Memorial Edition. Life and Work of James G. Blaine. ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE. ==================================================================== USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Tina S. Vickery ==================================================================== Memorial Edition. Life and Work of James G. Blaine. by John Clark Ridpath, LL. D., General Selden Connor, Ex-Governor of Maine, and other eminent friends of Mr. Blaine. A National Gallery of Pictures and Portraits. Philadelphia: Historical Publishing Company 1893. Copyright, 1893, by H. S. Smith. (All Rights Reserved.) pages 33-49 CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE. The birth-place of a man is perhaps less important than is usually supposed in biography. The particular spot where the man begins his career is hardly res gesta of the case. He may be born here or there the circumstance has interest, but is hardly essential to the understanding of the given career. It is not the locality, but the descent which determines the initial and, to a large degree, the future powers of the life in question. This is to say, that we need not greatly concern ourselves to know that Washington began in Westmoreland or in some other county; that Lincoln was out of Larue or Hardin; that Grant began at Point Pleasant or in some hamlet or cabin away from the river. None the less, the reader seeks to know the initial point and- fixes his attention upon it as the meritorious spot from which some 'form of greatness has sprung. We may reflect further that the connection between a man and his birth- place-between the interest of the one and the importance of the other has been somewhat reversed in history. It is not the spot of birth that makes great the man, but the man who at length makes great the spot of his birth. Not Corsica made Napoleon; not Boston, Franklin. It was the " Child of the Republic who made famous forever the island of his birth, and Franklin, though a candleman's son, sent backward from the glory of the French capital to the city of his nativity the radiance of his fame. We repeat that not the place but the descent --the blood and spirit of an ancestry worthy to survive makes the being that is to be what he is and will be. This is not fatalism, but simply a just allowance for those influences of descent which enter so largely into the calculus of human life. JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE had for his birth-place the hamlet of Brownsville, in Union township, Washington County, Pa. His birthday was the thirty-first January, 1830. Four days before the night on which he was born Daniel Webster had finished in the Senate of the United States his Reply to Hayne - the greatest oratorical production of the American mind. Perhaps the rumor of it -- for the fame of the event was great in those days -- was borne to Brownsville, and the father, an intelligent man, may have read the first report of the great vindication of nationality, by the lamplight, on the evening that his illustrious son came into the world. The epoch was a stirring one as it respected American statesmanship. The War of the Revolution had been fought and won. The second conflict with the mother country, which Franklin had foretold as the War of Independence, had at last been brought to a close, fifteen years before the birth of Blaine. American thought had turned from the excitements and passions of the Era of Revolution to questions of constitutional government and to the adjustment of law to the vindicated rights of man. The memory of strife was now lapsing into shadow in the New World and the Old. Men on this side of the sea spoke of the battle of New Orleans and of the Treaty of Ghent as we now speak of the Chicago fire or the Centennial Exposition. Abroad there was the same failing away of great memories. The Corsican had been for six years lying in the earth at Longwood. For a like time the fat and redundant Louis XVIII had been gone, by an obese and useless exit, from the mortal scene; and now the equally superfluous Charles X. is blown away into nonentity. In England, also, dynastic evolution is going on clumsily. Gentleman George - worst misnamed of mortals-goes away, and the intercalary William IV. comes in in the same year with the birth of Blaine. For the beginning of the Victorian era we shall yet have to wait seven years before it comes. The ancestors and descent of Blaine are worthy of note. The family, on the paternal side, seems to have been of remote Anglo-Norman extraction; the name would indicate as much. The great-grandfather, Ephraim Blaine, was an officer in the Revolutionary War. He rose to the rank of colonel, and served as commissary-general under Washington during), that winter of untold hardships when Valley Forge became the synonym of sorrow. It appears that while the army was encamped at the Place just named, Colonel Blaine distinguished himself for indefatigable exertions in the almost hopeless effort to -supply the patriots with the means of subsistence and comfort. In that work he consumed a large part of his own fortune. If we are to look for an ancestral impress, directing the thought and purpose of a descendant to patriotic nationality, we might find it in the devotion of Colonel Ephraim Blaine to the cause of his country and his countrymen in the cruel winter of 1777-78. The Blaine family was aforetime of good New England stock. It had been a long time in the country and had