James Gillespie Blaine (January 31, 1830January 27, 1893) 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".
Born in West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, Blaine moved to Maine after college, where he worked as a newspaper editor in Augusta before entering politics. Contemporary sources described him as an effective public speaker during an era when oratory was highly valued in American politics. He supported Abraham Lincoln and the Union cause during the American Civil War, and during Reconstruction he advocated for voting rights for former slaves while opposing some of the more punitive measures favored by Radical Republicans. His economic positions evolved from supporting high tariffs to favoring reduced tariffs and expanded international trade. Throughout his career, Blaine faced allegations of improper financial dealings with railroad companies, particularly concerning the Mulligan letters. While these allegations were never substantiated with conclusive evidence, they became a significant issue in his 1884 presidential campaign.
As Secretary of State, Blaine advocated for expanded American involvement in international affairs, marking a shift from the more limited foreign policy approaches of previous decades. He promoted increased trade relationships, particularly with Latin American nations, and supported policies that came to be known as tariff reciprocity. His diplomatic approach emphasized American commercial interests and included support for territorial expansion in the Caribbean and Pacific regions. His foreign policy initiatives contributed to the development of more assertive American international engagement that would be further expanded during and after the Spanish–American War.
Early life Family and childhood James Gillespie Blaine was born January 31, 1830, in West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, the third child of Ephraim Lyon Blaine and Maria (Gillespie) Blaine. He had two older sisters, Harriet and Margaret. Blaine's father was a western Pennsylvania businessman and landowner, and the family lived in relative comfort. On his father's side, Blaine was descended from Scotch-Irish settlers who first emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1745. His great-grandfather Ephraim Blaine served as a Commissary-General under George Washington in the American Revolutionary War. Blaine's mother and her forebears were Irish Catholics who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1780s. Blaine's parents were married in 1820 in a Catholic ceremony, although Blaine's father remained a Presbyterian. Following a common compromise of the era, the Blaines agreed that their daughters would be raised in their mother's Catholic faith while their sons would be brought up in their father's religion. James Blaine's cousin, Angela Gillespie, was a nun and founded the American branch of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. In politics, Blaine's father supported the Whig Party.
Blaine's biographers describe his childhood as "harmonious," and note that the boy took an early interest in history and literature. At the age of thirteen, Blaine enrolled in his father's alma mater Washington College, in nearby Washington, Pennsylvania. There, he was a member of the Washington Literary Society, one of the college's debating societies. Blaine graduated near the top of his class and delivered the salutatory address in June 1847. Blaine then considered attending Yale Law School, but ultimately decided against it, and moved west to find a job.
Teacher and publisher In 1848, Blaine was hired as a professor of mathematics and ancient languages at the Western Military Institute in Georgetown, Kentucky. Although he was only 18 years old and younger than many of his students, Blaine adapted well to his new profession. Blaine grew to enjoy life in his adopted state and became an admirer of Kentucky senator Henry Clay. He also made the acquaintance of Harriet Stanwood, a teacher at the nearby Millersburg Female College and native of Maine. On June 30, 1850, the two wed. Blaine once again considered the study of law, but instead took his new bride to visit his family in Pennsylvania. They next lived with Harriet Blaine's family in Augusta, Maine, for several months, where their first child, Stanwood Blaine, was born in 1851. The young family soon moved again, this time to Philadelphia where Blaine took a job at the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind (now Overbrook School for the Blind) in 1852, teaching science and literature.
Philadelphia's law libraries gave Blaine the chance to, at last, begin to study the law, but in 1853 he received a more tempting offer: to become editor and co-owner of the Kennebec Journal. Blaine had spent several vacations in his wife's native state of Maine and had become friendly with the Journals editors. When the newspaper's founder, Luther Severance, retired, Blaine was invited to purchase the publication along with co-editor Joseph Baker. He quickly accepted, borrowing the purchase price from his wife's brothers. In 1854, Baker sold his share to John L. Stevens, a local minister. The Journal had been a staunchly Whig newspaper, which coincided with Blaine's and Stevens' political opinions. The decision to become a newspaperman, unexpected as it was, started Blaine on the road to a lifelong career in politics. Blaine's purchase of the Journal coincided with the demise of the Whig party and the birth of the Republican party, and Blaine and Stevens actively promoted the new party in their newspaper. The newspaper was financially successful, and Blaine was soon able to invest his profits in coal mines in Pennsylvania and Virginia, forming the basis of his future wealth.
