Over 200 persons assembled in Sever 11 on Thursday evening to hear the Union debate the question: Resolved, That the best interests of the Republican party require the renomination of J. G. Blaine for President in 1888.

Mr. Griffin opened the argument for the affirmative. The first object of the Republican party, said he, is to carry the national elections in 1888, and this can be done with the greatest certainty by nominating James G. Blaine for President. (Applause.) The speaker then traced the honorable course of Mr. Blaine in the Maine legislature during the war, and his career afterwards in the House of Representatives where he was three times elected speaker. He was prominently connected with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. His popularity with the Republican party was evinced in 1876 and in 1880, when he came very near being nominated, and in 1884, when he obtained the nomination in spite of the base charges against him which were exhumed from their sepulchre by the malicious mugwump. (Laughter.) The career of Mr. Blaine in the Senate and as Secretary of State was conspicuous for its straight forwardness and honesty. Mr. Blaine favors civil service reform. When he ran for President in 1884, he was opposed by only four Republicans of national renown, one of whom, Carl Schurz, was hired to speak against him for $200 a night. (Laughter.) We believe that Mr. Blaine should be nominated because he has rendered more conspicuous and signal service to the country and the party than any of his contemporaries, and because, more than any other man, he represents the Republican party and the American people. (Applause.)

Mr. Garrison, who opened for the negative, reminded the Union that Mr. Blaine had already undertaken to run for President, and had failed to carry the election. It devolves, therefore, upon the affirmative to prove that Mr. Blaine would be a desirable candidate for renomination. There are many thoroughly suitable men, Sherman, Lincoln, Hawley and Gresham, for instance. The Republicans can no longer bring their stock arguments into play. New questions have come to the front. Mr. Blaine has repeatedly allied himself with the advocates of undesirable measures. He is unsound on questions of currency, pensions and national appropriations. He is sometimes eulogized as a great statesman, but Cleveland, a comparatively new man in politics, beat him in a six months' campaign. Gentlemen, we owe a greater duty to the party of our principles than to the inordinate ambition of one man. (Applause).

Mr. Shoemaker rejoined on the affirmative that the charges against Mr. Blaine must be received with caution, because no public man ever ran for President without being accused of gross corruption. It was so with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Garfield. Mr. Blaine is a most popular man, and a most fit man for the office of President. He is a man of genius, and one of the greatest orators and statesmen this country ever produced. I should like to see a mugwump who could write a book as Mr. Blaine did, and sell half a million copies in three years. They couldn't do it among them, even if every mugwump turned book-agent. (Laughter.) No other man awakens so much enthusiasm as Mr. Blaine does, and no other candidate can get the nomination. (Applause.)

Mr. Eliot Norton, who replied in the negative, denied this statement of the preceding speaker. Blaine cannot be nominated. As the old proverb runs: "Them that holloas don't always get there." Mr. Blaine would go before the country as a defeated candidate, and he would have a divided party behind him. Those who have once become mugwumps never go back, and in 1888 it will be far easier to break party affiliations than ever before. If Blaine is nominated, the Republican party, except in name, will be at an end. (Applause.)

The following gentlemen spoke from the floor: Affirmative, Messrs. Mahany, Walker, Bruner, Foss, Reisner and McAfee. Negative, Messrs. Daly, Perry, Osborn, Robinson, Surbridge, Hunt, F. W. Hager, and W. C. Greene. The speeches from the floor were received with marked favor, the speech of Mr. Mahany especially arousing great enthusiasm.

On the merits of the question, the vote stood, affirmative, 80, negative, 71; on the merits of the principal disputants, affirmative, 58, negative, 112; on the debate as a whole, affirmative, 30; negative, 57.