The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1884-09-27
BLAINE'S MARRIAGE
The Plumed Knight Re-appears in the Role Of a
Perspiouous and Sublime Liar

When James G.. Blaine told the shame
full lie to the House at Washington that he
had never owned but $4,000 of the Little
Rock and Fort Smith Railroad bonds and
that he had bought them in open market
at the ruling price, as all other owners Of
such bonds had bought them, he supposed
that all his letters to my Dear Fisher"
| bv which the INDUSTRIOUS falsehood of this
statement was fully demonstrated, had
been delivered TO himself and destroyed
not being aware that Fishers confidential
clerk, the faithful Mulligan, had preserved
letter.press copies of those letters.
So, when the indianapolis Sentinel made
the statement that Blaine was not married
until March Goth, 1851, and that three
months afterward son was born TO him,
and he rushed to the telegraph Office and
declared "the story utterly and a5ominably
false in every statement and in every i'm.
plication," and ordered suit for libel to
be commenced against the Sentinel, he was
not aware that although his marriage in
Pittsburg was strictly private and no record
had been made of it, the few witnesses
present, of whom two survive, being
pledged to inviolable secrecy, these had
preserved memoranda that enabled the
publishers of the Sentinel to prove the
date and manner of his marriage to the
last detail.
Finding himself caught in that lie, Mr..
Blaine makes a humiliating confession
of the fact to his bosom friend, William
Walter Phelps, and then rushes into another
still more daring and unconscionaDle lie.
The story he invented to cover his shame
is thus given in his own language in his
s,corn dspositi0n in answer to questions
propounded to him in the libel suit:
was married in Millersburg, KY, on
the Both of June, 1850, in the presence of
Sarah C. Stanwood and S. l.. Blaine. The
marriage was secret. Having doubt sub
sequently of its validity under the laws of
Kentucky, which then stringently required
license from the clerk of the county
court, had the marriage solemnized the
second time in Pittsburgh, Pa, on the 29th
of March, 1851, in the presence OF John
V. Lemoyne and David Bell,
In the first place, it is not true that in
Kentucky in 1850 marriage without Ii
cense was invalid. Although the law re-
quired a license and punished magistrates,
minister's &c. for solemnizing marriage
without license, such marriages, if other,
wise regularly solemnized, were held valid
by the courts, (See 3 Marshall, 372;
Bush. G4)
Secondly, Mr.. Blaine's lie grows bigger
and holder when, in his letter to Walter
Phelps, he says:
During the ensuing winter, induced by
misgivings which were increase by legal
consultations, | became alarmed lest a
doubt might be thrown on the validity of
our marriage, by reason of non -cOmpliance
with the law of the state where 1t occurred,
for | had learned that the laws of Ken.
lucky made license certified by the clerk
of the county court, an Indispensable re
quisite OF legal marriage.
thin, for any competent lawyer would at
once have relieved Blaine's "misgivings"
by referring him to the decisions above
cited
During the ensuing winter" Worse
and more of it! That Blaine was not igno
rant that the laws of Kentucky required a
license to be issued before a marriage
could be lawfully consummated is proved
by the following document copied from
the court records of Bourbon county
Kentucky:
Know all men by these presents, that
we, William A. McKim and James G.
Blaine, are held. and firmly bound to the
Commonwealth of Kentucky in the sum
of $50 current money, for the payment of
| which 10 be made to said Commonwealth
we bind ourselves, our heirs, our executors
and administrators jointly and severally by
these presents sealed and dated this 3D. day
of October, A. d. 1850 The condition of
the above obligation is such that if there is
no lawful cause to obstruct a marriage be-
tween William A. McKim and Miss Sarah
4. StanwoOd, of Bourbon county, for which
license is now obtained then this obliga-
ton be void, or else in full force.
W. A. MCkM,
SEAL. JAMES G.. BLAINE.
Sarah +. Stanwood was a sister of Har.
riet, whom Blaine married, and who he
says was one of the two witnesses present
at his secret marriage at Millersburg
Ky, on the Both of June, 1850" II is
false, therefore, that il was not until lin
the winter of 1851" that II became known
to him that the laws of Kentucky made "a
license, certified by the clerk of the county
court, an indispensable requisite of a legal
marriage for the above document demon
strates that he was perfectly aware of the
fact within less than three months after his
alleged secret Illegal marriage, and as
many months at least before "the ensuing
winter"
The unavoidable conclusion Of every
man of sense is that the whole story about