THREE GIANTS. Prohibition and the abolitionist movement
gave the Republican Party its start in Maine in 1854. Hannibal
Hamlin, a Democratic U.S. senator who broke with his party over
the slavery question, was instrumental in forming the Republican
Party in Maine, and served as the state's first GOP governor.
In 1860 Hamlin was elected the nation's first Republican vice
president under Abraham Lincoln.
Also during this period there emerged Maine's most influential
19th century political figure, James G. Blaine. From the mid-1860s
to the end of the century Blaine virtually dominated state and
national Republican politics, as speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, a powerful U.S. senator, and secretary of state
in three Republican administrations. He was the GOP presidential
candidate in 1884, but lost narrowly to Grover Cleveland.
Thomas B. Reed served continuously in Congress through the final
quarter of the 19th century, and was its most powerful political
figure during much of that time. A three-term House speaker, Reed
was a masterful parliamentarian who used his position so vigorously
to bring about vital reforms in House rules that he became known
as "Czar Reed." He literally rewrote the book on parliamentary
procedure: Reed's Rules of Order are still used in the Maine Legislature.