And so he was, in all of truth and right maintained, in all of good performed.
Never were the good and true remembered in such hosts as when the nation struggled with her foes. What mighty ones stepped out of the chaos of a dismal past into splendid life with her! Their name is legion; grand in every sphere of greatness, and great in every realm of grandeur. They thought out the nation first; fought out and forged it in battle-heat, and hurled it like a thing of life, upon its great career. It never loses its power to go, to be, and conquer, bringing ever to the birth, and upward into strong, armed life those whose great abilities are her own; her own for defense; her own for war, living in their lives, powerful in their strong right arms,—one with them in destiny. Among that number now, though reckoned with a multitude, was James G. Blaine.
He surveyed the field for but a single day after the second session of his first congress opened,—the thirty-eighth,—and then undid the mischief of another. It was called the “Gold bill” in the House, and had simply been offered and referred to the committee of Ways and Means, by a Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania.
Its substance was, that a dollar note issued by the Government, declared lawful money and legal tender, is declared of equal value for all purposes as gold and silver coin of like denominations. A contract made payable in coin may be payable in legal tender, and anyone should be imprisoned who received a greenback for less than gold coin was worth, and fined as well.
Gold went up in Wall Street within twenty-four hours after the bill was presented, twelve per cent. Mr. Blaine saw it and moved a reconsideration of it, sections two, three, five, and six being the objectional features of the bill. His speech in support of his motion did not occupy ten minutes. The author of the bill, Mr. Stevens, said,—
“My friend from Maine (Mr. Blaine) has an intuitive way of getting at a great national question, one that has exercised the thoughts of statesmen of several countries for many years.” This in opening; and in closing his speech, he said,—
“How the gentleman from Maine, by his intuitive knowledge of these things comes to understand at once what the ablest statesmen of England took months to mature, I cannot very well understand. It is a happy inspiration.”
Had he a knowledge of his long years of study, that it was then twenty-five years since he finished reciting Plutarch, and but little less than twenty since his graduation, had he a knowledge of the strong, determined spirit of mastery which characterized him in all his work, could he have read over at that moment the long list of volumes over which he had poured, had he known these things, he would not have felt that a genius of intuition who got at things by inspiration merely, sat before him, but one with a genius for the hardest kind of a student’s work, with intuitions born of high intelligence and inspiration that comes from conscious strength. No wonder he was an enigma, a man beyond his years and place, yet master of the situation.
Mr. Stevens’ motion to table the motion of Mr. Blaine, failed, fifty-one to sixty-eight, and then the motion of Mr. Blaine regarding the bill of Mr. Stevens, carried, seventy-three to fifty-two. It is interesting to notice, that though the gentleman did not call up his bill for a solid month,—not until after the holidays,—and then came in with an elaborate argument showing the financial course of England in her war with France in 1793, and then in her war finally with the whole of continental Europe, though he seemed to have made a careful study of his subject, and of England’s financial policy, he closed with this sentence:—
“I feel that England never had so absurd a law as to pay one part of her war-debt in gold and another part in Bank of England notes.” He said “I feel,” he did not know. But Mr. Blaine knew, and so he asked him whether the bonds negotiated by England upon the continent were not payable in gold.