James G. Blaine

James Gillespie Blaine (January 31, 1830 – January 27, 1893) was an American statesman and Republican politician who represented Maine in the United States House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876, serving as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1869 to 1875, and then in the United States Senate from 1876 to 1881.

Blaine twice served as Secretary of State, first in 1881 under President James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, and then from 1889 to 1892 under President Benjamin Harrison. He is one of only two U.S. Secretaries of State to hold the position under three separate presidents, the other being Daniel Webster. Blaine unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President in 1876 and 1880 before being nominated in 1884. In the 1884 general election, he was narrowly defeated by Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland. Blaine was one of the late 19th century's leading Republicans and a champion of the party's moderate reformist faction, later known as the "Half-Breeds".

Blaine was born in the western Pennsylvania town of West Brownsville and moved to Maine after completing college where he became a newspaper editor. Nicknamed "the Magnetic Man", he was a charismatic speaker in an era that prized oratory. He began his political career as an early supporter of Republican Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort in the American Civil War. During Reconstruction, Blaine was a supporter of black suffrage, but opposed some of the more coercive measures of the Radical Republicans. Initially in favor of high tariffs, he later worked to lower tariffs and expand international trade. Railroad promotion and construction were important issues in his time and, as a result of his interest and support, Blaine was widely suspected of corruption in awarding railroad charters, especially with the emergence of the Mulligan letters. Though no evidence of corruption ever surfaced from these allegations, they nevertheless plagued his 1884 presidential candidacy.

As Secretary of State, Blaine was a transitional figure, marking the end of an isolationist era in foreign policy and foreshadowing the rise of the American Century that would begin with the Spanish–American War. His efforts to expand U.S. trade and influence began the nation's shift to a more active American foreign policy. Blaine was a pioneer of tariff reciprocity and urged greater involvement in Latin American affairs. An expansionist, Blaine's policies would lead in less than a decade to the establishment of the U.S. acquisition of Pacific colonies and dominance in the Caribbean.

## Early life

### Family and childhood

James Gillespie Blaine was born January 31, 1830, in West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, the third child of Ephraim Lyon Blaine and his wife Maria (Gillespie) Blaine. He had two older sisters, Harriet and Margaret. Blaine's father was a western Pennsylvania businessman and landowner, and the family lived in relative comfort. On his father's side, Blaine was descended from Scotch-Irish settlers who first emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1745. His great-grandfather Ephraim Blaine served as a Commissary-General under George Washington in the American Revolutionary War. Blaine's mother and her forebears were Irish Catholics who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1780s. Blaine's parents were married in 1820 in a Catholic ceremony, although Blaine's father remained a Presbyterian. Following a common compromise of the era, the Blaines agreed that their daughters would be raised in their mother's Catholic faith while their sons would be brought up in their father's religion. James Blaine's cousin, Angela Gillespie, was a nun and founded the American branch of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. In politics, Blaine's father supported the Whig Party.

Blaine's biographers describe his childhood as "harmonious," and note that the boy took an early interest in history and literature. At the age of thirteen, Blaine enrolled in his father's alma mater, Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College), in nearby Washington, Pennsylvania. There, he was a member of the Washington Literary Society, one of the college's debating societies. Blaine succeeded academically, graduating near the top of his class and delivering the salutatory address in June 1847. After graduation, Blaine considered attending Yale Law School, but ultimately decided against it, instead moving west to find a job.

### Teacher and publisher

In 1848, Blaine was hired as a professor of mathematics and ancient languages at the Western Military Institute in Georgetown, Kentucky. Although he was only 18 years old and younger than many of his students, Blaine adapted well to his new profession. Blaine grew to enjoy life in his adopted state and became an admirer of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay. He also made the acquaintance of Harriet Stanwood, a teacher at the nearby Millersburg Female College and native of Maine. On June 30, 1850, the two wed. Blaine once again considered taking up the study of law, but instead took his new bride to visit his family in Pennsylvania. They next lived with Harriet Blaine's family in Augusta, Maine, for several months, where their first child, Stanwood Blaine, was born in 1851. The young family soon moved again, this time to Philadelphia where Blaine took a job at the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind (now Overbrook School for the Blind) in 1852, teaching science and literature.

Philadelphia's law libraries gave Blaine the chance to at last begin to study the law, but in 1853 he received a more tempting offer: to become editor and co-owner of the Kennebec Journal. Blaine had spent several vacations in his wife's native state of Maine and had become friendly with the Journal'''s editors. When the newspaper's founder, Luther Severance, retired, Blaine was invited to purchase the publication along with co-editor Joseph Baker. He quickly accepted, borrowing the purchase price from his wife's brothers. In 1854, Baker sold his share to John L. Stevens, a local minister. The Journal had been a staunchly Whig newspaper, which coincided with Blaine's and Stevens' political opinions. The decision to become a newspaperman, unexpected as it was, started Blaine on the road to a lifelong career in politics. Blaine's purchase of the Journal coincided with the demise of the Whig party and birth of the Republican party, and Blaine and Stevens actively promoted the new party in their newspaper. The newspaper was financially successful, and Blaine was soon able to invest his profits in coal mines in Pennsylvania and Virginia, forming the basis of his future wealth.

### Maine politics

Blaine's career as a Republican newspaperman led naturally to involvement in party politics. In 1856, he was selected as a delegate to the first Republican National Convention. From the party's early days, Blaine identified with the conservative wing, supporting Supreme Court Justice John McLean for the presidential nomination over the more radical John C. Frémont, the eventual nominee. The following year, Blaine was offered the editorship of the Portland Daily Advertiser, which he accepted, selling his interest in the Journal soon thereafter. He still maintained his home in Augusta, however, with his growing family. Although Blaine's first son, Stanwood, died in infancy, he and Harriet had two more sons soon afterward: Walker, in 1855, and Emmons, in 1857. They would have four more children in years to come: Alice, James, Margaret, and Harriet. It was around this time that Blaine left the Presbyterian church of his childhood and joined his wife's new denomination, becoming a member of the South Parish Congregational Church in Augusta.

In 1858, Blaine ran for a seat in the Maine House of Representatives, and was elected. He ran for reelection in 1859, 1860, and 1861, and was successful each time by large majorities. The added responsibilities led Blaine to reduce his duties with the Advertiser in 1860, and he soon ceased editorial work altogether. Meanwhile, his political power was growing as he became chairman of the Republican state committee in 1859, replacing Stevens. Blaine was not a delegate to the Republican convention in 1860, but attended anyway as an enthusiastic supporter of Abraham Lincoln. Returning to Maine, he was elected Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives in 1861 and reelected in 1862. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he supported Lincoln's war effort and saw that the Maine Legislature voted to organize and equip units to join the Union Army.

## House of Representatives, 1863–1876

### Elected to the House

Blaine had considered running for the United States House of Representatives from Maine's 4th district in 1860, but agreed to step aside when Anson P. Morrill, a former governor, announced his interest in the seat. Morrill was successful, but after redistricting placed Blaine in the 3rd district for the 1862 election, he allowed his name to be put forward. Running on a campaign of staunch support for the war effort, Blaine was elected by a wide margin; though nationwide, the Republican Party lost a significant number of seats in Congress as the Union war effort to date had been only weakly successful. By the time Blaine took his seat in December 1863, at the start of the 38th Congress, the Union Army had turned the tide of the war with victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

As a first-term congressman, he initially said little, mostly following the administration's lead in supporting the continuing war effort. He did clash several times with the leader of the Republicans' radical faction, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, firstly over payment of states' debts incurred in supporting the war, and again over monetary policy concerning the new greenback currency. Blaine also spoke in support of the commutation provision of the military draft law passed in 1863 and proposed a constitutional amendment allowing the federal government to impose taxes on exports, but it never passed.

### Reconstruction and impeachment

Blaine was reelected in 1864 and, when the 39th Congress assembled in December 1865, the main issue was the Reconstruction of the defeated Confederate States. Although he was not a member of the committee charged with drafting what became the Fourteenth Amendment, Blaine did make his views on the subject known and believed that three-fourths of the non-seceded states would be needed to ratify it, rather than three-fourths of all states, an opinion that did not prevail and placed him, atypically, in the radical camp. The Republican Congress also played a role in the governance of the conquered South, dissolving the state governments President Andrew Johnson had installed and substituting military governments under Congress' control. Blaine voted in favor of these new, harsher measures, but also supported some leniency toward the former rebels when he opposed a bill that would have barred Southerners from attending the United States Military Academy. Blaine voted to impeach Johnson in 1868, although he had initially opposed the effort. Later, Blaine was more ambiguous about the validity of the charges against Johnson, writing that "there was a very grave difference of opinion among those equally competent to decide," but he followed his party's leaders.

### Monetary policy

Continuing his earlier battle with Stevens, Blaine led the fight in Congress for a strong dollar. After the issuance of 150 million dollars in greenbacks—non-gold-backed currency—the value of the dollar stood at a low ebb. A bipartisan group of inflationists, led by Republican Benjamin F. Butler and Democrat George H. Pendleton, wished to preserve the status quo and allow the Treasury to continue to issue greenbacks and even to use them to pay the interest due on pre-war bonds. Blaine called this idea a repudiation of the nation's promise to investors, which was made when the only currency was gold. Speaking several times on the matter, Blaine said that the greenbacks had only ever been an emergency measure to avoid bankruptcy during the war. Blaine and his hard money allies were successful, but the issue remained alive until 1879, when all remaining greenbacks were made redeemable in gold by the Specie Payment Resumption Act of 1875.

