Johnson ticket in 1864; mayor of Lewiston 1866-67; attorney-general of the state of Maine 1867-69; was elected a member of the Republican national executive committee 1872; reelected in 1876 and again in 1880, and was a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1872, 1876 and 1880. In the Republican national convention of 1876, where he supported the candidacy of James G. Blaine for president, he made the motion by which the nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes for president was made unanimous. He again supported the candidacy of Blaine in 1880 and succeeded him in 1881 as chairman of the Republican state committee of Maine. He was a representative from the second district of Maine in the forty-second—forty-sixth Congresses inclusive (1871-81) and was elected to the forty-seventh Congress but resigned before the meeting of that congress, to take his seat in the United States senate, having been elected to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Blaine, appointed secretary of state of the United States in the cabinet of President Garfield; and he was succeeded in the house by Nelson Dingley, Jr., subsequently author of the Dingley tariff bill. Mr. Frye took his seat in the United States senate March 18, 1881, completing the term of Senator Blaine, which expired March 3, 1883. He was reelected in 1883 for a full senatorial term, was again reelected in 1889, in 1895, and in 1901. When he took his seat in congress as a representative Mr. Blaine was speaker and Mr. Frye was made chairman of the Library committee, and a member of the Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees, and he was soon recognized as one of the foremost debaters in the house and when he spoke he commanded the attention of both sides of the chamber. In the discussion of the right of the United States to recover from Great Britain compensation for damage inflicted on United States vessels owing to their destruction by Confederate cruisers built, fitted out and provisioned in English ports, he took a prominent part. He maintained through five congresses the right of the United States to such compensation as might be secured by arbitration. He introduced a bill to this effect, which resulted in the Joint High commission in Washington in 1871 and the final tribunal in Geneva December 15, 1871. After rejecting all indirect damages this tribunal awarded to the United States for direct damage for not using due diligence in preventing the construction, equipment and provisioning of such ships as the Alabama the gross sum of $15,500,000. In the senate in
