d marvelous achievements of its
first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and prophetic of her
future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man
who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath
her flag--such a man is James G. Blaine.

For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no
defeat.

This is a grand year--a year filled with the recollections of the
Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with
the sacred legends of liberty--a year in which the sons of freedom will
drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call
for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon
the field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the
throat of treason the tongue of slander--for the man who has snatched
the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man
who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and
challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.

Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched
down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full
and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country
and the maligners of his honor. For the Republican party to desert this
gallant leader now, is as though an army should desert their general
upon the field of battle.

James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred
standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred, because no human
being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining
free.

Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great Republic, the
only Republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her
defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers
living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle,
and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine
at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers,
Illinois--Illinois nominates for the next President of this country,
that prince of parliamentarians--that leader of leaders--James G.
Blaine.

"THE PAST RISES BEFORE ME LIKE A DREAM."

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE SOLDIERS' REUNION AT
INDIANAPOLIS, SEPT. 21, 1876.

THE past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great
struggle for national l