Background
He was born in 1791 in Abingdon, Virginia, United States.
(Originally published in 1856. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
Originally published in 1856. 16 pages. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
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(Uses the massive Blair-Lee manuscript collection to illum...)
Uses the massive Blair-Lee manuscript collection to illuminate the career achievements and private lives of Francis Preston Blair--editor of the Washington Globe, Republican Party founder, and confidant to five presidents--and of members of his family
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This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
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editor journalist politician statesman
He was born in 1791 in Abingdon, Virginia, United States.
He removed to Kentucky, graduated at Transylvania University in 1811.
He graduated at West Point in 1835, but, after a year's service in the Seminole War, left the army and studied law.
After studying he took to journalism, and was a contributor to Amos Kendall's paper, the Argus, at Frankfort, In 1830, having become an ardent follower of Andrew Jackson, he was made editor of the Washington Globe, the recognized organ of the Jackson party.
His family was active in politics: his father had served as attorney general of Kentucky, and an uncle was governor of the state, when Blair was a young man.
John C. Rives of Virginia joined him as business manager, and they made the Globe one of the most potent political organs in the country.
Blair and Jackson became good friends, and Blair's articles in the Globe were faithful expressions of the President's views.
Blair attacked Henry Clay's American Plan of protective tariffs and internal improvements, the U. S. Bank, and the nullification doctrines of John C. Calhoun's South Carolina; he advocated hard money and the interests of the "common man" against the men of wealth.
His editorials charged the Whigs with trying to enlarge the rights of property so much "as to swallow up and annihilate those of persons" and pledged the Democratic party to preserve the rights of the people.
He took satisfaction in being called a radical and told President Van Buren:" I feel myself to be a sort of Representative of the Mechanical Classes, the working people of all sorts …. "
Silver Spring, Blair's country home just outside Washington in Maryland, became the political mecca for Jacksonians during this period.
However, Blair departed from many of his associates in 1848, when he supported the Free Soil cause.
In 1852 he was prepared to back Thomas Hart Benton for the Free Soil nomination but later approved the Democrats' nomination of Franklin Pierce.
When Pierce appointed "Southern radicals" to his Cabinet, Blair felt that Northern and moderate Democrats had been betrayed; and when the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed - opening up the territories to slavery - Blair was roused to fight.
"I hope there will be honest patriots enough found to resist it, " he said, "and that the present aggression will be rebuked. I am willing to devote the balance of my life to this object. "
He was then 63 years old.
Blair was active in the Republican cause in 1856; and in 1860, although he would have preferred an "old Democrat, " he joined vigorously in the campaign for Lincoln and became the new president's valued adviser. After the war he wanted the Union restored "as it was" and opposed the Radical Republican program for the South.
(Uses the massive Blair-Lee manuscript collection to illum...)
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
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(Originally published in 1856. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
In 1848 he actively suppoted Martin Van Buren, the Free Soil candidate, for the presidency, and in 1852 he supported Franklin Pierce, but soon afterwards helped to organize the new Republican party, and presided at its preliminary convention at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in February 1856.
He served from 1852 to 1856 in the Missouri legislature as a Free Soil Democrat, in 1856 joined the Republican party, and in 1857-1860 and 1861-1862 was a member of Congress, where he proved an able debater.
Dates of his parties:
Democratic (1828–1848; 1865–1876) , Free Soil (1848–1854), Republican (1854–1865).
As a young man, he was in poor health, and all of his life he was frail-looking and small, weighing little more than 100 pounds.
Francis married Eliza Violet Gist on July 21, 1812. He had three sons, Montgomery Blair (1813–1883), James L. Blair (1819-1852) and Francis "Frank" Preston Blair, Jr. (1821–1875), and two daughters, Juliet Blair (1816-1819) and Elizabeth Blair (1818-1906).