contracted both the merits and demerits of the colonial character. The grandson of Ephraim Blaine was Ephraim L. Blaine. He, too,, was a man of character and force. He was a leader in the affairs of his county, a magistrate of great influence, and exemplified in his life and activities the virtues of the new American development. His reputation has been transmitted as that of a liberal and hospitable gentleman, full of the genial sociability which was destined to be so strongly developed in his eldest son. The home of Ephraim L. Blaine in the Cumberland Valley was a. point of attraction in the neighborhood. It was regarded as an intellectual centre as well as a place of refinement, good manners and literary spirit. The branch of the Blaine family with which we have to do in this narrative removed to western Pennsylvania, and established itself in Washington County, where, as we have seen, James G. Blaine was born. It appears that the elder Blaine, that is, Ephraim L., was one of those unfortunates in whom generosity contends with what the world calls " business sense " for the mastery; and worse still-according to our standards-the generosity prevailed. His habit of good deeds and much giving sapped his moderate means, and it is not improbable that he sought to repair his fortunes by establishing himself in a more quiet part of the Quaker Commonwealth. There he has left behind him among old friends and neighbors, some of whom still survive, the tradition of a life and character in which singular integrity and simple manners are celebrated with the fondness which the children have for the memory of the older men of the community. Let us not forget the mother. Her maiden name was Maria Gillespie. She was of Scotch-Irish parentage, daughter of a Catholic family that had established itself in the Cumberland Valley. There Ephraim Blaine found her, and, notwithstanding the break between his own Presbyterianism and her Catholicism, took her in marriage. It would appear that there was an agreement between them of mutual toleration on the religious question. At any rate, the difference in faiths seems never to have distressed the family, though it was well calculated to do so. It may be agreed that the union was, religiously considered, of a kind to introduce cross-currents in the domestic estate, and more particularly in the descendants of the marriage. How subtle and profound are the elements of which human life and character are compounded I Maria Gillespie, mother of our statesman, bore the reputation of great intelligence, commanding beauty and quick observation. To these she added other sterling qualities of head and heart. Without doubt it is to her that James G. Blaine is most indebted for his native powers, as also for the early training which laid in his intellectual and moral nature the foundations of his preeminence among his countrymen. It is always so. The moral and psychological formulae under which we begin our lives are obscure enough, but it remains that the genius of each son of man is transmitted from his mother. It is the glory of her estate to build up the glory of the world by contributing to it a light and splendor of which mere fatherhood is incapable! The home of Blaine's father continued to be in the Cumberland Valley, where his ancestors had lived, until the year 1818, when, as we have said, he removed to Washington County, which might then be regarded as in that indefinite place called the West. In that year Illinois was admitted into the Union; two years previously, Indiana; one year afterwards, Alabama. We were spreading out territorially towards the Father of Waters and the ' mountains. In two years the question of Maine and Missouri will be on. The issue of American slavery will thrust itself into the arena, and the great forces will begin to be adjusted which, after the lapse of forty years, shall unmake the Union, but make it again more glorious than before. The Blaine family had been well-to-do in worldly resources. Ephraim L. Blaine had a considerable fortune, existing mostly in large possessions of wild lands in Western Pennsylvania. At that epoch such possessions were of comparatively small value. The country was broken, and the enormous resources in iron and coal had hardly been discovered, to say nothing of development. It would appear that the father of the statesman had diminished his properties before his removal to Washington County, and that be bad difficulty in the latter place in creating an estate. He was not a man of large or ready means, and a growing family put him in worse and still worse condition as it respected money and property. Perhaps the training of the elder Blaine was not favorable to great business success. His education, which was liberal, had looked to the law. In his earlier years he had improved his information and faculties by traveling in Europe and in South America. It is possible that this discipline, while it bad improved the man, had not developed business capacity. In Western Pennsylvania he was a farmer and a man of business affairs in the smaller sense, and also a notary and county clerk. It appears that the home of Ephraim L. Blaine, at Brownsville, was above the average in comfort and intellectual attraction. The surviving neighbors have given this reputation to the family. The Blaines, while not especially well-to-do, were liberal and enlightened folks, and had enough. The head of the family was a man who applied himself industriously to his tasks, but, if we