the National House of Representatives, involved in a pointed issue of veracity on sworn testimony between him and Mr. Mulligan—Mr. Blaine's own friend, Mr. Fisher, testifying that he had known Mulligan intimately for many years, and that his character was the best, as good as, or perhaps better than, that of any other man he ever knew; and another one of Mr. Blaine's friends, Mr. Alkins, swearing that he had never heard anything against Mr. Mulligan's reputation, and that he had never doubted anything Mr. Mulligan said—all of which you can read at length in Miscellaneous Document No. 176 of the House of Representatives, Forty-fourth Congress, First Session. A sorry story, I repeat; but the sorriest thing of all was that Mr. Blaine fatally discredited himself by daring and obvious misstatements of his own about other points connected with this affair, of which I shall speak later. At any rate, it is not denied by anybody that Mr. Blaine got possession of those letters and kept them without authority, in violation of his promise to return them, and that he made a desperate struggle to conceal them. This, I should think, is sufficient to show that Mr. Blaine himself in conscience felt these letters to be extremely grave things to him, and the smiles of his friends are rather ghastly when they now try to make light of them.
How, then, did the letters come out? Mulligan's testimony, being telegraphed all over the country, created a tremendous sensation. There was a universal outcry. It became clear to Mr. Blaine that the further concealment of these letters was impossible. It was sure death. There was still a desperate chance in apparent audacity. The highly exciting scene is still remembered as he himself read them to the House of Representatives. But he who coolly reads the printed proceedings of that day will find some very curious and characteristic things. Mr.
