Seven years later, he was sent to Congress, and continued to oppose the secession movement; but he saw whither things were trending, and in 1859 he resigned from Congress, remarking that he knew there was going to be a smash-up and thought he would better get off while there was time. In 1860 he made a great Union speech; and it is a remarkable proof of the hold he had upon the people of the South, that, in spite of this, and of his well-known convictions, he was chosen Vice-President of the Confederacy a year later. He accepted, but within a year he had quarrelled with Jefferson Davis on the question of state rights, and in 1864, organized the Georgia Peace party. From that time on to the close of the war, he labored to bring about a treaty of peace, but in vain.
He was imprisoned for a few months after the downfall of the Confederacy, but was soon released and was prominent in the political life of Georgia for fifteen years thereafter, being governor of the state at the time of his death in 1883. A more contradictory, obstinate, prickly-conscienced man never appeared in American politics.
So passed the era of the Civil War. Have we had any great statesmen since? Some near-great ones, perhaps, but none of the very first rank. Great men are moulded by great events, or, at least, require great events to prove their greatness. Let us pause a moment, however, to pay tribute to one of the most accomplished party leaders in American history—a man almost to rank with Henry Clay—James G. Blaine.
As a young editor from Maine, he had entered Congress in 1863. There he had encountered another fiery youngster in Roscoe Conkling, and an intense rivalry sprang up between them. They were very different in temperament, Blaine being the more popular, Conkling the more brilliant. Blaine had a genius for making friends and keeping them; Conkling's quick temper and hasty tongue frequently cost him his most powerful adherents. Three years later, this rivalry came to an open clash, in which each denounced the other on the floor of the House in words as stinging as parliamentary law permitted. Blaine's tirade was so bitter that Conkling became an implacable enemy and never again spoke to him. It was almost the story of Hamilton and Burr over again, except that the age of duelling had passed.
That quarrel on the floor of the House was to have momentous consequences. Blaine became speaker of the House and the most popular and powerful man in his party, so that it seemed that nothing could stand between him and the desire for the presidency which gnawed at his heart, just as it had at Henry Clay's. But always in the way stood Conkling.
In 1876, at Cincinnati, Blaine was nominated by Robert G. Ingersoll in one of the most eloquent addresses ever delivered on the floor of a national convention, and on the first ballot fell only a few votes short of a majority. But his enemies were at work, and on the seventh ballot, succeeded in stampeding the convention to Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes, however, was pledged to a single term, and Blaine was hailed as the nominee in 1880; but when the convention assembled, there was Conkling with a solid phalanx of over three hundred delegates for Grant. The result was that neither Blaine nor Grant could get a majority of the votes, and the nomination fell to Garfield. Finally, by tireless work, Blaine laid his plans so well that he secured the nomination four years later, only to have New York State thrown against him by Conkling and to go down to defeat. Conkling had his revenge, and Blaine's career was practically at an end, for he was an old and broken man.
Let us add frankly that there were many within his own party who mistrusted him—who believed him insincere, if not actually dishonest, and refused to support him. For a fourth time, in 1892, he attempted to get the nomination, but his name had lost its wizardry, and he was defeated by Benjamin Harrison. There are few more pitiful stories in American politics than that of this brilliant and able man, consumed by the desire for a great prize which seemed always within his grasp and yet which always eluded him. For a quarter of a century, he chased this will-o'-the-wisp, only to be led by it into a bog and left to perish there.
There are a few names on the later pages of American statesmanship which stand for notable achievement, more especially in the line of diplomacy, the two greatest of which are those of John Hay and Elihu Root. Both of these men, as secretary of state, did memorable work; not the sort of work which appeals to popular imagination, for there was nothing spectacular about it; but quiet and effective work in the forming of informal alliances and treaties with foreign nations, maintaining America's position as a world power, and making her the friend of all the world. That is the position she should occupy, since she has no quarrel with any one; and it is with its maintenance that the statesmanship of the present day is principally concerned.