mistake not, his mind ran to intellectual pursuits more than to such vocations as the frontier afforded. It seems that there was intellectual sympathy between the father and mother of James G. Blaine. The father was not superior in ability or spirit to the wife, but had much larger attainments in scholarship. Both have been dead for years. Their graves are in the churchyard at Brownsville, near the ancestral home of the statesman. To them, after his rise to influence and reputation, he erected the monument which now marks their resting place. We here touch the boyhood development of James G. Blaine. As we have said above, the youth of all men is alike barren of annals. For a period of perhaps ten years-most important though it be-the youth goes on his way, leaving, as it were, no trace of his thoughts or deeds. As a matter of course, his thoughts are but the prefigurements of thought, and his deeds only tentative. The interest of the period is in this, that we may discover aptitudes and the outlines of promise. Even the boyhood of Napoleon had no more than this. The boyhood of Frederick the Great must be summed up in a few lines or paragraphs. So of all the rest, great and small, whose lives and activities have made tip the warp and woof of history. One of the premonitory signs of the lasting fame of Blaine is the fact that tradition and story telling have become rife in the last days, in and around "Indian Hill Farm," at West Brownsville. The old "place" has now, in great measure, gone to decay. The agricultural interest has virtually disappeared in the neighborhood before the mining interest. Coal diggers have planted themselves where the country squire formerly rode on horseback from his home to the neighboring mill or village. "Indian Hill Farm " looks to the river. The house itself, in which Blaine was born, has become a relic. The alleged veranda has careened towards a topple and the final oblivion of dust. There are cracks and rents in the dwelling, and the outside wooden steps are fast becoming a reminiscence of the aspiring feet that aforetime made them patter. As we have said, a few of the antique inhabitants still remain. One is a certain Captain Van Hook, who is rising to the octogenarian. The Captain was a relative of Maria Gillespie. He remembers Jimmy Blaine with the fond and patronizing memory of old age. He represents the boy to have been a reader of books, who permitted his brothers to do the work. The old gentleman alleges that his wife was the original discoverer of Jimmy Blaine --that is, the discoverer of his promise. She . knew him when he skipped about the door yard. The Captain was a friend and neighbor of Ephraim L. Blaine, though considerably his junior. He says that the elder Blaine never knew how much a dollar was worth and that he kept open house the year around. He relates also something of the manners which prevailed in the old home. The frontier American was, in his day, great in politics. Ephraim L. Blaine was a Whig of the Whigs. At his house there were the usual neighborhood political debates, and it is said that the boy James used to sit at nights and listen to the endless discussions and personalities of the contention-this, while his brothers went to bed. Another resident of West Brownsville, who has good cause to remember the boy Blaine, is J. E. Adams, who was a schoolmate of young James. He claims that the future Secretary of State was not a very studious lad, but that he learned his lessons with extraordinary facility. The memory of Mr. Adams teems with recollections of his vivacious playfellow. He gives this story of a certain contest in which he himself was worsted:-- "Jimmy and his brother Eph, and another boy and myself were down on the river bank. The Blaine boys had been forbidden by their father to go in swimming, but Eph and we three wanted to break over and go anyhow. Jimmy would not go in, nor would lie promise not to tell. Had he promised it would have been square, as his word was good. Eph and he went off a bit talking, and then seemed to engage in a quarrel. Eph called me to come and lick Jimmy, but I told him to do it himself. Then he said he would lick me, too, so I went back to see the trouble. Eph and I presently squared up and. went at it to his disadvantage. Presently he got even and brought me up with a chunk of clay that hit me under the chin. Jimmy Blaine and I became firm friends from that altercation. He himself was a pretty fair fighter. He was an awkward, thickset boy and not nice to handle. But he did not like to fight. In that he was just opposite to Eph. Jimmy would not be crowded and when he was crowded he would fight." More interesting than this is Mr. Adams' verification of what we shall presently refer to, and that is, the boy Blaine's aptitude for mathematics. Numbers seem never to have been a puzzle to him. The tradition is also verified of the boy's great memory, particularly his memory of faces. It is said that after his rise to reputation be returned, on a certain occasion, to the old home, and though thirty years had elapsed, was able to recognize his old neighbors. One thing in the case of the boy Blaine we may note with interest, and that is, that his education was undertaken by his parents at home. . Whatever we may say of our schools it cannot be doubted that a home education, when it is ample and well directed, is the most efficient in the development of character. Buckle owed his training wholly to his mother. Of the schools, other than