### Speaker of the House

During his first three terms in Congress, Blaine had earned for himself a reputation as an expert of parliamentary procedure, and, aside from a growing feud with Roscoe Conkling of New York, had become popular among his fellow Republicans. In March 1869, when Speaker Schuyler Colfax resigned from office at the end of the 40th Congress to become vice president, the highly regarded Blaine was the unanimous choice of the Republican Congressional Caucus to become Speaker of the House for the 41st Congress. In the subsequent March 4, 1869, election for Speaker, Blaine easily defeated Democrat Michael C. Kerr of Indiana by a vote of 135 to 57. Republicans remained in control of the House in the 42nd and 43rd congresses, and Blaine was re-elected as speaker at the start of both of them. His time as speaker came to an end following the 1874-75 elections which produced a Democratic majority in the House for the 44th Congress.

Blaine was an effective Speaker with a magnetic personality. In the words of Washington journalist Benjamin Perley Poore, Blaine's "graceful as well as powerful figure, his strong features, glowing with health, and his hearty, honest manner, made him an attractive speaker and an esteemed friend." Moreover, President Ulysses S. Grant valued his skill and loyalty in leading the House. He enjoyed the job and made his presence in Washington more permanent by buying a large residence on Fifteenth Street in the city. At the same time, the Blaine family moved to a mansion in Augusta.

During Blaine's six-year tenure as Speaker his popularity continued to grow, and Republicans dissatisfied with Grant mentioned Blaine as a potential presidential candidate prior to the 1872 Republican National Convention. Instead, Blaine worked steadfastly for Grant's re-election. Blaine's growing fame brought growing opposition from the Democrats, as well, and during the 1872 campaign he was accused of receiving bribes in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Blaine denied any part in the scandal, which involved railroad companies bribing federal officials to turn a blind eye to fraudulent railroad contracts that overcharged the government by millions of dollars. No one was able to satisfactorily prove Blaine's involvement. Though not an absolute defense, it is true that the law that made the fraud possible had been written before he was elected to Congress. But other Republicans were exposed by the accusations, including Vice President Colfax, who was dropped from the 1872 presidential ticket in favor of Henry Wilson.

Although he supported a general amnesty for former Confederates, Blaine opposed extending it to include Jefferson Davis, and he cooperated with Grant in helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in response to increased violence and disenfranchisement of blacks in the South. He refrained from voting on the anti-third term resolution that overwhelmingly passed the House that same year, believing that to vote for it would look self-interested. Blaine was loyal to Grant, and the scandals of the Grant administration did not seem to affect how the public perceived him; according to his biographer, Blaine was never more popular than when he was Speaker. Liberal Republicans saw him as an alternative to the evident corruption of other Republican leaders, and some even urged him to form a new, reformist party. Although he remained a Republican, this base of moderate reformers remained loyal to Blaine and became known as the Half Breed faction of the party.

### Blaine Amendment

Once out of the speaker's chair, Blaine had more time to concentrate on his presidential ambitions, and to develop new policy ideas. One result was a foray into education policy. In late 1875, President Grant made several speeches on the importance of the separation of church and state and the duty of the states to provide free public education. Blaine saw in this an issue that would distract from the Grant administration scandals and let the Republican party regain the high moral ground. In December 1875, he proposed a joint resolution that became known as the Blaine Amendment.

The proposed amendment codified the church-state separation Blaine and Grant were promoting, stating that:

> No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations.

The effect was to prohibit the use of public funds by any religious school, although it did not advance Grant's other aim of requiring states to provide public education to all children. The bill passed the House but failed in the Senate. Although it never passed Congress, and left Blaine open to charges of anti-Catholicism, the proposed amendment served Blaine's purpose of rallying Protestants to the Republican party and promoting himself as one of the party's foremost leaders.

## 1876 presidential election

### Mulligan letters

Blaine entered the 1876 presidential campaign as the favorite, but his chances were almost immediately harmed by the emergence of a scandal. Rumors had begun to spread in February that Blaine had been involved in a transaction with the Union Pacific Railroad which had paid Blaine \$64,000 for some Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad bonds he owned even though they were nearly worthless. In essence, the alleged transaction was presented as a sham designed to bribe Blaine. Blaine denied the charges, as did the Union Pacific's directors. Blaine claimed that he never had any dealings with the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad except to purchase bonds at market price and that he had lost money on the transaction. Democrats in the House of Representatives, however, demanded a congressional investigation. The testimony appeared to favor Blaine's version of events until May 31, when James Mulligan, a Boston clerk who had been employed by Blaine's brother-in-law, testified that the allegations were true, he had arranged the transaction, and he had letters to prove it. The letters ended with the damning phrase "Kindly burn this letter." When the investigating committee recessed, Blaine met with Mulligan that night in his hotel room. What happened between the men is unclear, but Blaine acquired the letters or, as Mulligan told the committee, snatched them from Mulligan's hands and fled the room. In any event, Blaine had the letters and refused the committee's demand to turn them over.

Opinion swiftly turned against Blaine; the June 3 The New York Times carried the headline "Blaine's Nomination Now Out of the Question." Blaine took his case to the House floor on June 5, theatrically proclaiming his innocence and calling the investigation a partisan attack by Southern Democrats in revenge for his exclusion of Jefferson Davis from the amnesty bill of the previous year. He read selected passages from the letters aloud and said, "Thank God Almighty, I am not afraid to show them!" Blaine even succeeded in extracting an apology from the committee chairman. The political tide turned anew in Blaine's favor, but the pressure had now begun to affect Blaine's health, and he collapsed while leaving church services on June 14. His opponents called the collapse a political stunt, with one Democratic newspaper reporting the event as "Blaine Feigns a Faint." Rumors of Blaine's ill health combined with the lack of hard evidence against him garnered him sympathy among Republicans, and when the Republican convention began in Cincinnati later that month, he was again seen as the frontrunner.

### Plumed Knight

Though he was damaged by the Mulligan letters, Blaine entered the convention as the favorite. Five other men were also considered serious candidates: Benjamin Bristow, the Kentucky-born Treasury Secretary; Roscoe Conkling, Blaine's old enemy and now a Senator from New York; Senator Oliver P. Morton of Indiana; Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio; and Governor John F. Hartranft of Pennsylvania. Blaine was nominated by Illinois orator Robert G. Ingersoll in what became a famous speech:

> This is a grand year—a year filled with recollections of the Revolution ... a year in which the people call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander, the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion ... Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine from the state of Maine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of every traitor to his country and every maligner of his fair reputation.

The speech was a success and Ingersoll's appellation of "plumed knight" remained a nickname for Blaine for years to come. On the first ballot, no candidate received the required majority of 378, but Blaine had the most votes, with 285 and no other candidate had more than 125. There were a few vote shifts in the next five ballots, and Blaine climbed to 308 votes, with his nearest competitor at just 111. On the seventh ballot the situation shifted drastically as anti-Blaine delegates began to coalesce around Hayes; by the time the balloting ended, Blaine's votes had risen to 351, but Hayes surpassed him at 384, a majority.

Blaine received the news at his home in Washington and telegraphed Hayes his congratulations. In the subsequent contest of 1876, Hayes was elected after a contentious compromise over disputed electoral votes. The results of the convention had further effects on Blaine's political career, as Bristow, having lost the nomination, also resigned as Treasury Secretary three days after the convention ended. President Grant selected Senator Lot M. Morrill of Maine to fill the cabinet post, and Maine's governor, Seldon Connor, appointed Blaine to the now-vacant Senate seat. When the Maine Legislature reconvened that autumn, they confirmed Blaine's appointment and elected him to the full six-year term that would begin on March 4, 1877.

## United States Senate, 1876–1881

Blaine was appointed to the Senate on July 10, 1876, but did not begin his duties there until the Senate convened in December of that year. While in the Senate, he served on the Appropriations Committee and held the chairmanship of the Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment, but he never achieved the role of leadership that he had held as a member of the House. The Senate in the 45th Congress was controlled by a narrow Republican majority, but it was a majority often divided against itself and against the Hayes administration. Blaine did not number himself among the administration's defenders — later known as the Half-Breeds — but neither could he join the Republicans led by Conkling—later known as the Stalwarts — who opposed Hayes, because of the deep personal enmity between Blaine and Conkling. He opposed Hayes's withdrawal of federal troops from Southern capitals, which effectively ended the Reconstruction of the South, but to no avail. Blaine continued to antagonize Southern Democrats, voting against bills passed in the Democrat-controlled House that would reduce the Army's appropriation and repeal the post-war Enforcement Acts he had helped pass. Such bills passed Congress several times and Hayes vetoed them several times; ultimately, the Enforcement Acts remained in place, but the funds to enforce them dwindled. By 1879, there were only 1,155 soldiers stationed in the former Confederacy, and Blaine believed that this small force could never guarantee the civil and political rights of black Southerners—which would mean an end to the Republican party in the South.

