Who was James G. Blaine?

ames G. Blaine had a long and varied career as a lawyer, teacher, journalist and most notably, as a politician. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, and did not move to Maine until 1854. For next five years, he worked as a newspaper editor and was a leader in the formation of the Republican party in Maine. Although he was a member of the Maine legislature for only four years (1859-1863), he served the last two of them as speaker of the state house of representatives.

He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, and served there from March 4, 1863 until July 10, 1876,

when he resigned. He was Speaker of the House from 1869 to 1875, and it was during this period that he authored the proposed "Blaine Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution.
Blaine ran for president three times, in 1876, 1880 and 1884. In the 1876 contest, he was considered the logical choice for the Republican nomination, but shortly before the nominating convention began, a House investigating committee accused him of using his position as speaker to get a land grant for a railroad in Arkansas and then sell the railroad's bonds at a tidy profit. Blaine lost the nomination to Rutherford B. Hayes, on a narrow convention vote of 379-351. He was named to the U.S. Senate in 1876. He sought the Republican presidential nomination again in 1880, but lost to James A. Garfield, who won the general election and appointed Blaine Secretary of State. When Garfield was assassinated, Blaine resigned and retired briefly to private life.

In 1884, he finally won the Republican presidential nomination (on the convention's fourth ballot). The general election contest was very close, and was decided by New York, where Blaine lost by 1,047 votes. During the campaign, Blaine listened impassively at a New York rally at which Rev. Samuel Buchard, a Presbyterian minister, derided Democrats as "the party whose antecedents are rum, Romanism, and rebellion." The slur angered the large number of Irish Catholic voters in the state, and when Blaine declined to disavow Buchard's remarks, his chances of winning the state slipped away.

Blaine had been expected to seek the Republican nomination again in 1888, but surprised everyone by supporting Benjamin Harrison for the job instead. When Harrison won, he once again appointed Blaine Secretary of State. Three days before the 1892 convention, Blaine resigned from the State Department and sought the Republican nomination a final time. But Harrison was renominated, and Blaine died the following year.

Blaine's official portrait as Secretary of State

f you are interested in learning more about James G. Blaine, the U.S. House of Representatives website offers an additional biography of Blaine and a bibliography of books written about Blaine.