that one school, he knew nothing except what he learned by after observation; and for them he cared as little as he knew. But he had facility in eleven languages, and laid at least the foundation of one of the greatest historical works of the century. The task of educating James G. Blaine in his childhood was assumed by his mother. It appears that the father also lent a hand. Whatever may be said of the narrowness and prejudice of the Scotch-Presbyterian character, it must be allowed that it was a character to educate withal. The old half- Celts who settled the Virginia and Pennsylvania valleys were given to books-such books as they were-and these they taught to their children with an intensity as hot as the channel in which it flowed was narrow. Blaine's early training was home-training. The foundations were laid deep in the affections and inspirations of the hearthstone. We do not doubt that Blaine's fine manners were planted here also. The world knows his great accomplishments, his preeminence in this particular. It is doubtful whether, as a man, debonair and cultured, having the suaviter in modo as well as the utile in re, he has had any superior in the public or private life of our country. One thing is certain Blaine was a gentleman. He was so by nature and certainly so by training. His manners were as easy and perfect as they were superior. They combined easily and naturally with the enthusiasm of his character, and constituted the elegant dress in which his strong personality moved among his compeers and was seen of the people. The foundation of all this was laid by his mother and father in the childhood home. Such culture is never acquired-or not easily acquired-after a youth has reached his later teens. This essential and strong development in boyhood culture continued until be had reached the beginning of his twelfth year. It was early in 1841 that the first foreign movement of the youth is discovered. Hon. Thomas Ewing, of Lancaster, Ohio, at that time Secretary of the Treasury under Tyler, was a near kinsman by marriage of Ephraim L. Blaine. This relation was the origin of a visit, in the year referred to, of James G. Blaine to the home of Ewing at Lancaster. It is certain that Blaine was a vivacious, promising and handsome boy. The Ewings were delighted with him and a hearty companionship sprang up, with the readiness of youthful affection, between the visitor and his cousin, Thomas Ewing, Jr., who was destined to reach the Congress of the United States. Young Ewing was half a year older than Blaine, having been born in August of 1829. The two lads went to school together at the Lancaster Academy, and in this profitable way a considerable part of the following two years were passed. Already the spontaneous forces in Blaine were beginning to act. We may discover in this early period of his boyhood the first flutter of ambitious wings within him. Between his twelfth and fourteenth years he began to think and to act for himself. If we mistake not, the father and mother had the discernment to allow their promising boy to follow the bent and suggestion of his own nature. Half the boys of the world are spoiled, and three-fourths of the other half injured by the unthinking but loving oppression of fatherhood and motherhood upon them. This is not to say that fatherhood and motherhood can be spared as a developing and directing force over the superfluous energies of boyhood and youth, but only to affirm that he who comes to aught must do so by growing in the direction of his own purpose and aspiration rather than in the direction which an over-fond and anxious father may think be ought to take. We believe that Blaine was, at an early day, freed from this trammel, and the result has been that the name of Blaine has covered with a halo not only his own career but that of his family, his ancestors, and let us hope his descendants. It was during his stay at Lancaster that he and Thomas Ewing, Jr., both boys of thirteen, formed the plan of a collegiate education. They would both go to college, become scholars and be men of distinction. Herein is the glory of American life. The rest we may omit from the count. America does give to the young man, to the boy, a chance. Blessed be the gift of a chance! It may be that our country does not now concede the chance as fully and freely as she did in the middle of the century. If so, why so much the worse for her! Let not the Republic, if she would survive and be glorious, trammel up the chance of any of her boys. The aspiration of the youthful heart must still glow and find a way, if we would keep our liberty and hold our rank among the nations. As for Blaine, he chose to go, after his experience at Lancaster, to Washington College, in his native county. Young Ewing, his friend and playmate, went to Brown University, where he was educated, and from which be received his degree, to become, in 1849-50, private secretary to President Taylor. It is probable that the limitation of young Blaine's resources determined the choice of a home college rather than a more expensive and renowned college at a distance. It would seem the college project was well developed by the youth during his stay at Lancaster. It is not clear who thought out the methods, but we are inclined to give that praise to Thomas Ewing, Sr. That statesman discovered in his own son and in his son's companion the aptitudes which they possessed, and encouraged and directed somewhat their boyish counsels in the matter of a more