Never before or since has a great party adopted as its candidate a conspicuous public man, who was not merely outside its own ranks, but who, in the thick of every political battle for a third of a century, had been one of its most relentless and implacable foes.
Blaine discusses the unusual nomination of a candidate from outside the party, emphasizing political dynamics.
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Such an opportunity would have been a menace to the public credit, and would have proved a constant source of corruption.
As slavery had been the chief inciting cause of disunion, slavery should die.
But in the treatment of the colored man, now proposed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice.
He had placed himself in a position from which he could not with grace retreat, and to go forward in which was still further to blight his hopes of promotion in his party.
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