Mr. Blaine was there. It continued for eight days. Its value lay in the full and free discussion of the absorbing questions of the day, by people widely separated and subjected to varied local influences. Men were influenced by mercantile and commercial, by social and domestic interests; by educational and religious interests, and it is almost impossible for many minds of most excellent, though conservative quality, to rise above fixed orders of things to the clear apprehension and vigorous grasp of a great principle.
Early education or neglect, also, may have dwarfed or blunted perceptions and capabilities; but, however, they came largely to see, eye to eye, and great progress was made. There was a lengthening of cords and strengthening of stakes, and on the 22d of February, 1856, the Republicans met in Pittsburgh and appointed its national committee, and arranged for its first nominating convention. The aim of the party, according to Mr. Blaine’s voluminous report, had been declared to be “the restoration of the government to the policy of its founders; its ideal of patriotism, the character of Washington; its vital philosophy, that of Jefferson; its watchwords, American enterprise and industry, Slavery sectional, Freedom national.”
The delegates of twelve Northern states withdrew from the Philadelphia convention, and left the New York and Southern delegates to their fate.
Mr. Blaine’s work is principally at home, within the boundaries of his adopted state. But fiercer than ever, the fires of the great conflict are raging.
Jefferson has remarked, that “in the unequal contest between freedom and oppression, the Almighty had no attribute that could take part with the oppressor.” And yet the Democratic party, in violation of its name and prestige could invoke the shades of this great man; could continue its warfare upon the life of the nation, and its encroachments upon the constitution, and violation of a plighted faith wherever slavery made its frightful demands.
At the head of his editorial column, Mr. Blaine kept these words, printed in capitals, from the last great speech delivered by Henry Clay in the United States senate, “I repeat it, sir, I never can and I never will, and no earthly power can make me vote, directly or indirectly, to spread slavery over territory where it does not exist. Never, while reason holds its seat in my brain; never, while my heart sends its vital fluid through my veins, NEVER!”
Wm. H. Seward was battling against “the fall of constitutional liberty” in the senate. The Fugitive Slave Act had passed in 1850, and the Missouri Compromise abrogated in 1854, and now an extreme measure is pending to protect United States officers in the arrest of fugitive slaves. Mr. Blaine prints the great speech in full. It had the true Republican ring.
Mr. Blaine’s final editorial for 1855, prior to the Republican convention, and first presidential campaign, is every way so fine a summary of the situation, and affords so clear a view of the man in all the moral earnestness of his powers and wide comprehension of the subject, that we give two or three extracts from his editorial in the Kennebec Journal of Dec. 28, 1855, on the “Condition of the Country”:—
“It is the settled judgment of our ablest and best statesmen, that the present is a more momentous period than any through which the country has passed since the Revolution. The issue is fairly before the American people, whether Democracy or Aristocracy, Liberty or Despotism, shall control the government of this Republic.... The contest enlists on one side the intelligence, the conscience, the patriotism, and the best energies of the American people. On the other are engaged the avarice, the servility, the ignorance, and the lust of dominion which characterize human depravity in every age and nation.
“There are in reality but two sides to this great question. There is no ground of neutrality. As true now is it as it was in the days of the Great Teacher of liberty and salvation, that men cannot serve opposite principles at the same time.... The deepening cry from all quarters is that the White House must be cleansed, and all the channels to and from the same thoroughly renovated. The march of slavery must be stopped or the nation is lost. Only by the firm and practical union of all true men in the nation can its most valuable interests be preserved.