But even more important than the attitude of the new President on the tariff was the attitude of the new leader of the House. Who that would be was still uncertain. Thaddeus Stevens, who for fully eight years had driven the House like a flock of sheep, had died in August, 1868. There is no doubt that a sigh of relief went up from all the younger element in Congress. “The death of Thaddeus Stevens is the emancipation of the Republicans. He kept the party under his heel,” said James G. Blaine one day soon after, as he walked in the rotunda of the Capitol with a friend. “Whom have you got for leaders?” asked the friend. “There are three young men coming forward,” Blaine replied. “Allison will be heard from, so will James A. Garfield,” and then he paused. “Who is the third?” “I don’t see the third,” Blaine replied, gazing up into the dome. The third appeared a little later when Mr. Blaine was elected Speaker of the Forty-first Congress. Blaine’s attitude on the tariff was well known. He believed in high protection, but he was a politician before he was an advocate, and could be depended upon to give full hearing to anybody in his party who could muster votes. That he did not consider the tariff reformers strong enough to receive much consideration on the Ways and Means Committee was shown by his appointment of the chairman—Robert C. Schenck of Ohio. General Schenck’s tariff position had been well characterized by himself when the bill of 1866 was up. “Sitting here a friend of protective tariff for eight years,” he said, “_I have voted aye or nay as those who got up the tariff bills have told me._” “But,” he went on to say, “we begin to find something like fair play is proper in these things: We claim that what we do and can produce shall have the same protection which is given to the industry of the country, applied to the business of manufacturers.” And henceforth Mr. Schenck worked for duties for the farmer, for anybody in fact that asked one. It is clear that the House thus organized could be depended upon to support the doctrine of high protection. The vitality of the opposition within the party made itself evident, however, almost at once. Republican district conventions, particularly in the West, showed themselves restive, and at Mansfield, Ohio, in June, 1869, General Roeliff Brinkerhoff actually succeeded in getting into a Republican platform the following resolution: “_Resolved_, That we are opposed to all class legislation, government subsidies and grinding monopolies of every kind, and, therefore, we heartily favor a revision of the present oppressive tariff, so as to adjust it purely to a revenue standard.”