Blaine

Blaine, JAMES GILLESPIE, journalist and statesman, born at West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, 31st January 1830, graduated at Washington College in 1847, and taught in a Kentucky military institute, and in the Pennsylvania institution for the blind. In 1854 he settled as a journalist at Augusta, Maine, and served in the state legislature from 1858 to 1862; from 1862 to 1876 he sat in congress, being Speaker in 1869-74. He was defeated in the Republican nominations for the presidency in 1876, 1880, 1884, and 1892. Senator for Maine in 1876, he acted as Secretary of State under Garfield, and again under Harrison (till 1892). He died January 27, 1893. He was the author of Twenty years of Congress (2 vols. 1884-86).