Mr. Blame’s motives in taking this unexpected position, in open opposition to the great majority of his party associates, has always been open to speculation and conjecture.  His personal and political enemies charged that it was due to jealousy of President Grant.  Mr. Blaine was a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination the following year.  It was a well-known fact that President Grant was not favorable to Mr. Blaine’s nomination, but was in sympathy with the movement to have Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York, Mr. Blaine’s bitterest political enemy, nominated.  Mr. Blaine was afraid, his enemies asserted, that, if the Federal Elections Bill,—­under the provisions of which great additional power would have been conferred upon the President,—­had become a law, that power would be used to defeat his nomination for the Presidency in 1876; hence his opposition to the Bill.  But, whatever his motives were, his successful opposition to that measure no doubt resulted in his failure to realize the ambition of his life,—­the Presidency of the United States.  But for the stand he took on that occasion, he would probably have received sufficient support from Southern delegates in the National Convention to secure him the nomination, and, had he been nominated at that time, the probabilities are that he would have been elected.  But his opposition to that bill practically solidified the Southern delegates in that convention against him, and as a result he was defeated for the nomination, although he was the choice of a majority of the Northern delegates.

Even when Blaine received the nomination in 1884 it was developed that it could not have happened had the Southern delegates been as solidly against him at that time as they were in 1876.  But by 1884 the Southern Republicans had somewhat relented in their opposition to him, and, as a result thereof, he received sufficient support from that section to give him the nomination.  But he was defeated at the polls because the South was solid against him,—­a condition which was made possible by his own action in defeating the Federal Elections Bill in 1875.  In consequence of his action in that matter he was severely criticised and censured by Republicans generally, and by Southern Republicans especially.

Although I was not favorable to his nomination for the Presidency at any time, my relations with Mr. Blaine had been so cordial that I felt at liberty to seek him and ask him, for my own satisfaction and information, an explanation of his action in opposing and defeating the Federal Elections Bill.  I therefore went to him just before the final adjournment of the 43rd Congress and informed him that I desired to have a few minutes’ private audience with him whenever it would be convenient for him to see me.  He requested me to come to the Speaker’s room immediately after the adjournment of the House that afternoon.