complete education. It was to this end that a competent instructor was provided for both youths at Lancaster. He was a tutor, well trained for his work, and was none other than William Lyons, brother of that Lord Lyons, the Englishman, who was destined to make a conspicuous appearance at a subsequent period in the diplomacy of our country and his own. Lyons taught the two ambitious youths and prepared them for entrance into college. Perhaps the requirement for such entrance, at least into Washington College, were not severe in the early part of the fifth decade. At any rate, the boy Blaine was easily fitted his tutor for entrance into the superior institution. This academic and private training extended over the years 1841-42. In 1843, young Blaine, though only in the beginning of his fourteenth year, was thought to be ready for college. It proved to be so, and he was admitted to the freshman class of Washington, in the fall of the year referred to. This event constituted. the border-line of the first period of Blaine development. There is no crisis more distinct in the life of a young in than that which marks his entrance into college. From that day the boyhood home begins to fall back into the shadows. From that day the blessed face of the mother is seen less distinctly, though not less lovingly, in the distance. From that day the world begins to open with vision and prospect. horizon falls back; the earth broadens, and the sky is so lifted as to rev the planets and stars. It is the first day of a new life, which the boy, going forth on his pilgrimage, may know once, but never know again. Before speaking of Blaine's career at college, we may note with particularity one or two things about the preliminary period of his life. It is said that in the village school at West Brownsville (such is the tradition of neighbors) be showed remarkable aptitude for learning, a strong memory a a great liking for biography and such history as he was able to grasp. The symptoms were in him, as they are in all, the earnest of a strong and comprehensive development. It is said also that his tastes and habits in school were dashed with many touches of practicality and ready adaptation to conditions. Another peculiarity of his mind was his aptitude for mathematical study, ' which he is said to have surpassed. This combination of talents and dispositions was peculiarly promising and potential of much that has come to pass in the future development of our subject. It was also noted that Blaine in hi boyhood bad an unusual readiness-a quickness of perception-which foretokened his remarkable power in spontaneous debate. Had it been foreseen at West Brownsville what the boy Blaine would come to, no doubt all gossips and myth-makers would have been busy with the anomaly. But the gossips and myth-makers did not know the lad or his future and thus lost their opportunity. Had they possessed the prescience, some of them might have become immortal by swinging traditionally to the skirts o one of the foremost American statesman of the nineteenth century. As it is, there is silence, or semi-silence, about the boy of West Brownsville. One old friend of the family, however, tells this story: At the close of a school term, when Blaine was a mere lad of nine or ten years, be, among others, was called upon for a declamation, or, as it was called, to " speak a piece." He pleaded lack of preparation; but the teacher replied that he must stand up and repeat something, no matter what. Arising from his seat, the boy declaimed, with wonderful gestures and proper emphasis, The Apostles' Creed, which he remembered. from hearing it repeated a few times by a schoolmate. It answered the emergency. In the fall of 1843 James G. Blaine, in his fourteenth year, is a freshman at Washington College'. The institution was situated at Washington, the, county seat of his native county, about thirty miles from Pittsburgh. The population at that time was not more than 2000. The place, however, was the seat of the institution referred to above. Jefferson College was located at Canonsburg, about ten miles away, in the same county. These two were subsequently, in 1865, united to form the Washington and Jefferson College. It is evident that the spirit of education has always prevailed about the place and through the county. As early as 1791 the Academy of Canonsburg was opened, and this became, nine years afterwards, Jefferson College. Washington College had existed previously to 1806, and as far back as 1787 was known under -the name of Washington Academy. In 1806 the institution was chartered as a college, and had been conducted as such for thirty-seven years when Blaine became a student there. It was under the patronage and direction of the Presbyterian Church -- another circumstance which may have contributed to the choice of this place for the formal education of Blaine. The father was not likely to forego or neglect the opportunity to impress upon his son, in the formative period of his career, that austere but thorough-going religion which he himself had willingly inherited from his ancestors. The college life of a young man is likely to leave a tradition, but hard a history. His name appears in the catalogue from. year to year, and t records of the college show his class standing and rank at graduation. B beyond this, there is not much that is trustworthy. The rest is a matter opinion rather than of fact. The vision of students is magnified and colored with all manner of optical