On monetary issues, Blaine continued the advocacy for a strong dollar that he had begun as a Representative. This stance was in opposition to Senate Republican leadership, including Senate President Pro Tempore Thomas W. Ferry, who generally supported the greenback movement. The issue had shifted from debate over greenbacks to debate over which metal should back the dollar: gold and silver, or gold alone. The Coinage Act of 1873 stopped the coinage of silver for all coins worth a dollar or more, effectively tying the dollar to the value of gold. As a result, the money supply contracted and the effects of the Panic of 1873 grew worse, making it more expensive for debtors to pay debts they had entered into when currency was less valuable. Farmers and laborers, especially, clamored for the return of coinage in both metals, believing the increased money supply would restore wages and property values. Democratic Representative Richard P. Bland of Missouri proposed a bill, which passed the House, that required the United States to coin as much silver as miners could sell the government, thus increasing the money supply and aiding debtors. In the Senate, William B. Allison, a Republican from Iowa offered an amendment to limit the silver coinage to two to four million dollars per month. This was still too much for Blaine, and he denounced the bill and the proposed amendment, but the amended Bland–Allison Act passed the Senate by a 48 to 21 vote. Hayes vetoed the bill, but Congress mustered the two-thirds vote to pass it over his veto. Even after the Bland–Allison Act's passage, Blaine continued his opposition, making a series of speeches against it during the 1878 congressional campaign season.

His time in the Senate allowed Blaine to develop his foreign policy ideas. He advocated expansion of the American navy and merchant marine, which had been in decline since the Civil War. Blaine also bitterly opposed the results of the arbitration with Great Britain over American fishermen's right to fish in Canadian waters, which resulted in a \$5.5 million award to Britain. Blaine's Anglophobia combined with his support of high tariffs. He had initially opposed a reciprocity treaty with Canada that would have reduced tariffs between the two nations, but by the end of his time in the Senate, he had changed his mind, believing that Americans had more to gain by increasing exports than they would lose by the risk of cheap imports.

## 1880 presidential election

Hayes had announced early in his presidency that he would not seek another term, which meant that the contest for the Republican nomination in 1880 was open to all challengers—including Blaine. Blaine was among the early favorites for the nomination, as were former President Grant, Treasury Secretary John Sherman of Ohio, and Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont. Although Grant did not actively promote his candidacy, his entry into the race re-energized the Stalwarts and when the convention met in Chicago in June 1880, they instantly polarized the delegates into Grant and anti-Grant factions, with Blaine the most popular choice of the latter group. Blaine was nominated by James Frederick Joy of Michigan, but in contrast to Ingersoll's exciting speech of 1876, Joy's lengthy oration was remembered only for its maladroitness. After the other candidates were nominated, the first ballot showed Grant leading with 304 votes and Blaine in second with 284; no other candidate had more than Sherman's 93, and none had the required majority of 379. Sherman's delegates could swing the nomination to either Grant or Blaine, but he refused to release them through twenty-eight ballots in the hope that the anti-Grant forces would desert Blaine and flock to him. Eventually, they did desert Blaine, but instead of Sherman they shifted their votes to Ohio Congressman James A. Garfield, and by the thirty-sixth ballot he had 399 votes, enough for victory.

Garfield placated the Stalwarts by endorsing Chester A. Arthur of New York, a Conkling loyalist, as nominee for vice president, but it was to Blaine and his delegates that Garfield owed his nomination. When Garfield was elected over Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock, he turned to Blaine to guide him in selection of his cabinet and offered him the preeminent position: Secretary of State. Blaine accepted, resigning from the Senate on March 4, 1881.

## Secretary of State, 1881

### Foreign policy initiatives

Blaine saw presiding over the cabinet as a chance to preside over the Washington social scene, as well, and soon ordered construction of a new, larger home near Dupont Circle. Although his foreign policy experience was minimal, Blaine quickly threw himself into his new duties. By 1881, Blaine had completely abandoned his protectionist leanings and now used his position as Secretary of State to promote freer trade, especially within the western hemisphere. His reasons were twofold: firstly, Blaine's old fear of British interference in the Americas was undiminished, and he saw increased trade with Latin America as the best way to keep Britain from dominating the region. Secondly, he believed that by encouraging exports, he could increase American prosperity, and by doing so position the Republican party as the author of that prosperity, ensuring continued electoral success. Garfield agreed with his Secretary of State's vision and Blaine called for a Pan-American conference in 1882 to mediate disputes among the Latin American nations and to serve as a forum for talks on increasing trade. At the same time, Blaine hoped to negotiate a peace in the War of the Pacific then being fought by Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Blaine favored a resolution that would not result in Peru yielding any territory, but Chile, which had by 1881 occupied the Peruvian capital, rejected any negotiations that would gain them nothing. Blaine sought to expand American influence in other areas, calling for renegotiation of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty to allow the United States to construct a canal through Panama without British involvement, as well as attempting to reduce British involvement in the strategically located Kingdom of Hawaii. His plans for the United States' involvement in the world stretched even beyond the Western Hemisphere, as he sought commercial treaties with Korea and Madagascar.

### Garfield's assassination

On July 2, 1881, Blaine and Garfield were walking through the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in Washington when Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled lawyer and crazed office seeker who had made repeated demands for Blaine and other State Department officials to appoint him to various ambassadorships for which he was grossly unqualified or were already filled.

Guiteau, a self-professed Stalwart, believed that after assassinating the President, he would strike a blow to unite the two factions of the Republican Party, allowing him to ingratiate himself with Vice President Arthur and receive his coveted position. Guiteau was overpowered and arrested immediately, while Garfield lingered for two and a half months before he died on September 19, 1881. Guiteau was convicted of killing Garfield and hanged on June 30, 1882.

Garfield's death was not just a personal tragedy for Blaine; it also meant the end of his dominance of the cabinet, and the end of his foreign policy initiatives. With Arthur's ascent to the presidency, the Stalwart faction now held sway, and Blaine's days at the State Department were numbered. While Arthur asked all of the cabinet members to postpone their resignations until Congress recessed that December, Blaine nonetheless tendered his resignation on October 19, 1881, but he agreed to remain in office until December 19, when his successor would be in place.

Blaine's replacement was Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Stalwart; while Arthur and Frelinghuysen undid much of Blaine's work, cancelling the call for a Pan-American conference and stopping the effort to end the War of the Pacific, they did continue the drive for tariff reductions, signing a reciprocity treaty with Mexico in 1882.

### Private life

Blaine began the year 1882 without a political office for the first time since 1859. Troubled by poor health, he sought no employment other than the completion of the first volume of his memoir, Twenty Years of Congress. Friends in Maine petitioned Blaine to run for Congress in the 1882 elections, but he declined, preferring to spend his time writing and supervising the move to the new home. His income from mining and railroad investments was sufficient to sustain the family's lifestyle and to allow for the construction of a vacation cottage, "Stanwood" on Mount Desert Island, Maine, designed by Frank Furness. Blaine appeared before Congress in 1882 during an investigation into his War of the Pacific diplomacy, defending himself against allegations that he owned an interest in the Peruvian guano deposits being occupied by Chile, but otherwise stayed away from the Capitol. The publication of the first volume of Twenty Years in early 1884 added to Blaine's financial security and thrust him back into the political spotlight. As the 1884 campaign loomed, Blaine's name was being circulated once more as a potential nominee, and despite some reservations, he soon found himself back in the hunt for the presidency.

## 1884 presidential election

### Nomination

In the months leading up to the 1884 convention, Blaine was once more considered the favorite for the nomination, but President Arthur was contemplating a run for election in his own right. George Edmunds was again the favored candidate among reformers and John Sherman had a few delegates pledged to him, but neither was expected to command much support at the convention. John A. Logan of Illinois hoped to attract Stalwart votes if Arthur's campaign was unsuccessful. Blaine was unsure he wanted to try for the nomination for the third time and even encouraged General William T. Sherman, John Sherman's older brother, to accept it if it came to him, but ultimately Blaine agreed to be a candidate again.

William H. West of Ohio nominated Blaine with an enthusiastic speech and after the first ballot, Blaine led the count with 3341⁄2 votes. While short of the necessary 417 for nomination, Blaine had far more than any other candidate with Arthur in second place at 278 votes. Blaine was unacceptable to the Arthur delegates just as Blaine's own delegates would never vote for the President, so the contest was between the two for the delegates of the remaining candidates. Blaine's total steadily increased as Logan and Sherman withdrew in his favor and some of the Edmunds delegates defected to him. Unlike in previous conventions, the momentum for Blaine in 1884 would not be halted. On the fourth ballot, Blaine received 541 votes and was, at last, nominated. Logan was named vice presidential nominee on the first ballot, and the Republicans had their ticket.

### Campaign against Cleveland

The Democrats held their convention in Chicago the following month and nominated Governor Grover Cleveland of New York. Cleveland's time on the national scene was brief, but Democrats hoped that his reputation as a reformer and an opponent of corruption would attract Republicans dissatisfied with Blaine and his reputation for scandal. They were correct, as reform-minded Republicans (called "Mugwumps") denounced Blaine as corrupt and flocked to Cleveland. The Mugwumps, including such men as Carl Schurz and Henry Ward Beecher, were more concerned with morality than with party, and felt Cleveland was a kindred soul who would promote civil service reform and fight for efficiency in government. However, even as the Democrats gained support from the Mugwumps, they lost some blue-collar workers to the Greenback Party, led by Benjamin F. Butler, Blaine's antagonist from their early days in the House.

