Editing James G. Blaine (section)

== Retirement and death ==

[[File:Political Cartoon archive (late 1880s), James G, Blaine vs. Julius Caesar Chappelle.jpg|thumb|right|Political cartoon depicting the death and funeral of Blaine.]]

Blaine had always believed his health to be fragile, and by the time he joined Harrison's cabinet he truly was unwell.{{sfnm|Crapol||1p=132|Socolofsky & Spetter||2p=88}} The years at the State Department also brought Blaine personal tragedy as two of his children, Walker and Alice, died suddenly in 1890.{{sfnm|Crapol||1p=121|Muzzey||2p=461}} Another son, Emmons, died in 1892.{{sfnm|Crapol||1p=121|Muzzey||2p=461}} With these family losses and his declining health, Blaine decided to retire and announced that he would resign from the cabinet on June 4, 1892.{{sfnm|Crapol||1p=132|Socolofsky & Spetter||2p=88}} Because of their growing animosity, and because Blaine's resignation came three days before the [[1892 Republican National Convention]] began, Harrison suspected that Blaine was preparing to run against him for the party's nomination for president.{{sfnm|Crapol||1p=132|Socolofsky & Spetter||2p=88}}

Harrison was unpopular with the party and the country, and many of Blaine's old supporters encouraged him to run for the nomination.{{sfnm|Calhoun||1pp=134–139|Muzzey||2pp=468–469}} Blaine had denied any interest in the nomination months before his resignation, but some of his friends, including Senator [[Matthew Quay]] of Pennsylvania and [[James S. Clarkson]], chairman of the [[Republican National Committee]], took it for false modesty and worked for his nomination anyway.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=469–472}} When Blaine resigned from the cabinet, his boosters were certain that he was a candidate, but the majority of the party stood by the incumbent.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=473–479}} Harrison was renominated on the first ballot, but die-hard Blaine delegates still gave their champion 182 and 1/6 votes, good enough for second place.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=473–479}}

Blaine spent the summer of 1892 at his Bar Harbor cottage, and did not involve himself in the presidential campaign other than to make a single speech in New York in October.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=480–482}} Harrison was defeated soundly in his rematch against former president Cleveland and when Blaine returned to Washington at the close of 1892, he and Harrison were friendlier than they had been in years.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=484–487}} Blaine's health declined rapidly in the winter of 1892–1893, and he died in his Washington home on January 27, 1893, four days before turning sixty-three.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=489–491}} After a funeral at the Presbyterian [[National Presbyterian Church|Church of the Covenant]], he was buried in [[Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)|Oak Hill Cemetery]] in Washington.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=489–491}} He was later re-interred in Blaine Memorial Park, [[Augusta, Maine]], in 1920.{{sfn|Muzzey|pp=489–491}}