illusions. Very few of our sedate and mature citizens, in public or in private life, are able to recite without all of the prejudice animation and passion of boyhood, the events of their college days. No soon do they begin, than they are in the swim again. The landscape is sudden transformed; the old halo comes back and rests on the campus. The sunshine vanished years flashes among the trees, and the aurora borealis flames up by night. Out of such conditions there may spring a whole cycle of poetry, love, a tradition, mythology-but hardly any history! One man, a certain Mr. Gow editor of a Pennsylvania newspaper, has left his opinion of Blaine on record. They two were classmates, and Mr. Gow has this to say about the school days of his distinguished fellow: " Blaine was graduated in the class of 1847, when he was only seventeen years old. I was graduated in the same class. We were thrown a great deal together, not only in school but in society. He was great favorite in the best social circles in the town. He was not noted as leader in his class. He could learn his lessons too easily. He had the most remarkable memory of any boy in school, and could commit and retain hi lessons without difficulty. He never demonstrated in his youth, except by hi wonderful memory, any of the great powers as a debater and thinker that b has since given evidence of." One of the peculiarities about the foregoing comments is the illustration which they afford of a common trait in human character. Students, grown t manhood and reputation, are rarely able to recognize the "great differences which appear among them by a development subsequent to their college days- On is not able to perceive that another has so far outgrown himself. It may b noted that where classmates have been subsequently associated with classmate as their subordinates in official station or as their secretaries, the latter have rarely been able to perceive that those who were formerly their familiars n equals have now become of such vastly greater stature than themselves. This trait is strikingly manifested in the recently published Memoirs of Bourienne, private secretary to Napoleon from the Italian campaign down to Elba. It would seem that Bourienne has not been able in any place to perceive that his former classmate had become not only the first man in France, but the leading figure of European history, and one of the two or three greatest warriors of the world. We may accept Mr. Gow's testimony as to the promise of young Blaine at college. But we must also remember what, if we were writing a new work on logic, we should designate as the " Fallacy of the Classmate." It is in evidence that Blaine distinguished himself, at least in a measure, as a student at Washington College. His superiority ran in two or three directions. He had a fondness for historical and literary studies. In these he reached unusual attainments while still a youth. The tradition goes that even in boyhood he was an expert amid the glories of Plutarch's Lives. He reveled in the highly-colored and half-authentic stories which the Greek biographer has transmitted to the youth of all civilized nations. After all it does not so much matter, in such cases, how much is truth and how much fiction. Plutarch is Plutarch anyhow, and the invented example is almost as good as the other. Let us be thankful for Plutarch! How dark and dismal would be the intellectual world of radiant boyhood if it were not for Plutarch! He is the prose Shakespeare of all nations-the father of the heroic in literature, whose pictured pages have been transferred to the warm leaves of boyish intelligence among a score of the greatest -races of men. Let it be as it has been. Blaine caught, we do not doubt, from the Plutarch gallery, much of the high-colored and heroic strain. It were not impossible to discover the remains of the early glow and fiction, in the life and thought of the statesman, as far on as the Senate Chamber and the foreign office under two administrations. We have already spoken of Blaine's aptitude in mathematical study. This may be wondered at and admired; for the mathematical faculty does not usually co-exist, even in great minds, with the excursive and imaginative faculty which Blaine possessed in so high a measure of activity. Without doubt, the possession of mathematical ability is of high value to a public man, particularly if he be destined to deal with economic questions. The exact spirit of the age requires truth in the political economist, and will have proof as well as assertion. The economist must be a statistician, and to be such demands a large measure, not indeed of mathematical attainment, but of mathematical aptitude and talent. This is as much of a requisite in the political economist of our times as mathematical formulae are requisite in bridge-building and surveying. We do not any longer depend upon theorizing and unwarranted generalizations in the matter of economics, but on the exact results of statistics and the doctrine of averages. In Blaine the aptitude for numbers entered into easy and subordinate combination with the higher faculties of ideality and the rapid excursions of generalization. In another particular, Blaine is said to have been eminent as a college student. This was in forensics. He was a born debater. His passion in this direction was not exactly a litigious instinct, but a disposition for abstract debate. It was not a war of facts, but a war of questions and policies in which he delighted