The campaign focused on the candidates' personalities, as each candidate's supporters cast aspersions on their opponents. Cleveland's supporters rehashed the old allegations from the Mulligan letters that Blaine had corruptly influenced legislation in favor of railroads, later profiting on the sale of bonds he owned in both companies. Although the stories of Blaine's favors to the railroads had made the rounds eight years earlier, this time more of his correspondence was discovered, making his earlier denials less plausible. Blaine acknowledged that the letters were genuine, but denied that anything in them impugned his integrity or contradicted his earlier explanations. Nevertheless, what Blaine described as "stale slander" served to focus the public's attention negatively on his character. On some of the most damaging correspondence, Blaine had written "Burn this letter," giving Democrats the last line to their rallying cry: "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine, 'Burn this letter!'"

To counter Cleveland's image of superior morality, Republicans discovered reports that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo, New York, and chanted "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?"—to which the Democrats, after Cleveland had been elected, appended, "Gone to the White House, Ha! Ha! Ha!" Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who claimed he fathered her child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Halpin was involved with several men at the time, including Cleveland's friend and law partner, Oscar Folsom, for whom the child was also named. Cleveland did not know which man was the father, and is believed to have assumed responsibility because he was the only bachelor among them. At the same time, Democratic operatives accused Blaine and his wife of not having been married when their eldest son, Stanwood, was born in 1851; this rumor was false, however, and caused little excitement in the campaign. Halpin disputed the claims of being involved with several men, accusing Cleveland of raping and impregnating her, then institutionalizing her against her will to gain control of their child.

Both candidates believed that the states of New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut would determine the election. In New York, Blaine received less support than he anticipated when Arthur and Conkling, still powerful in the New York Republican party, failed to actively campaign for him. Blaine hoped that he would have more support from Irish Americans than Republicans typically did; while the Irish were mainly a Democratic constituency in the 19th century, Blaine's mother was Irish Catholic, and he believed his career-long opposition to the British government would resonate with the Irish. Blaine's hope for Irish defections to the Republican standard were dashed late in the campaign when one of his supporters, Samuel D. Burchard, gave a speech denouncing the Democrats as the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." The Democrats spread the word of this insult in the days before the election, and Cleveland narrowly won all four of the swing states, including New York by just over one thousand votes. While the popular vote total was close, with Cleveland winning by just one-quarter of a percent, the electoral votes gave Cleveland a majority of 219–182.

## Party leader in exile

Blaine accepted his narrow defeat and spent most of the next year working on the second volume of Twenty Years of Congress. The book continued to earn him enough money to support his lavish household and pay off his debts. Although he spoke to friends of retiring from politics, Blaine still attended dinners and commented on the Cleveland administration's policies. By the time of the 1886 Congressional elections, Blaine was giving speeches and promoting Republican candidates, especially in his home state of Maine. Republicans were successful in Maine, and after the Maine elections in September, Blaine went on a speaking tour from Pennsylvania to Tennessee, hoping to boost the prospects of Republican candidates there. Republicans were less successful nationwide, gaining seats in the House while losing seats in the Senate, but Blaine's speeches kept him and his opinions in the spotlight.

Blaine and his wife and daughters sailed for Europe in June 1887, visiting England, Ireland, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, and finally Scotland, where they stayed at the summer home of Andrew Carnegie. While in France, Blaine wrote a letter to the New-York Tribune criticizing Cleveland's plans to reduce the tariff, saying that free trade with Europe would impoverish American workers and farmers. The family returned to the United States in August 1887. His letter in the Tribune had raised his political profile even higher, and by 1888 Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, both former opponents, urged Blaine to run against Cleveland again. Opinion within the party was overwhelmingly in favor of renominating Blaine.

As the state conventions drew nearer, Blaine announced that he would not be a candidate. His supporters doubted his sincerity and continued to encourage him to run, but Blaine still demurred. Hoping to make his intentions clear, Blaine left the country and was staying with Carnegie in Scotland when the 1888 Republican National Convention began in Chicago. Carnegie encouraged Blaine to accept if the convention nominated him, but the delegates finally accepted Blaine's refusal. John Sherman was the most prominent candidate and sought to attract the Blaine supporters to his candidacy, but instead found them flocking to former senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana after a telegram from Carnegie suggested that Blaine favored him. Blaine returned to the United States in August 1888 and visited Harrison at his home in October, where twenty-five thousand residents paraded in Blaine's honor. Harrison defeated Cleveland in a close election, and offered Blaine his former position as Secretary of State.

## Secretary of State, 1889–1892

Harrison had developed his foreign policy based largely on Blaine's ideas, and at the start of his term, Harrison and Blaine had very similar views on the United States' place in the world. In spite of their shared worldview, however, the two men became personally unfriendly as the term went on. Harrison was conscious that his Secretary of State was more popular than he, and while he admired Blaine's gift for diplomacy, he grew displeased with Blaine's frequent absence from his post because of illness, and suspected that Blaine was angling for the presidential nomination in 1892. Harrison tried to limit how many "Blaine men" filled subordinate positions in the State Department and denied Blaine's request that his son, Walker, be appointed First Assistant Secretary, instead naming him Solicitor of the Department of State. Despite the growing personal rancor, the two men continued, with one exception, to agree on the foreign policy questions of the day.

### Pacific diplomacy

Blaine and Harrison wished to see American power and trade expanded across the Pacific and were especially interested in securing rights to harbors in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Pago Pago, Samoa. When Blaine entered office, the United States, Great Britain, and the German Empire were disputing their respective rights in Samoa. Thomas F. Bayard, Blaine's predecessor, had accepted an invitation to a three-party conference in Berlin aimed at resolving the dispute, and Blaine appointed American representatives to attend. The result was a treaty that created a condominium among the three powers, allowing all of them access to the harbor.

In Hawaii, Blaine worked to bind the kingdom more closely to the United States and to avoid its becoming a British protectorate. When the McKinley Tariff of 1890 eliminated the duty on sugar, Hawaiian sugar-growers looked for a way to retain their once-exclusive access to the American market. The Hawaiian minister to the United States, Henry A. P. Carter, tried to arrange for Hawaii to have complete trade reciprocity with the United States, but Blaine proposed instead that Hawaii become an American protectorate; Carter favored the idea, but the Hawaiian king, Kalākaua, rejected the infringement on his sovereignty. Blaine next procured the appointment of his former newspaper colleague John L. Stevens as minister to Hawaii. Stevens had long believed that the United States should annex Hawaii, and as minister he co-operated with Americans living in Hawaii in their efforts to bring about annexation. Their efforts ultimately culminated in a coup d'état against Kalākaua's successor, Liliuokalani, in 1893. Blaine's precise involvement is undocumented, but the results of Stevens' diplomacy were in accord with his ambitions for American power in the region. The new government petitioned the United States for annexation, but by that time Blaine was no longer in office.

### Latin America and reciprocity

Soon after taking office, Blaine revived his old idea of an international conference of western hemisphere nations. The result was the First International Conference of American States, which met in Washington in 1890. Blaine and Harrison had high hopes for the conference, including proposals for a customs union, a pan-American railroad line, and an arbitration process to settle disputes among member nations. Their overall goal was to extend trade and political influence over the entire hemisphere; some of the other nations understood this and were wary of deepening ties with the United States to the exclusion of European powers. Blaine said publicly that his only interest was in "annexation of trade," not annexation of territory, but privately he wrote to Harrison of a desire for some territorial enlargement of the United States:

> I think there are only three places that are of value enough to be taken ... One is Hawaii and the others are Cuba and Porto Rico  [sic]. Cuba and Porto Rico are not now imminent and will not be for a generation. Hawaii may come up for decision at an unexpected hour and I hope we shall be prepared to decide it in the affirmative.

Congress was not as enthusiastic about a customs union as Blaine and Harrison were, but tariff reciprocity provisions were ultimately included in the McKinley Tariff that reduced duties on some inter-American trade. Otherwise, the conference achieved none of Blaine's goals in the short-term, but did lead to further communication and what would eventually become the Organization of American States.

In 1891, a diplomatic crisis arose in Chile that drove a wedge between Harrison and Blaine. The American minister to Chile, Patrick Egan, a political friend of Blaine's, granted asylum to Chileans who were seeking refuge from the Chilean Civil War. Chile was already suspicious of Blaine because of his War of the Pacific diplomacy ten years earlier, and this incident raised tensions even further. When sailors from the Baltimore took shore leave in Valparaíso, a fight broke out, resulting in the deaths of two American sailors and three dozen arrested. When the news reached Washington, Blaine was in Bar Harbor recuperating from a bout of ill health and Harrison himself drafted a demand for reparations. The Chilean foreign minister, Manuel Antonio Matta, replied that Harrison's message was "erroneous or deliberately incorrect" and said that the Chilean government was treating the affair the same as any other criminal matter. Tensions increased as Harrison threatened to break off diplomatic relations unless the United States received a suitable apology. Blaine returned to the capital and made conciliatory overtures to the Chilean government, offering to submit the dispute to arbitration and recall Egan. Harrison still insisted on an apology and submitted a special message to Congress about the threat of war. Chile issued an apology for the incident, and the threat of war subsided.