Maine politics Blaine's career as a Republican newspaperman led naturally to involvement in party politics. In 1856, he was selected as a delegate to the first Republican National Convention. From the party's early days, Blaine identified with the conservative wing, supporting Supreme Court Justice John McLean for the presidential nomination over the more radical John C. Frémont, the eventual nominee. The following year, Blaine was offered the editorship of the Portland Daily Advertiser, which he accepted, selling his interest in the Journal soon thereafter. He still maintained his home in Augusta, however, with his growing family. Although Blaine's first son, Stanwood, died in infancy, he and Harriet had two more sons soon afterward: Walker, in 1855, and Emmons, in 1857. They would have four more children in years to come: Alice, James, Margaret, and Harriet. It was around this time that Blaine left the Presbyterian church of his childhood and joined his wife's new denomination, becoming a member of the South Parish Congregational Church in Augusta.
In 1858, Blaine ran for a seat in the Maine House of Representatives, and was elected. He ran for reelection in 1859, 1860, and 1861, and was successful each time by large majorities. The added responsibilities led Blaine to reduce his duties with the Advertiser in 1860, and he soon ceased editorial work altogether. Meanwhile, his political power was growing as he became chairman of the Republican state committee in 1859, replacing Stevens. Blaine was not a delegate to the Republican convention in 1860, but attended anyway as an enthusiastic supporter of Abraham Lincoln. Returning to Maine, he was elected Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives in 1861 and reelected in 1862. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he supported Lincoln's war effort and saw that the Maine Legislature voted to organize and equip units to join the Union Army.
House of Representatives, 1863–1876
Elected to the House
Blaine had considered running for the United States House of Representatives from Maine's 4th district in 1860, but agreed to step aside when Anson P. Morrill, a former governor, announced his interest in the seat. Morrill was successful, but after redistricting placed Blaine in the 3rd district for the 1862 election, he allowed his name to be put forward. Running on a campaign of staunch support for the war effort, Blaine was elected by a wide margin; though nationwide, the Republican Party lost a significant number of seats in Congress as the Union war effort to date had been only weakly successful. By the time Blaine took his seat in December 1863, at the start of the 38th Congress, the Union Army had turned the tide of the war with victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
As a first-term congressman, he initially said little, mostly following the administration's lead in supporting the continuing war effort. He did clash several times with the leader of the Republicans' radical faction, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, firstly over payment of states' debts incurred in supporting the war, and again over monetary policy concerning the new greenback currency. Blaine also spoke in support of the commutation provision of the military draft law passed in 1863 and proposed a constitutional amendment allowing the federal government to impose taxes on exports, but it never passed.
Reconstruction and impeachment
Blaine was reelected in 1864 and, when the 39th Congress assembled in December 1865, the main issue was the Reconstruction of the defeated Confederate States. Although he was not a member of the committee charged with drafting what became the Fourteenth Amendment, Blaine did make his views on the subject known and believed that three-fourths of the non-seceded states would be needed to ratify it, rather than three-fourths of all states, an opinion that did not prevail and placed him, atypically, in the radical camp. The Republican Congress also played a role in the governance of the conquered South, dissolving the state governments President Andrew Johnson had installed and substituting military governments under Congress' control. Blaine voted in favor of these new, harsher measures, but also supported some leniency toward the former rebels when he opposed a bill that would have barred Southerners from attending the United States Military Academy. Blaine voted to impeach Johnson in 1868, although he had initially opposed the effort. Later, Blaine was more ambiguous about the validity of the charges against Johnson, writing that "there was a very grave difference of opinion among those equally competent to decide," but he followed his party's leaders.
Monetary policy Continuing his earlier battle with Stevens, Blaine led the fight in Congress for a strong dollar. After the issuance of 150 million dollars in greenbacks—non-gold-backed currency—the value of the dollar stood at a low ebb. A bipartisan group of inflationists, led by Republican Benjamin F. Butler and Democrat George H. Pendleton, wished to preserve the status quo and allow the Treasury to continue to issue greenbacks and even to use them to pay the interest due on pre-war bonds. Blaine called this idea a repudiation of the nation's promise to investors, which was made when the only currency was gold. Speaking several times on the matter, Blaine said that the greenbacks had only ever been an emergency measure to avoid bankruptcy during the war. Blaine and his hard money allies were successful, but the issue remained alive until 1879, when all remaining greenbacks were made redeemable in gold by the Specie Payment Resumption Act of 1875.