The duties have been mine, the consequences God's." Senator John P.
James Blaine
The Public Record
James Gillespie Blaine was an American statesman and Republican politician who represented Maine in the United States House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876, served as Speaker of the House from 1869 to 1875, and was a United States senator from 1876 to 1881. He served twice as Secretary of State, under presidents James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur in 1881, and under Benjamin Harrison from 1889 to 1892. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1876 and 1880, and received the nomination in 1884, narrowly losing the general election to Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland. Blaine was a prominent figure in the moderate faction of the Republican Party, known as the "Half-Breeds".
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His sympathies with the poor were acute and demonstrative--leading him to the advocacy of measures which in a wide and significant sense were hostile to slavery.
Though allied to the interests of slavery and necessarily drawn to its defense, his instincts, his prejudices, his convictions were singularly strong on the side of the free people.
In the division of functions between the Nation and the State, those that reach and affect the citizen in his every-day life belong principally to the State.
The problem of reconstructing the Union, and adapting its varied interests to its changed condition, demanded the highest administrative ability.
The least reflecting among those who took part in the mighty struggle perceived that the duties devolved upon the Government by victory--if less exacting and less critical than those imposed by actual war--were more delicate in their…
It is a striking tribute to the strength of the Constitution and of the Government that the orderly administration of affairs was not interrupted by a tragedy which in many countries might have been the signal for a bloody revolution.
Politicians like James Blaine