### Relations with European powers

Blaine's earliest expressions in the foreign policy sphere were those of a reactionary Anglophobe, but by the end of his career his relationship with the United Kingdom had become more moderate and nuanced. A dispute over seal hunting in the waters off Alaska was the cause of Blaine's first interaction with Britain as Harrison's Secretary of State. A law passed in 1889 required Harrison to ban seal hunting in Alaskan waters, but Canadian fishermen believed they had the right to continue fishing there. Soon thereafter, the United States Navy seized several Canadian ships near the Pribilof Islands. Blaine entered into negotiations with Britain and the two nations agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration by a neutral tribunal. Blaine was no longer in office when the tribunal began its work, but the result was to allow the hunting once more, albeit with some regulation, and to require the United States to pay damages of \$473,151. Ultimately, the nations signed the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911, which outlawed open-water seal hunting.

At the same time as the Pribilof Islands dispute, an outbreak of mob violence in New Orleans became an international incident. After New Orleans police chief David Hennessy led a crackdown against local mafiosi, he was assassinated on October 14, 1890. After the alleged murderers were found not guilty on March 14, 1891, a mob stormed the jail and lynched eleven of them. Since many of those killed were Italian citizens the Italian minister, Saverio Fava, protested to Blaine. Blaine explained that federal officials could not control how state officials deal with criminal matters, and Fava announced that he would withdraw the legation back to Italy. Blaine and Harrison believed the Italians' response to be an overreaction, and did nothing. Tensions slowly cooled, and after nearly a year, the Italian minister returned to the United States to negotiate an indemnity. After some internal dispute—Blaine wanted conciliation with Italy, Harrison was reluctant to admit fault—the United States agreed to pay an indemnity of \$25,000, and normal diplomatic relations resumed.

## Retirement and death

Blaine had always believed his health to be fragile, and by the time he joined Harrison's cabinet he truly was unwell. The years at the State Department also brought Blaine personal tragedy as two of his children, Walker and Alice, died suddenly in 1890. Another son, Emmons, died in 1892. 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. 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.

Harrison was unpopular with the party and the country, and many of Blaine's old supporters encouraged him to run for the nomination. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. After a funeral at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, he was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington. He was later re-interred in Blaine Memorial Park, Augusta, Maine, in 1920.

## Legacy

A towering figure in the Republican party of his day, Blaine fell into obscurity fairly soon after his death. A 1905 biography by his wife's cousin, Edward Stanwood, was written when the question was still in doubt, but by the time David Saville Muzzey published his biography of Blaine in 1934, the subtitle "A Political Idol of Other Days" already spoke to its subject's fading place in the popular mind, perhaps because of the nine men the Republican Party nominated for the presidency from 1860 to 1912, Blaine is the only one who never became president. Although several authors studied Blaine's foreign policy career, including Edward P. Crapol's 2000 work, Muzzey's was the last full-scale biography of the man until Neil Rolde's 2006 book. Historian R. Hal Williams was working on a new biography of Blaine, tentatively titled James G. Blaine: A Life in Politics'', until his death in 2016.

During the 2016 United States presidential election, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were compared to Blaine for their controversies. Blaine's status as a former Secretary of State who sought to erase evidence of his personal corruption drew parallels to Clinton, while his appeals to anti-Chinese sentiment were compared to Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric. Similarly, the Mugwumps who opposed Blaine in 1884 have been compared to the Never Trump movement.

American politician (1830–1893)

Benjamin Harrison administration cabinet members

Burials at Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)

Candidates in the 1876 United States presidential election

Candidates in the 1880 United States presidential election

Candidates in the 1884 United States presidential election

Candidates in the 1892 United States presidential election

Moderate Republicans (Reconstruction era)

People of Maine in the American Civil War

Politicians from Washington County, Pennsylvania

Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees

Republican Party United States senators from Maine

Republican Party members of the Maine House of Representatives

Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Maine

Speakers of the United States House of Representatives


The Hate U Give

The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.

The Hate U Give was published on February 28, 2017, by HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray, which had won a bidding war for the rights to the novel. The book was a commercial success, debuting at number one on The New York Times young adult best-seller list, where it remained for 50 weeks. It won several awards and received critical praise for Thomas's writing and timely subject matter. In writing the novel, Thomas attempted to expand readers' understanding of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as difficulties faced by black Americans who employ code switching. These themes, as well as the vulgar language, attracted some controversy and caused the book to be one of the most challenged books of 2017, 2018, and 2020 according to the American Library Association.

The book was adapted into a film by 20th Century Fox in October 2018, which received positive reviews. The novel was also adapted into an audiobook, which won several awards and earned praise for its narrator, Bahni Turpin.

## Development and publication

Shaken by the 2009 police shooting of Oscar Grant, then-college student Angie Thomas began the project as a short story for her senior project in Belhaven University's creative writing program. While writing the short story, the project quickly expanded, though Thomas put it aside for a few years after graduation. Speaking to her hometown newspaper, Thomas said, "I wanted to make sure I approached it not just in anger, but with love even." The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland drew Thomas back to expand the project into a novel, which she titled after Tupac's "THUG LIFE" concept: "The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody." Events surrounding the killings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Michael Brown, and widespread ensuing protests against racism and police brutality, also informed moments in the book.

Unsure whether publishers would be interested in the Black Lives Matter-inspired material, Thomas reached out to literary agent Brooks Sherman on Twitter in June 2015 to ask for advice. In February 2016, HarperCollins' imprint Balzer + Bray bought the rights to the novel in an auction, outbidding 13 other publishing houses, and signed a two-book deal with Thomas. 20th Century Fox optioned the film rights the following month.

The 464-page book was published on February 28, 2017, when the industry was attempting to address a decade-long stagnation in the number of children's books by African-American authors. Since its publication, Thomas has become an example of attempts by publishers to publish more young adult African-American novelists.

## Plot

Starr Carter is a 16-year-old black girl, who lives in the fictional and mostly poor black neighborhood of Garden Heights, but attends an affluent and predominantly white private school, Williamson Prep. After a shooting breaks up a party Starr is attending, she is driven home by her childhood best friend and sometimes crush Khalil. They are stopped by a white police officer, "One-Fifteen". One-Fifteen instructs Khalil, who is black, to exit the car; while outside the car, Khalil leans into the driver-side window to check in on Starr. One-Fifteen assumes he is grabbing a gun and shoots Khalil three times, killing him.

Starr agrees to an interview with police about the shooting after being encouraged by her Uncle Carlos, who is also a detective. Carlos was a father figure to Starr when her father, Maverick, spent three years in prison for gang activity. Following his release, Maverick left the gang and became the owner of the Garden Heights grocery store where Starr and her older half-brother Seven work. Maverick was only allowed to leave his gang, the King Lords, because he confessed to a crime to protect gang-leader King. Widely feared in the neighborhood, King now lives with Seven's mother, Seven's half-sister Kenya, who is friends with Starr, and Kenya's little sister, Lyric.

Khalil's death becomes a national news story. The media portrays Khalil as a gang banger and drug dealer, while portraying One-Fifteen more favorably. Starr's identity as the witness is initially kept secret from everyone outside Starr's family, including her younger brother Sekani. Keeping the secret from her white boyfriend Chris and her best friends Hailey Grant and Maya Yang – who all attend Williamson Prep – weighs on Starr, as does her need to keep her Williamson and Garden Heights personalities separate. Starr's struggles with her identity are further complicated after her mother gets a higher-paying job and the family moves out of Garden Heights.

After a grand jury fails to indict One-Fifteen, Garden Heights erupts into both peaceful protests and riots. The failure of the criminal justice system to hold One-Fifteen accountable pushes Starr to take an increasingly public role, first giving a television interview and then speaking out during the protests, which are met by police in riot gear. Her increasing identification with the people of Garden Heights causes tension with Starr's friends, especially with her boyfriend Chris as well as Hailey, who makes racist comments at Starr. But by the end of the novel, Starr and Maya have started standing up to Hailey's comments while Chris offers support to Starr.

The climax of the novel occurs during the riot following the grand jury decision. Starr, Chris, Seven, and DeVante – a teenager whom Maverick helped leave the King Lords – defend Maverick's store from King, though it does get burned down. The neighborhood stands up to King and as a result of testimony by DeVante, King is arrested and expected to be imprisoned for a lengthy sentence. Starr promises to keep Khalil's memory alive and to continue her advocacy against injustice as Garden Heights rebuilds.

## Style

Vincent Haddad of Central State University reads The Hate U Give as an attempt to build empathy with the Black Lives Matter movement, as "the appeals for empathy figured by Starr's first-person account ultimately serve to discipline those who seek solutions deemed too 'un-realistic' to oppose the 'sustained violence against Black communities'". By maintaining realism, and explicitly naming real-world victims of police brutality, Haddad contends that Thomas is able to spur action in her readers. However, he ultimately feels that there are limits to this approach because it is about the individual rather than the collective. By contrast, Vox's Constance Grady argues that this realism is what makes the novel ultimately work to larger purposes: "The specificity and whimsy of ideas like the anger scale of breakup songs is what keeps The Hate U Give moving so deftly through its heavy subject matter; it stays warm and focused and grounded in character even when it's dealing with big, amorphous ideas like systemic racism."

