ON Jan. 1, 1862, Mr. Blaine was re-nominated by acclamation, and re-elected by an almost unanimous vote, Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. The war was enlarging the demand for legislation. All great national issues must be discussed by the state legislatures, and the demand for their adoption sprung from the people, a knowledge of whose will could be best gained in this way. Resolutions were discussed as regards confiscating the slaves, and arming them in the nation’s defence, and so the representatives in congress were instructed and encouraged, and their actions brought up as legislative measures and endorsed.
Grave suspicions existed at this time in the minds of many in the state of Maine, in view of the attitude of the British nation towards the United States, and the feeling of a portion of the British people, as developed by the Mason and Slidell affair, and the blockade-runners fitted out in British ports. The exposed condition of the coast and boundary line of Maine, had caused national alarm upon this subject to center largely in the state.
“For more than four hundred miles,” said the governor, Israel Washburn, Jr., in his inaugural address of January, 1862, “this state is separated from the British Provinces of New Brunswick and Canada by a merely imaginary line. Of the deep and bitter hostility to this country of large numbers of the people, we have now, unhappily,” he goes on to say, “the most indubitable proofs.
“Upon the coast of Maine there are more deep, accessible harbors, capable of being entered by the largest ships of war, than can be found on the entire coast-line of the slave-holding states; and yet since she entered the federal Union in 1820, less than half has been expended for her coast protection and improvement than was expended within ten years for the building of a custom-house in the single city of Charleston.”
The old adage, “In time of peace prepare for war,” had not been followed, and now commissioners are sent to Washington to present the facts regarding Maine’s defenseless condition, and the engineer department was directed, by order of Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, to send a competent officer to examine and report upon the subject.
This is one of the topics filling the mind of Maine statesmen of this time, and its importance is so presented and impressed, that on Jan. 17, one hundred thousand dollars was appropriated for Fort Knox on the Penobscot River, Maine, one hundred thousand dollars for the fort on Hog Island, Portland Harbor, and fifty thousand dollars each for these two forts the following year.
Seldom were there so many bills of great importance to the state and nation before the legislature, as at this and subsequent sessions. But most of the time the speaker sat quietly in his chair, exercising the functions of his office. Men seemed to be growing into greatness at a single session; speeches of great effectiveness, and eloquent with patriotic ardor, came to be a daily occurrence.
Union victories began to cheer the nation. General Thomas at Mill Springs, Ky., had fought and won a glorious day. Forts Henry and Donelson had fallen, and hordes of rebels had surrendered. Nashville was occupied by Union troops, and Andrew Johnson was appointed governor of Tennessee. Indeed, he was descending the steps of the Capitol at Washington with a bevy of his friends, and just starting for the capital of Tennessee, the very afternoon of March 7th, to which we are about to call special attention.
No scene more brilliant graces the early history of Mr. Blaine, than his reply to Hon. A. P. Gould, a distinguished lawyer of Thomaston, and a member of the lower House, in vindication of the war-power of congress. The hearty support of every Northern state was a necessity.
The following resolutions were passed by the Senate of Maine, on the 7th of February, 1862, by yeas twenty-four, nays four:—