (D. Mn.)

BLAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE (1830-1893), American statesman, was born in
West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the 31st of January 1830, of sturdy
Scottish-Irish stock on the side of his father. He was the
great-grandson of Colonel Ephraim Blaine (1741-1804), who during the
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, J.G. Blaine graduated at
Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1847, and
subsequently taught successively in the Military Institute, Georgetown,
Kentucky, and in the Institution for the Blind at Philadelphia. During
this period, also, he studied law. Settling in Augusta, Maine, in 1854,
he became editor of the _Kennebec Journal_, and subsequently of the
_Portland Advertiser_. But his editorial work was soon abandoned for a
more active public career. He was elected to the lower house of the
state legislature in 1858, and served four years, the last two as
speaker. He also became chairman of the Republican state committee in
1859, and for more than twenty years personally directed every campaign
of his party.

In 1862 he was elected to Congress, serving in the House thirteen years
(December 1863 to December 1876), followed by a little over four years
in the Senate. He was chosen speaker of the House in 1869 and served
three terms. 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
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 could not then
secure an increment of political power on account of the emancipated
blacks unless these blacks were admitted to political rights. Blaine, on
the other h