Seven years later, he was sent to Congress, and continued to oppose the secession movement; but he saw whither things were trending, and in 1859 he resigned from Congress, remarking that he knew there was going to be a smash-up and thought he would better get off while there was time. In 1860 he made a great Union speech; and it is a remarkable proof of the hold he had upon the people of the South, that, in spite of this, and of his well-known convictions, he was chosen Vice-President of the Confederacy a year later. He accepted, but within a year he had quarrelled with Jefferson Davis on the question of state rights, and in 1864, organized the Georgia Peace party. From that time on to the close of the war, he labored to bring about a treaty of peace, but in vain. He was imprisoned for a few months after the downfall of the Confederacy, but was soon released and was prominent in the political life of Georgia for fifteen years thereafter, being governor of the state at the time of his death in 1883. A more contradictory, obstinate, prickly-conscienced man never appeared in American politics. * * * * * So passed the era of the Civil War. Have we had any great statesmen since? Some near-great ones, perhaps, but none of the very first rank. Great men are moulded by great events, or, at least, require great events to prove their greatness. Let us pause a moment, however, to pay tribute to one of the most accomplished party leaders in American history--a man almost to rank with Henry Clay--James G. Blaine. As a young editor from Maine, he had entered Congress in 1863. There he had encountered another fiery youngster in Roscoe Conkling, and an intense rivalry sprang up between them. They were very different in temperament, Blaine being the more popular, Conkling the more brilliant. Blaine had a genius for making friends and keeping them; Conkling's quick temper and hasty tongue frequently cost him his most powerful adherents. Three years later, this rivalry came to an open clash, in which each denounced the other on the floor of the House in words as stinging as parliamentary law permitted. Blaine's tirade was so bitter that Conkling became an implacable enemy and never again spoke to him. It was almost the story of Hamilton and Burr over again, except that the age of duelling had passed. That quarrel on the floor of the House was to have momentous consequences. Blaine became speaker of the House and the most popular and powerful man in his party, so that it seemed that nothing could stand between him and the desire for the presidency which gnawed at his heart, just as it had at Henry Clay's. But always in the way stood Conkling.