## Themes

Race relations are a core theme of the novel. Professor Khalil Muhammad of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government sees the novel as a way to have discussions among people who might not otherwise discuss Black Lives Matter: "The book – and to some degree the movie – has been read and will be read by students in all-white spaces, where otherwise the urgency of these issues has not affected them personally." At the same time, it could offer solace for black teens who have faced similar challenges to Starr. An example of this is Starr's ability to code switch between her private school and home, which Thomas demonstrates through the slang that Starr uses in each context's dialogue. Also helping Starr is her family who offer a variety of points of view, including her Uncle's thoughts as a police officer and her father teaching Starr and her siblings about the Black Panther Party. The novel also shows Starr's parents' struggles with remaining connected to their community while needing to protect and give opportunity to their children.

The Hate U Give shows Starr's dual need to respond both to the trauma of witnessing Khalil's death and her need to do so politically. This dual need, combined with Thomas's ability to root these struggles in their historical context, helps give the book its power, according to Jonathan Alexander writing in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Los Angeles Times' critic Adriana Ramirez sees Starr as similar to the protagonists of fantasy dystopian novels like Divergent and The Hunger Games as she seeks to change an entrenched system of power, noting, "it is also a dystopian young adult novel that happens to be set in reality." Nick Smart, a professor at the College of New Rochelle, takes this further, stating, "In The Hate U Give, there's also a girl – who happens to be a black girl – being sent out against the system, against the world, against an entrenched opposition," while Ramirez notes that Starr's blackness is a core element for some readers. Before its publication, exploring a female perspective on the isolation and need to be a model minority at an elite private school was something which had not been conducted in literature or film with the same frequency as for males. Thomas's ability to capture these feelings stemmed from her own experiences with the reactions of her white classmates following the death of Oscar Grant.

Discussing the title, The Atlantic wrote, "Thomas’s book derives its title from the rapper Tupac Shakur’s philosophy of THUG LIFE—which purportedly stands for “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody”—and it’s a motif the novel returns to a few times. The acronym tattooed across Tupac’s abdomen could be read as an embrace of a dangerous lifestyle. But, as Khalil explains to Starr, just minutes before the cop pulls them over, it’s really an indictment of systemic inequality and hostility: “What society gives us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out.”

The novel does not shy away from the realities of urban life, exemplified by the title's reference to the Tupac Shakur quote. Starr's feelings about Khalil evolve during the novel. The reader is first introduced to him at the party as a friend of Starr's and as a victim of a police shooting. This narrative is then complicated both for Starr and in the novel's world at large when it is learned that Khalil dealt drugs. However, Starr comes to disagree with the way the media is portraying Khalil. As Starr finds her own agency, she is able to challenge this narrative first for herself and then for others, recognizing that Khalil was forced into these circumstances by poverty, hunger, and a desire to care for his drug addict mother. She is able to show her courage speaking to the grand jury, and realizes that she needs to participate in the protests which follow its decision. How and where Khalil and Starr can find justice also drives Starr's decision to join in the protests.

## Reception

### Critical reviews

Critics also widely praised the book. In the Christian Science Monitor, Katie Ward Beim-Esche wrote, "Believe the hype: The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas's extraordinary and fearless debut, really is that good." Shannon Ozirny of The Globe and Mail also felt it would have wide appeal, "Ignore the YA label – this should be the one book everyone reads this year." On Salon, Erin Keane wrote that the novel is "topical, urgent, necessary, and if that weren't enough, it's also a highly entertaining and engaging read."

The book also earned starred reviews from multiple review journals. Kirkus praised both its writing and timelines: "With smooth but powerful prose ... This story is necessary. This story is important." Young adult literature expert Michael Cart, writing in Booklist, also praised Thomas's writing as Starr: "Beautifully written in Starr's authentic first-person voice, this is a marvel of verisimilitude." While praising the overall book in a starred review, School Library Journal's Mahnaz Dar criticized the writing of several characters as "slightly uneven." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Horn Book Magazine, and VOYA also gave the book their equivalents of starred reviews.

### Awards and honors

The Hate U Give debuted at the top of The New York Times young adult (YA) best-seller list, and was on it for more than 80 weeks. It is also an IndieBound best seller. The book had 100,000 copies in print in the first month, eventually selling more than 850,000 copies as of June 2018.

The Horn Book Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness, among others, named it one of the best young adult novels of 2017. Booklist named it one of the best books of the year regardless of genre. Booklist included the audiobook on their 2017 "Top 10 First Novels on Audio" and 2018 "Top 10 Diverse Novels on Audio" lists.

Both the book and audiobook editions are Junior Library Guild selections.

### Challenges

The American Library Association listed the book as one of the ten most-challenged books of 2017, 2018, and 2020 "because it was considered 'pervasively vulgar,'" contained "drug use, profanity, and offensive language," as well as sexual references, and "was thought to promote an anti-police message."

In July 2018, a South Carolina police union raised objections to the inclusion of the book, as well as the similarly themed All American Boys by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds, in the summer reading list for ninth-grade students of Wando High School. A representative of the police lodge described the inclusion of the books as "almost indoctrination of distrust of police" and asserted that "we've got to put a stop to that." The books remained on the list and Wando's principal was later recognized by the state school library association for her defense of the challenged books.

The book was removed from the school libraries of the Katy Independent School District due to its explicit language. Thomas responded to these challenges by defending the book's message and saying that it is a spur for conversation. In December 2021, it was also removed from some Washington County School District libraries for explicit content.

## Adaptations

### Film

Fox 2000 optioned The Hate U Give for a film adaption in March 2017, shortly after the book's auction. Director George Tillman Jr. and actress Amandla Stenberg were immediately attached to the project. The movie also features Issa Rae, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Algee Smith, KJ Apa, Lamar Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Common, and Sabrina Carpenter. The film is based on a screenplay by Audrey Wells, who died one day before it was released. Stenberg's casting received some criticism because of her lighter complexion as compared to the girl on the novel's cover. The movie was given a limited release on October 5, 2018, and a wide release on October 19, 2018. The film was favorably received, with a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 8.2 out of 10, and an A+ CinemaScore. As of March 2019, the film had a worldwide box office gross of \$34 million against a budget of \$23 million.

### Audiobook

An audiobook was released by Harper Audio on the same day as the novel and featured narration by Bahni Turpin, whom Thomas had selected. Audiobook producer Caitlin Garing spoke of the importance of matching the material with the narrator and spoke of Turpin's skill, "you can trust her to get to the heart of a story and lead the listener there." It was well reviewed and won Audie Awards for best YA and best female narrator. In her acceptance speech, Turpin said it was "an important book for our time." It also won the 2018 Odyssey Award for best children's audiobook. Odyssey committee chair Joan Schroeder Kindig said, "Bahni Turpin's powerful narration of this timely novel will inspire listeners to find their own voices." Turpin downplayed the award saying, "I don't think the public is aware of most of our awards, though – in general, I think those who most appreciate the awards are ... the people in the business of books." Publishers Weekly, in its starred review of the audiobook, praised Turpin's abilities to convey "the complexity of the 16-year-old protagonist who sounds both youthful and mature for her age, as she relies on code-switching to navigate two different social settings." Maggie Knapp in her starred review for School Library Journal and Lynette Pitrak in her starred review for Booklist also praised Turpin's ability to capture Starr's voice in her performance.

2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas

Race-related controversies in literature


Gunday

Gunday () is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language action drama film written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar and produced by Aditya Chopra. The film features Arjun Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra and Irrfan Khan in the lead roles. Set in 1971–1988 Calcutta, Gunday is a story about two best friends and outlaws, who fall in love with a cabaret dancer, which causes rivalry and misunderstandings between them while a police officer tries to take advantage of this situation to eliminate them.

Zafar conceived the film as an amalgam of stories he had heard from his father as a child about the effects of war-caused immigration and the Mafia Raj's illegal marketing of coal. He wrote the film as a tale of the consequences of the struggle of two outlaws against the system, using his father's stories as a backdrop for the characters. Principal photography began in Mumbai in December 2012 before moving to Kolkata, where extensive filming was done. The soundtrack was produced by Sohail Sen, and the lyrics were penned by Irshad Kamil. It was the last Yash Raj Film narrated to Yash Chopra.

Gunday was released on 14 February 2014, receiving mixed to positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success, with a box-office gross of ₹23 million making it the 10th highest-grossing Bollywood release of 2014. The film won the Best Action at the 60th Filmfare Awards and was nominated for Best Choreography for the song "Tune Maari Entriyaan".

## Plot

The story begins with the independence of Bangladesh after the 1971 war. Amongst those affected by the partition are two orphans: Bikram Bose and Bala Bhattacharya. They meet Lateef, who offers them food in exchange for smuggling guns. One of Lateef's customers, an army officer, wants one of the boys as his sex slave; if Lateef refuses, his daughter will be taken. Lateef chooses Bala at first, but Bikram insists that he will go instead. Bala refuses to leave his best friend and returns to save Bikram from the officer, whom they kill. This makes them partners in crime; when the army chases them, Lateef is killed while trying to protect the duo. Bikram and Bala flee to Calcutta and work at a restaurant. After being mistreated and insulted, they learn that pilfering coal is a way to make easy money.

