Fessenden had been re-elected to the United States Senate, and New Hampshire had gone Republican.
But Stephen A. Douglas had beaten Abraham Lincoln for the senate from Illinois by a vote of fifty-eight to forty-four, and Seward had introduced his famous bill for the repression of the slave trade, just to bring the Southern senators into position on that subject, and this only a year before Lincoln was nominated. It provided for ten steamers, as a part of the navy, to cruise along the coast of Africa, as the president might direct.
About this time Oregon is admitted as the second state on the Pacific coast.
Mr. Blaine deals with all the questions of the day with skill and effectiveness. A municipal election is going on in Portland, and Mr. Blaine does his part by tongue and pen to aid in achieving a Republican victory, which is triumphantly accomplished just as the legislature is closing. But Mr. Blaine has time to deliver his best speech of the session, on Friday before final adjournment on Tuesday, April 5th, after a session of ninety days. Now he has nearly nine solid months of straight editorial work. The one great object is ever prominent,—slavery must go, or it must be restricted and kept out of the territories. The country is in great commotion; state after state fights out its battles and wheels into line. In border states, especially, political revolutions are taking place. The gospel of Liberty is taking the place of the hard political doctrines of pro-slavery Democracy. Mr. Blaine has to fire at long range, so efficiently has the work been done at home, but it is cheering to see the beacons lighted along the coast of Maine, and to know that the bonfires are lighted all over the state. Men have already been trained and gone forth to do yeoman service in other states. The Washburns are in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, while Israel Washburn, Jr., has just been elected governor of the home state.
In 1860 Mr. Blaine is elected speaker of the House, although his colleague, William T. Johnson, of Augusta, was speaker the year before. The singular popularity of the man is thus demonstrated, as he takes the chair, escorted to it by his defeated competitor; his words are few but in the best of taste. Mr. Blaine said,—
“Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:
“I accept the position you assign me with a due appreciation, I trust, of the honor it confers and the responsibility it imposes. In presiding over your deliberations it shall be my faithful endeavor to administer the parliamentary rules in such manner that the rights of minorities shall be protected, the constitutional will of majorities enforced, and the common weal effectively promoted. In this labor I am sure I shall not look in vain for your forbearance as well as your cordial co-operation. I am ready, gentlemen, to proceed with the business of the House.”
He is in a position of power and influence now; he is in the third office of the state. His ability will be tested; great presence of mind, quickness of decision, tact, and skill are needful. But he is ready and at his ease. He has the knowledge requisite, and experience seems born of the man. He fits wherever placed. He must know each member, and he knows them; he must be just, and fair, and honorable, and he is all of these by virtue of a broad, generous nature.
Mr. Blaine is speaker of the House of Representatives of the state of Maine, not because of any one good quality,—he is excelled in single qualities by many another,—but because of a large combination of good qualities, and these, cultivated to a high degree. This it is that wins; many a face is beautiful in some one or more of its features, but so distorted in others that the effect is bad, and beauty, which is the harmonious blending of many lines upon the canvas or features on the face, is lost. Character is the restoration of moral order in the individual; let this be broken by some defect, omission, or failure, some secret or overt act, and the harmony is lost, and a once fair character is marred.
Thus it is not so much the symmetry as the large and splendid combination of talents and genius which make him what he is. He simply does his best, and keeps himself at his best all the time. He anticipates every occasion, and has forces in reserve all the time, and they are brought forward, if his tactics are not known, very unexpectedly. The most telling points in all his earlier speeches are not brought out at first, and when they do appear you wonder why he did not produce them before, and this very wonder increases its power on you. This is rather a necessity, it would seem, because there is point and pith, and power all through.