James Blaine

He was born in West Brownsville, Washington County, Pennsylvania;

• was graduated from Washington College, Washington, Pa., in 1847;
• taught at the Western Military Institute, Blue Lick Springs, Ky.;
• returned to Pennsylvania; studied law;
• taught at the Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind in Philadelphia 1852-1854;
• moved in 1854 to Maine, where he edited the Portland Advertiser and the Kennebec Journal;
• member, State house of representatives 1859-1862, serving the last two years as speaker;
• elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1863, to July 10, 1876, when he resigned;
• Speaker of the House of Representatives (Forty-first through Forty-third Congresses); chairman, Committee on Rules (Forty-third through Forty-fifth Congresses);
• unsuccessful candidate for nomination for President on the Republican ticket in 1876 and 1880;
• appointed and subsequently elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Lot M. Morrill[?];
• reelected and served from July 10, 1876, to March 5, 1881, when he resigned to become Secretary of State; chairman, Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment (Forty-fifth Congress), Committee on Rules (Forty-fifth Congress);
• Secretary of State in the Cabinets of Presidents James Garfield and Chester Arthur from March 5 to December 12, 1881; unsuccessful Republican candidate for President of the United States in 1884 (See U.S. presidential election, U.S. presidential election, 1884.)
• Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Benjamin Harrison 1889-1892, when he resigned;
• aided in organizing and was the first president of the Pan American Congress;
• died in Washington, D.C.;
• interment in Oak Hill Cemetery;
• reinterment at the request of the State of Maine in the Blaine Memorial Park, Augusta, Maine, in June 1920.

source: www.house.gov (http://www.house.gov)