As adults, Bikram and Bala loot coal trains and sell the huge quantity of coal. Their chief competitor is Dibakar. When Bikram and Bala loot one of Dibakar's trains, his men threaten them. Undeterred, they promise to loot his next train as well. When they arrive to loot Dibakar's train, he calls them "refugees," and a fight ensues. Before they kill Dibakar, Bikram and Bala tell him that they are Indians, not refugees. Now having control of the coal business, they expand into other businesses by laundering money with Kaali Kaka's help. They become local heroes by building hospitals, donating to charities, and building schools. Although they provide jobs for the poor, their business dealings make them a target of the law. Assistant Commissioner of Police Satyajeet Sarkar is summoned to arrest Bikram and Bala. Sarkar, knowing that they can cover their tracks with Kaali Kaka, warns them that he will arrest them when he finds evidence against them.

A businessman invites Bikram and Bala to the opening of his new club in Calcutta. He introduces them to Himanshu, his assistant. They meet Nandita, a cabaret dancer. They both fall in love with her, and decide that whoever wins her heart will marry her. Nandita invites them to a theatre to tell them whom she loves. Bala gets into a fight there with a man who makes a disrespectful comment on Nandita and Bala shoots him. Bikram tells Bala to go into hiding, promising not to see Nandita until he returns. Sarkar warns Bikram that if Bala returns to Calcutta, he will be killed. Nandita tells Bikram that she loves him, but if they do not observe Durga Puja together, she will never see him again. Bikram agrees to meet her. Later, Bala learns about this through Himanshu, and returns to Calcutta. Enraged when he sees Bikram and Nandita, Bala accuses Bikram of breaking his promise and shoots at him. He hits Nandita instead, who is rushed to hospital and survives.

Bala learns that their businesses are in Bikram's name, and demands his share. Bikram agrees, even sharing the ration card which is proof of their Indian nationality. Bala suggests sharing Nandita; angering Bikram, who fights Bala. Bikram wins but spares Bala as he saved his life. However, he warns Bala that if he bothers Nandita, he will kill him. When Bikram proposes to Nandita, she says she cannot marry him unless he leaves his criminal life behind; Bikram agrees. A vengeful Bala blows up Bikram's coal mines and kidnaps Nandita. As Bikram prepares to kill Bala, Sarkar asks Bikram to turn the state's evidence against Bala so he and Nandita can marry. Bala tells Nandita that he will kill her unless she leaves Bikram; Nandita retorts that she still loves Bikram after explaining the differences between him and Bala. She also clarifies that Bikram was waiting for Bala even when Bikram was with her. Heartbroken, Bala apologises to Nandita and returns her to Bikram. In reality, Nandita is an undercover police officer helping Sarkar arrest Bikram and Bala. When Bikram prepares to help Sarkar implicate Bala, he encounters the man whom Bala supposedly killed and learns that he is also an undercover police officer. Nandita tries to convince Bikram that he will be treated leniently by the law. He believes the law was responsible for destroying their childhood and innocence. Nandita reveals her identity to Bikram, and he realises that she was a trap Sarkar set to separate him from Bala. When she asks him to surrender, he refuses and rejoins Bala.

Himanshu brings Bala into the coal mine to meet Dutta. Himanshu tells him that he is Dibakar's brother and saw him murdered by Bikram and Bala. He reveals Nandita's identity and tries to kill Bala, but Bikram rescues him, and Bala kills Himanshu. While trying to escape, they are then cornered by Sarkar and Nandita, who again tells Bikram that she loves him and he should surrender; Sarkar also tries to convince Bala to surrender. Bikram and Bala see a passing train and run towards it. As Bikram and Bala are inches away from catching the train, Sarkar and Nandita shoot at them. The movie ends with the death of Bikram and Bala as they narrate they were, was and will always be Gunday.

## Cast

The cast is listed below:

- Arjun Kapoor as Bala Bhattacharya
  - Jayesh Vijay Kardak as young Bala Bhattacharya
- Ranveer Singh as Bikram Bose
  - Darshan Gurjar as young Bikram Bose
- Priyanka Chopra as Inspector Nandita Sengupta
- Irrfan Khan as ACP Satyajeet "Satya" Sarkar
- Karan Aanand as Dutta
- Saurabh Shukla as Kaali Kaka
- Pankaj Tripathi as Lateef
- Victor Banerjee as SP of Calcutta
- Anant Vidhaat Sharma as Himanshu
- Deepraj Rana as Dibakar
- Amrit Pal Singh as Gautam Biswas
- Manu Rishi as Pakistani Officer

## Production

### Development

Gunday was announced in August 2012 by Yash Raj Films, with Ali Abbas Zafar directing a film about two 1970s criminals in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata). In a Reuters interview, Zafar said that the film was conceived because of his fascination with history. His father, a 1971 war veteran, told him stories about the war, its immigration and the coal mafia. His father told stories about the illegal coal trade in Calcutta, where trains carrying coal were robbed by unemployed youths. Since coal was a black-market commodity during the 1970s and 1980s, he used it as a plot device. The stories inspired him to create the film's backdrop around which he based his characters. Zafar decided to set the film in Calcutta, since he felt the story suited the city's political climate.

Zafar said that films of that era, such as Deewaar (1975) and Kaala Patthar (1979), influenced his storyline. He believed that the films' portrayal of the conflict between right and wrong gave him an understanding of life as a child, which he used in the script. In an interview, Zafar said that the film depicted the consequences of the outlaws' struggle against the system: "If someone is deprived of basic rights, there will certain youth who will be disillusioned and go over to the dark side. In a way, the system creates its own enemy." Gunday was the last film narrated to Yash Chopra.

Since most 1970s and 1980s films emphasized bromance, Zafar wanted to showcase friendship and said that he wanted to "catch that spirit" of the friendship of "Jai-Veeru" from Sholay (1975); he called the film a "definite reference point", with Yaarana (1981), for portraying bromance. Zafar made the friendship between his characters integral to the plot, where the characters would do anything for each other: "The whole idea while making Gunday was to bring the right feel of friendship. The idea about friendship which used to be in the earlier times, especially in the heartland of India was something else."

### Casting and characters

In August 2012, Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor were cast as the protagonists Bikram and Bala respectively. Zafar gave a joint pitch to both the actors where Kapoor would play Bikram and Singh would play Bala. After hearing the description, both the actors felt that they could play their respective characters as they identified similarities between the characters and their own personalities. However, the director switched the roles as a surprise, giving the part of Bikram to Singh and Bala to Kapoor. Although they initially wanted to play their originally proposed roles, feeling that their respective characters were within their comfort zone, they later agreed to play the opposite roles. Priyanka Chopra joined the cast as the lead actress in October 2012. The following month, Irrfan Khan was cast for the role of a police officer in the film.

Chopra described her character Nandita, the cabaret dancer, as a girl next door who acts as the main catalyst for driving the story further and igniting the conflict between Bikram and Bala when they both fall in love with her. She admired the qualities of her character, saying, "She's very righteous and believes in black and white, which is very like me. She is a no-nonsense person and has this superior air about her, even though she is a very normal girl. I think women should carry themselves like her." Khan described his character of the intelligence police officer as "larger than life". For Khan, who had mostly performed in niche dramatic films, Zafar made his character a lot more flamboyant and mainstream. His character was highly stylised to suit the mainstream popcorn genre of the film.

Singh described his and Kapoor's characters as "two outlaws with a bold attitude". They described the friendship between the inseparable characters as like "two sides of the same coin". Kapoor further explained that Singh's character Bikram brings equilibrium to his character Bala, saying, "He (Bikram) is more in control and aware of his surroundings. Bala, on the other hand, is temperamental and acts in the heat of the moment."

### Filming

Rajat Poddar handled the production design while Aseem Mishra did the cinematography. Subarna Ray Chaudhuri designed the costumes while Rameshwar S Bhagat edited the film. Principal photography began on 14 December 2012 in Mumbai. It was shot at the Chandivali Studio, where the scenes between Singh, Kapoor and Chopra were filmed. The first schedule ended by December 2012. While filming a song sequence, Singh injured himself after falling from a height; he suffered a gash on his cheek. He was rushed to the nearest hospital and had to get a few stitches. The second schedule of the film started in January 2013 in Mumbai, where the streets of Howrah were recreated on the outskirts of the city. The filming moved to Kolkata in mid-February, where the major portion of the film was filmed on-location. One of the early filmed scenes included a dramatic Durga Puja sequence under the Howrah Bridge with a crowd of 1000 people, for which a huge pandal was created. For building the pandal, a very old native professional was hired to give it an authentic 1980s look.

The opening song "Jash-e-Ishqa" was filmed at the Howrah Bridge; several scenes were also filmed at the Jagannath Ghat and Maniktala fish market. The Dhapa area was recreated as the refugee camp, standing in for a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Other locations included the Victoria Memorial and Belbad Colliery, where the opening train sequences were filmed. The song "Tune Maari Entriyaan" was shot across various locations, including scenes at the streets of Calcutta High Court, Dalhousie and Dakshineswar Kali Temple. Additionally, a small part of Calcutta was recreated at the Film City in Mumbai, which included places with signboards in Bangla, CPM flags, yellow taxis and the iconic Metro Cinema. Filming in Kolkata continued till the end of March.