from a boy. The college of Blaine's day had, as one of its strongest adjuncts, the open debating society. College fraternities had not as yet thrust themselves into the arena as the chief facts for which young men exist. The Greek-letter societies came on in the West in the fourth and fifth decades; some But the old legitimate debating society was a great fact in the primitive and middle age college of the west. It is not clear that the loss of this open arena in our institutions of learning has been at all compensated by the inrush of the Greek fraternity. The latter is, no doubt, as splendid as it is -unknowable. But the old open society was both splendid and knowable. It was free. The college neophyte walked into it with the air of one about to conquer. He gave his essay, his oration, his declamation, in particular his debate, as one might do who was convinced o the necessity of himself to the equilibrium of nature. His view on this question, after the delivery of his part, was frequently modified and toned down by the distinct opinions of his fellows! But it was a great arena. The tradition exists at Washington College that young Blaine was the first man of his age in the matter of forensics. He was a natural speaker, took delight in preparation and in delivery, sought opportunity to speak much, spoke well and gained applause, and, what is unusual in such cases, is said to have debated the question. Generally, in such societies, it is not the question, but something else, that is debated! Young Alexander Hamilton, in a place called the Fields near Columbia College, attended a patriot meeting in 1774,. There were several speeches. The stripling said to one of his companions, "The speakers have fire and enthusiasm, but they don't debate the question." As a rule, the man who debates the question is a coming man. Beyond what is here sketched, little or nothing is known of Blaine's career at college. Two additional facts may be cited and these are, first, Blaine's remarkable social qualities. These were in the bloom at the epoch of his college life. None were his superiors in the society of the county town where he flourished for four years. His presence was already distinguished. He was a handsome young man, of full height, manners the most genial, a fascinating address, readiness of utterance, wit not a little, repartee by nature, companionable traits, and, indeed, every quality and qualification likely to attract to himself the admiring gaze and affection of both young and old. The second fact is that he was, notwithstanding the testimony of his classmate Gow, first in his class. At any rate, he is said to have been graduated with the first rank. This was in the summer of 1847. Abroad, things were preparing themselves at that date for the great events of the following year. The combustibles of revolution are already smoking in Berlin and Vienna. The throne of the Citizen King is beginning to rock. General Scott is on the way from Perote to the City of the Montezumas. It was a fair day in which a young man about to devote his genius to statesmanship should be graduated "with the first place in his class." Before concluding this initial chapter of. the biography of Blaine, we should note a circumstance most important to the life of every one; namely, the public opinion and drift of events round about the forming character. It was during the college days of Blaine that the whole Mexican question, involving excitement, diplomacy and war, rose to the surface, whirled for a year or two along the horizon, and began to subside with the invasion and conquest of the enemy's country. When Blaine entered college, the question of the annexation of Texas was fully on. The situation had been already contrived. The political opinion of the country was strongly divided on that issue. The Whig party, having in its breast the potency of the anti- slavery sentiment, which was soon to express itself in universal disruption, opposed the annexation scheme, not so much, indeed, because of the injustice which was to be done ultimately to a sister Republic, as because the area of human slavery was to be enlarged by the addition of an empire for that purpose. The propagandists of the peculiar institution, on the other hand, favored an annexation for the counter reason that thereby their social and domestic system might be extended to the Rio Grande and finally to the Pacific. Should Texas be acquired, territory enough would be thus secured to add five States to the Union. All of these would be slave States. Each would have two Senators of the United States in the Capitol. These would be ten Senators in all. The equipoise would thus be kept against the overgrowth of the North. The South would continue to reign as she had reigned for many years. Shall we annex or shall we not annex? Shall we fight and conquer Mexico, or shall we refrain from fighting and conquest? Such were the dominant questions of the day, so far as public policies were concerned; and these were the questions which, without doubt, were hotly debated in the literary society of Washington College. There young Blaine stood up and made his maiden speeches on the very issues which were discussed with so much heat in Congress, and Cabinet, and country hall, even to the cabins of Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas. Now, the day of boy debate is ended. The young man is graduated with fair auspices around him, and high ambition in his heart. What will he do hereafter ?