Though the President was his personal friend, Blaine regarded him as his inferior in practical statecraft and planned to make his own foreign policy the notable feature of the Administration.

His hopes were dashed, however, by the assassination of Garfield and by the accession of President Arthur.

The new Secretary of State, F T.Frelinghuysen, reversed nearly all of his predecessor's policies.

When Blaine returned to the Department of State in 1889, he found a less sympathetic chief in President Harrison and a less brilliant role to play.

Whether his final retirement before the close of the Harrison Administration was due directly to the conflict of views which certainly existed or was a play on his part for the presidency and for complete control is a question that has never been completely settled.
Narrow as was Blaine's view of world affairs, impossible as was his conception of an America divided from Europe economically and spiritually as well as politically and of an America united in itself by a provoked and constantly irritated hostility to Europe, he had an American program which, taken by itself, was definite, well conceived, and in a sense prophetic.