Pine to Potomac

by E. K. Cressey

THE future had no clouds for Mr. Blaine as he returned for the fourth time to Washington as a member-elect to congress. He was in manhood’s prime, backed by a splendid record of triumph on the field of political contest, and of achievement in the arena of debate. He was thoroughly conversant with the affairs of the House in every detail of rule or measure, and was widely known and recognized as among the most popular and efficient members. His knowledge, gathered from wide fields of travel, experience, and observation, was vast; his powers thoroughly disciplined and under the finest control; his acquaintance extensive, and his rank high in personal and political friendships.

Schuyler Colfax, the former speaker, was vice-president now; standing next to General Grant, the new president. Who should take his place? This was the question that filled Mr. Blaine with high anticipations.

Granting his fitness and ability, which, perhaps, no one who knows him at all would question, the still greater question is how to win the prize, how to secure the position. It is purely a question of votes, and the one thing that secures them is personal influence. It may come of the individual’s own exertions, his power to command, the charm of his name, the fascination of his character, the magnetism of his person. But it is a matter of stupendous strength and of transcendent abilities for one to lift himself so far above his fellows as to win their suffrages in such a place as that, by his own unaided personal attractions.

Here was the great argument, but not the active agent. There must be some one to state the case, to manage it, to make the appeal, some one strong friend or more, who has grit and gumption to put it through, and see it done,—that man is Thaddeus Stevens, of his native state of Pennsylvania. He is the one of all others to do this thing.

Of few men’s power Mr. Blaine had a loftier idea than of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. There was indeed a trio who attracted and held the admiration of Mr. Blaine, and he has sketched their characters most vividly. Will you hear him as he says:—

“The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hitherto developed in this country, are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. They were all men of consummate ability, of great earnestness, of intense personality, differing widely each from the others, and yet with a single trait in common,—the power to command. In the give and take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating reluctant and refractory followers, in the skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault, or unsuspected defection, it would be difficult to rank with these a fourth name in all our congressional history.

“But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be impossible to find in parliamentary annals, greater power than when, in 1841, at sixty-four years of age, he took the control of the Whig party from the president who had received their suffrages, against the power of Webster in the cabinet, against the eloquence of Choate in the senate, against the herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise in the House. In unshared leadership, in the pride and plenitude of power, he hurled against John Tyler, with deepest scorn, the mass of that conquering column which had swept over the land in 1840, and drove his administration to shelter behind the lines of his political foes.

“Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful, when, in 1854, against the secret desires of a strong administration, against the wise counsel of the older chiefs, against the conservative instincts and even the moral sense of the country, he forced a reluctant congress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

“And now we come to Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, who, in his contests from 1865 to 1868, actually advanced his parliamentary leadership until congress tied the hands of the president, and governed the country by its own will, leaving only perfunctionary duties to be discharged by the executive. With two hundred millions of patronage in his hands at the opening of the contest, aided by the active force of Seward in the cabinet, and the moral power of Chase on the bench, Andrew Johnson could not command the support of one-third in either House against the parliamentary uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens was the animating spirit and the unquestioned leader.”

And this was the man who stood at Mr. Blaine’s right hand in this matter of the speakership.