Persecution and obloquy have followed him into the grave, but an impartial verdict must be that he was inspired with the devotion of a martyr, and that he wore out his life in a service of priceless value to all the generations of his countrymen.
Blaine honors a leader's martyr-like devotion to their country, suggesting their service was invaluable despite facing persecution.
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In turn, the course of the National Administration would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined, by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing unbounded trust.
Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and assuredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government.
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.
These divergent practices had been allowed to develop for seventy-seven years of the nation's life, when, admonished by the Stockton case of the latitudinary results to which loose methods might lead, Congress took jurisdiction of the…
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