“I think Mr. Blaine has rather enjoyed his opportunity, and his triumph,” writes one. “It is inspiring to have Mr. Blaine associated with public affairs again, if only as a witness before a committee. How the country rings with his name, the moment he breaks silence! His familiar face, framed in rapidly whitening hair; his elastic figure, growing almost venerable, from recent associations; his paternal manner toward young Jimmie, his name-sake son, whom by some whim of fancy, he had with him during the examination,—all these were elements of interest in the picture.”
And now comes a beautiful prophecy, two years old, which shows how one may argue his way into the future by the hard and certain logic of events. It is this: “The administration will have to do something that shall appeal strongly to the popular heart; something out of the line of hospitalities within its own charmed circle; something magnetic and heroic, or else ‘Blaine, of Maine,’ will become so idolized in the minds of the people that he will be invincible in 1884.”
In all of his foreign correspondence there is, in one particular, a striking likeness between Mr. Blaine and President Lincoln,—the man is not lost in the statesman, but rather the man is the statesman.
As Abraham Lincoln in all his giant form appears upon the forefront of every public document that came from his hand, so James G. Blaine is photographed from life in every state-paper that bears his name. He copies no model, he stands on no pedestal,—his personality is free and untrammeled in every utterance.
In his paper to Mr. Lowell, our Minister to England, of Nov. 29, 1881, we get a full view of the man at his work.
A modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of April 19, 1850, is the subject in hand. His instructions had been sent ten days before. A week afterwards the response of Lord Granville to his circular note of June 24, in relation to the neutrality of any canal across the Isthmus of Panama, had been received.
And so he proceeded to give a summary of the historical objections to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and the very decided differences of opinion between the two governments, to which its interpretation has given rise. And this he does with singular skill and aptness, which is not unusual to him, when the philosophy of history is needful as the servant of his genius.
No less than sixteen direct quotations of from two to eight lines each, are given in a letter of six large pages, taken from the discussion of the subject for thirty years, while the main body of the letter, in its various parts, shows a comprehensive grasp of details, a familiarity with utterances of the leading men of the past, and with England’s operations under the treaty, as to prove conclusively that in the highest realms of statesmanship, mastery is still the one word that defines the man.
His previous letter of instructions, presenting an analysis of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, singling out the objectionable features to be abrogated, and stating his reasons, is of the same clear, strong type, compactly written, and applying the great arguments of common sense to a subject of international importance.
“The convention,” he says, “was made more than thirty years ago, under exceptional and extraordinary conditions, which have long since ceased to exist,—conditions which at best were temporary in their nature, and which can never be reproduced.