Bosco–Caesar choreographed all the songs in the film. The cabaret dance number "Aslaam-E-Ishqum" featuring Chopra was filmed in early July over six days on a set created in Mumbai. The set for the cabaret number was modelled after Kolkata's once very popular bar "Trinka's", known for cabaret, where troupes from Russia and Europe used to come and perform. A huge coal mine set was erected at the Yash Raj Studio, where the four principal actors filmed the action scenes in July. In early September 2013, Zafar informed the media via a tweet that he was scouting locations for the film in Muscat, Oman, where the song "Jiya" was filmed on location as a part of the last schedule. Zafar also revealed that fifteen days worth of shooting was left for the film, which was scheduled to occur in Kolkata and Raniganj. Filming resumed in late September 2013 in Durgapur, where a huge climatic action sequence was filmed in the coal mine area. The filming was done over a period of 110 days and was completed on 25 September 2013.

## Music

The soundtrack album was composed by Sohail Sen, with lyrics written by Irshad Kamil, except for one ("Gunday") which was written by Zafar. The lyrics for the Bengali version of "Tune Maari Entriyaan" were written by Bappi Lahiri and Gautam Susmit. The album contains ten compositions including seven original songs, a theme and a different versions of two original songs. The vocals were performed by Javed Ali, Shadab Faridi, Lahiri, KK, Neeti Mohan, Vishal Dadlani, Arijit Singh, Neha Bhasin, Shahid Mallya, Altamash Faridi, Sen, Kinga Rhymes and Monali Thakur. The album was released on 20 January 2014 by YRF Music. A Bengali version of the soundtrack, composed by Sen and with lyrics by Sanjay, was released on 30 January 2014.

The soundtrack album received positive reviews from music critics. The Times of India gave a rating of 4 out of 5, writing that the album succeeds in transporting the listener to the period when the film is set, but had its fair share of highs and lows. Bollywood Hungama gave the album a rating of 3.5 out of 5, writing, "Sohail Sen seems to have finally got his act right. His songs have immense popular appeal, substance and the right blend of melody and contemporary styles." Writing for Rediff.com, Joginder Tuteja also gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, noting the musical variety in the soundtrack and the "entertaining songs". The Indo-Asian News Service published on NDTV gave it 3.5 out of 5, pointing out Sen's versatility as a music composer and writing that the album had "songs for every mood and music lovers couldn't have asked for more."

The album was one of the most successful Indian music albums of 2014, with the songs "Tune Maari Entriyaan", "Jashn-E-Ishqa" and "Asalaam-E-Ishqum" topping various charts in India across various platforms.

## Release

The first teaser poster was released in mid-December 2012, when the film began its production for a 2013 release. In April 2013, it was announced that the film was scheduled to release on Valentine's Day, 14 February 2014. The teaser trailer of the film was released on 22 November 2013 along with Gori Tere Pyaar Mein, and received a positive response, with India Today calling it "action-packed" and "promising". In what appeared to be a promotional strategy, Priyanka Chopra's character did not appear in the teaser, generating media buzz. She asked the audiences to wait for the release. On 12 December 2013, one day before the theatrical trailer release, the makers released the first look of Chopra, revealing that her character was a cabaret dancer, which had not been announced during production.

The film's production studio released a range of merchandise, partnering with several brands for promotional purposes. The music and trailers aided its marketing. Gunday had its premiere in Dubai on 12 February 2014 with the full cast in attendance. It was released theatrically on 14 February 2014 on 2700 screens. A Bengali-dubbed version of the film was also released in West Bengal's small towns, where only Bengali films are shown. The film was not released in Pakistan, where it was highly awaited, after the country stopped giving No-Objection Certificates to Indian films in early 2014 due to pending legislative changes.

After the release of the film, Bangladeshis protested on social media over the introductory narration in the film, which says that Bangladesh was created through the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and that India's participation brought independence to Bangladesh. People from Bangladesh demanded the production house to apologise for its inaccurate representation of its history. Contrary to the film's depiction, the country was created after the Bangladesh Liberation War, and India joined an already ongoing war of independence and was not the sole reason for the independence as told in the film. An article published in The Wall Street Journal wrote that "to claim that India's participation alone brought about independence, as the film does, is incorrect [...] Bangladesh was born because Bangladeshi fighters had been battling the larger and better equipped Pakistani military for months. India's participation only quickened the war's end. It is the people of Bangladesh who liberated themselves from Pakistan." Bangladeshis were also offended by a scene in the film where many Bangladeshis called themselves Indians and spoke Hindi. A week later, Yash Raj Films made an official apology statement.

Irate Bangladeshis launched a social media campaign with the hashtag "GundayHumiliatedHistoryOfBangladesh" on Twitter, asking people to bury the film on the Internet Movie Database. Facebook groups were formed to boycott and downvote the film. As a result, the film suffered from vote brigading on IMDb, where it was the lowest rated film at the time of its release, with a 1.4/10 rating based on more than 44,000 votes, 91% of which gave it one star. As of 2 August 2017, it holds a rating of 2.1/10.

Distributed by Yash Raj Home Video, the film was released on DVDs on 30 April 2014 across all regions in a two-disc pack in Anamorphic format, with bonus content such as a "making of the film" documentary, deleted scenes and making of the songs. The VCD version was also released at the same time. A two-disc special edition DVD pack was also released later. The Blu-ray version was released on 2 May 2014. The world television premiere of the film happened on Sony MAX on 17 August 2014. Later, as Yash Raj Films signed a deal with Star India, the network syndicated some films from the Sony Pictures Networks India catalog in mid-2021, Gunday being one of them.

## Reception

### Critical reception

Gunday received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 60% based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5 out of 10. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave a rating of 4 out of 5, calling it an "entertainer" and writing that the film "has an attention-grabbing premise, well-etched-out characters, high-octane drama, is generously peppered with vibrant songs and energetic action pieces, boasts of defining performances from the principal cast." However, he felt that it was too long. Srijana Mitra Das from Times of India gave it 3.5 out of 5, calling it an "Oliver Twist with a Bollywood twist", writing that "Gunday pays loving homage to Bollywood classics Sholay, Kaala Patthar and other brothers-in-arms films while offering more." Mohar Basu of Koimoi also gave it 3.5 out of 5, calling it a "must watch" for "the oomph and bombastic dialogues", and praised Zafar's direction, writing that "the execution is what makes the fast depleting story hold its ground. The trajectories he builds are shaky but his screenplay is engrossing enough to not let you slip even in the slack moments."

Mint gave a highly positive review, calling it a "spectacular tribute to 1970s' Hindi cinema", and wrote that it "moves at a satisfying clip from the beginning to the end. It's formula food for the present day, spiced with flamboyance, a fair sense of rhythm that occasionally slackens during the 153-minute running time, and a clear understanding of the meaning of popular entertainment, Hindi movie style." However, it added that neither Singh nor Kapoor were "particularly convincing as dangerous gangsters". Rohit Khilnani from India Today gave the film a rating of 3.5 out of 5, terming it an "entertaining film" and writing, "It's old wine in a new bottle and it tastes awesome! It's packed with action, emotions, friendship, drama and some terrific performances." Writing for Hindustan Times, Anupama Chopra gave it 3 out of 5, calling it "an unabashed love letter to the 1970s" and writing, "Though the story is set in the 1980s, Zafar recreates a classic '70s vibe with punchy dialogue-baazi, scenes designed to make you applaud and a relentless background score by Julius Packiam that underlines every beat just in case you missed a high note. Gunday is all slow-motion and swagger, with nods to Deewaar, Sholay, Kaala Patthar, Kabhie Kabhie and sprinkles of John Woo's doves and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

On the contrary to the positive reviews, Rajeev Masand gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5, terming it "derivative and tediously boring" and writing, "For a while, the film succeeds in grabbing your attention too with its striking period detail and some nicely mounted scenes. But rolling out at 2 hours and 34 minutes, it can't help feeling like a slog." Daily News and Analysis gave it 2 out of 5, noting that every critical conflict in the story was flaky and the bromance was a letdown. Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com also gave it 2 out of 5, criticising the script, which she thought was full of "silly loopholes, annoying clichés and glaring superficiality", writing that "No matter how hard Zafar tries to create an action hero [...] he fails to substantiate it with charisma that goes beyond surface value." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave it 1.5 out of 5, calling it a "mash-up of popular blockbusters". Raja Sen of Rediff gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and said, "Director Ali Abbas Zafar has directed a monstrous film, one with a repellent 70s-set storyline that makes no sense whatsoever, and a cast who should all hang their heads and offer up a minute's silence for assaulting their respective filmographies."

### Box office

A commercial success, Gunday is the 10th highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2014 and the highest-grossing February Bollywood release of all time. The film had a very good opening at the box office. It also registered excellent collections at multiplexes, which is rare for an action film in India. It grossed ₹150 million on its opening day, breaking opening records in several regions for the year at the time of its release. The film went on to collect over ₹111 million on Saturday and ₹140 million on Sunday for an opening domestic weekend of over ₹402 million. The film grossed over \$2 million overseas for a worldwide opening weekend of ₹670 million. Gunday grossed a decent ₹60 million, dropping sixty percent on its first Monday. The film had done good to reasonable business all over, grossing ₹590 million in its first week domestically. During its theatrical run, the film grossed over ₹980 million at the Indian box office, with an additional \$3.4 million from overseas, for a worldwide total of ₹1.2 billion.

## Accolades

2014 film by Ali Abbas Zafar