BLAINE, James Gillespie, a
Representative and a Senator from Maine; born in West Brownsville, Washington
County, Pa., January 31, 1830; was graduated from Washington College,
Washington, Pa., in 1847; taught at the Western Military Institute, Blue Lick
Springs, Ky.; returned to Pennsylvania; studied law; taught at the Pennsylvania
Institution for the Blind in Philadelphia 1852-1854; moved in 1854 to Maine,
where he edited the Portland Advertiser and the Kennebec Journal; member, State
house of representatives 1859-1862, serving the last two years as speaker;
elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth and to the six succeeding
Congresses and served from March 4, 1863, to July 10, 1876, when he resigned;
Speaker of the House of Representatives (Forty-first through Forty-third
Congresses); chairman, Committee on Rules (Forty-third through Forty-fifth
Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for nomination for President on the
Republican ticket in 1876 and 1880; appointed and subsequently elected as a
Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the
resignation of Lot M. Morrill; reelected and served from July 10, 1876, to March
5, 1881, when he resigned to become Secretary of State; chairman, Committee on
Civil Service and Retrenchment (Forty-fifth Congress), Committee on Rules
(Forty-fifth Congress); Secretary of State in the Cabinets of Presidents James
Garfield and Chester Arthur from March 5 to December 12, 1881; unsuccessful
Republican candidate for President of the United States in 1884; Secretary of
State in the Cabinet of President Benjamin Harrison 1889-1892, when he resigned;
aided in organizing and was the first president of the Pan American Congress;
died in Washington, D.C., January 27, 1893; interment in Oak Hill Cemetery;
reinterment at the request of the State of Maine in the Blaine Memorial Park,
Augusta, Maine, in June 1920. - Biographical
Data courtesy of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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