Wheeling Register

controversy over his civil administration closes as Democrat and Republican unite in pronouncing him to have been in every act and every aspiration an American patriot."

Mr. Blaine was the chieftain of the forces within the Republican party that opposed Gen. Grant's primacy, and resisted and twice defeated the political plans of Gen. Grant's friends. Mr. Blaine is the most conspicuous representative, living or dead, of the counter movement that divided the Republican party into two factions, bitterly hostile and mutually destructive. Three national conventions have been the three great battle fields of this nine years' war. If Mr. Blaine experienced defeat at Cincinnati in 1876, the movement which he led prevented the renomination of Gen. Grant at that time, or the nomination of any Grant Republican; and thus we had Hayes. Again, in 1880 when the third term for Grant was the direct issue, Blaine was victor and victim: thus we had Garfield. For the next four years the conflict was incessant and intense. It was carried into every Republican township or ward caucus, affecting every political event, little or big, and it finally broke the Republican party. Mr. Blaine prevailed at Chicago last year, but the return blow came with decisive effect from the Stalwarts of Central New York on the day when a Democratic President was elected.

Are the passions and resentments of that long struggle buried in Gen. Grant's grave?