BLAINK, .IAMKS (JILLESPIE. 



In 1880 Mr. Blaine was again a candidate for 

 the Republican presidential nomiiuition. In the 

 convention he had 284 votes on tin- first ballot, 

 against :!()4 fur (Jen. U. S. (Jrunt and 'M for Sen- 

 ator John Sherman. He held nearly this num- 

 ber until on the thirty-sixth ballot, when the 

 opponents of Gen. Grant united on James A. 

 Garfleld, who was nominated. 



Mr. Blaine was chosen by President Garfield 

 for Secretary of State, and in accepting sent the 

 following letter: 



Your generous invitation to enter your Cabinet an 

 Secretary of State has been under consideration for 

 more than three weeks. The thought had really 

 never occurred to my mind, until at our last confer- 

 ence you presented it with such cogent arguments in 

 its favor, and with such warmth of personal friend- 

 ship in aid of your offer. I know that an early an- 

 swer is desirable, and I have waited only long enough 

 to consider the subject in all its bearings, and to 

 make up my mind definitely and conclusively. I 



of low and vile men and women who did not and 

 c-onld iini assimilate with our people he said: 



Is it not inevitable that H class of men living in this 

 .1 and tiltliy condition, and on the pooract of 



foo.l, CUM \sork for "less than the American laborer is 

 entitle. 1 to receive for his daily toil? Put the two 

 classes of laborers si<lc by side, and the cheap servile 

 labor pulls down the more manly toil to ito level. 

 The tree white lubor never could compete with the 

 slave labor of the South. In the Chinaman the white 

 laborer finds only another form of servile competi- 

 tion in some aspects more revolting and corrupting 

 than African slavery. Whoever contends for the un- 

 restricted immigration of Chinese coolies contends for 

 that system of toil which blights the prospects of the 

 white laborer dooming him to starvation wages, kill- 

 in.,' his ambition l>y rendering his struggles hopeless, 

 and ending in a plodding anu pitiable poverty. Nor 

 is it a truthful answer to say that this danger is re- 

 mote. Remote it may be for Mr. Garrison, for Boston, 

 and for New England, but it is instant and pressing 

 on the Pacific slope. Already the Chinese male 

 adulto on that coast are well- 

 nigh as numerous as the 

 white voters of California, 

 and it is conceded that a 

 Chiuese_ emigrant can be 

 placed in San Francisco for 

 one half the amount re- 

 quired to transport a man 

 from the Mississippi valley 

 to the Pacific coast, and for 

 one third what it requires 

 for a New Yorker or New 

 Englauder to reach Cali- 

 fornia or Oregon. The late 

 Caleb Cushing, who had 

 carefully studied the Chi- 

 nese question ever since his 

 mission to Peking in 1842, 

 maintained that unless re- 

 sisted by the United States 

 the first general famine in 

 China would be followed by 

 an emigration to California 

 that would swamp the white 

 race. 



A great deal has been said 

 about the danger to our 

 trade if China should re- 

 sort to some form of retalia- 

 tion. The natural and pertinent retaliation is to re- now say to you, in the same cordial spirit in which 

 strict American immigration to China. Against that you have invited me, that I accept the position. It is 



we will enter no protest, and should have no right to -*-*: f ~ -AA v,-, T u *i,: A^:*:~~ 



do so. The talk about China closing her ports to our 

 trade is made only by those who do not understand 

 the question. Last year the total amount of our ex- 

 ports to all Chinese ports, outside of Hong-Kong, was 

 but $692,000. I have called Hong-Kong a Chinese 

 port, but every child knows that it is under British 

 control, and if we were at war with China to-day 

 Hong-Kong would be as open to us as Liverpool. To 

 speak of China punishing us by suspending trade is 

 only the suggestion of dense ignorance. We pay China 

 an immense balance in coin, and probably we always 

 shall do it. But if the trade question nad the im- 



HR. ELAINE'S RESIDENCE, AUGUSTA, MAINE. 



portanco which some have erroneously attributed to 

 it, I would not seek its continuance by permitting a 

 vicious immigration of Chinese coolies. The Bristol 

 merchants cried out that commerce would b(5 ruined 

 if England persisted in destroying the slave trade ; 

 but history does not record that England sacrificed 

 her honor" by yielding to the cry. There is not a 

 laboring man from the Penobscot to the Sacramento 

 who would not feel aggrieved, outraged, burdened, 

 crushed, by being forced into competition with the 

 labor and the wages of the Chinese coolie. For one, I 

 will never consent by my vote or my voice to drive the 

 intelligent workingmen of America to that competi- 

 tion and that degradation. 



no affectation for me to add that I make this decision 

 not for the honor of promotion it gives me in public, 

 but because I think I can be useful to the country 

 and to the party useful to you as the responsible 

 leader of the party and the great head of the Govern- 

 ment. 



I am influenced somewhat, perhaps, by the shower 

 of letters I have received urging me to accept, written 

 to me in consequence of the mere unauthorized news- 

 paper report that you had been pleased to otter me 

 the place. While 1 have received these letters from 

 all sections of the Dnion, I have been especially 

 pleased, and even surprised, at the cordial and wide- 

 ly extended feeling in my favor throughout New 

 England, where I liad expected to encounter local 

 jealousy, and, perhaps, rival aspirations. In our new re- 

 lation, I shall give all that I am, and all that I can hope 

 to be, freely and joyfully to your service. You need 

 no pledges of my loyalty in heart and act. 1 should 

 be false to myself did I not prove true both to the 

 great trust you confide to me and to your own per- 

 sonal and political fortunes in the present and the 

 future. 



Your administration must be made brilliantly suc- 

 cessful, and strong in the confidence and pride of the 

 people, not at all directing its energies for re-election, 

 ana yet compelling that result by the logic of events. 



