James Gillespie Blaine (
January 31,
1830-
January 27,
1893) was a
U. S. Representative and a
Senator from
Maine.
He was born in West Brownsville, Washington County, Pennsylvania;
- 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 (See U.S. presidential election, U.S. presidential election, 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.;
- interment in Oak Hill Cemetery;
- reinterment at the request of the State of Maine in the Blaine Memorial Park, Augusta, Maine, in June 1920.
source: www.house.gov (http://www.house.gov)