Background

Francis Blair was born on February 19, 1821, at Lexington, Kentucky, United States, the third and youngest son of Francis Preston Blair

Education

While a child Francis was taken to Washington, D. C. , by his father and there he attended a select school. Blair then graduated at Princeton (1841) and then entered the law school at Transylvania University.

Career

After graduating, and upon admission to the bar at Lexington, Kentucky, he went to practise with his brother, Montgomery, in St. Louis (1842). Three years of intense study and practise of law injured his health. While he was seeking rest and recreation in the Rocky Mountains the Mexican War broke out; consequently, he joined a company of Americans which was commanded by George Bent. When Gen. Kearny took New Mexico Blair was appointed attorney-general for the territory. Upon returning from the West Blair resumed his law practise in St. Louis. Having pronounced views on the extension of slavery he established a Free-Soil paper, the Barnburner, to further the interests of the cause in Missouri. He organized and led the Free-Soil party in that state and voted for Van Buren in 1848. Henry Clay found supporters in him, his father, and Montgomery, for his Compromise of 1850. Though a slave owner, Blair denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a violation of the Missouri Compromise, and his views on slavery, so clearly and forcefully expressed, marked him as a character dangerous to slave interests.

Two terms in the Missouri legislature (1852 - 1856) gave him opportunity to express his Free-Soilism and prepare himself for Congress. He was like Thomas Hart Benton in his methods, although in 1856 he refused Benton's request to retract some of his public statements on slavery. Benton was defeated for governor of Missouri in that year, while Blair, who voted for Frémont, was the only Free-Soiler elected to Congress from a slave state. In his first speech in Congress he warned the South that slavery was bound to die. He urged the South to adopt the policy of gradual emancipation by deportation and colonization. He was defeated for reelection to Congress (1858). In 1859 he published an argumentative "address" on colonization, entitled The Destiny of the Races on This Continent.

Blair organized the Union party in Missouri and largely transformed it into the Republican party; in the latter he became the "leading spirit and chief adviser" in his own state. Like his father, he was a constitutionalist and an unyielding unionist. He was a Democrat-Republican who used parties merely as a means to an end. The speeches and letters of Blair indicate that he feared a coming catastrophe long before the Civil War. He tried in vain to convert Northern men to his scheme of colonization. He supported Edward Bates for the presidential nomination through fear of secession early in the campaign of 1860, but he turned to Lincoln on the third ballot in the Chicago convention. After the convention few men labored as faithfully as he in the campaign. Consequently, he was ready to act quickly and decisively when civil war loomed.

Blair was elected to Congress in 1860. In the spring of 1861 he determined to save Missouri for the Union. After much political maneuvering and "Home Guards" organizing, he and Gen. Lyon marshalled their forces sufficiently to compel the surrender of Camp Jackson, a camp of state militia sympathetic with the Confederacy. It was a play of Blair and his Unconditional Unionists against Gov. Jackson and his confederates, who desired to carry Missouri into the Confederacy. The capture of Camp Jackson drove thousands of Missourians into the Confederate cause, but the issue was now sharply drawn in the state; the United States arsenal at St. Louis was saved, and the state remained Unionist. Blair was offered a brigadier-generalship but refused in order to avoid political complications in Missouri.

In the Thirty-seventh Congress, as chairman of the Committee on Military Defense, Blair's policy was to crush the rebellion as quickly as men and money could do it. His policy included the acceptance of all volunteer troops for service, government control of railroads and telegraph lines, and the construction of a ship canal from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River for commercial and military purposes. He caused Frémont to be sent to Missouri to command the forces in that region but soon became disgusted with Frémont's policy, criticized him, and was, in turn, arrested and imprisoned by him. Blair's father and brother attempted unsuccessfully to stop the quarrel. For this and other reasons Lincoln removed Frémont. Blair's enemies in Missouri increased in number, particularly while he was in the army.

In 1862, when the Union cause looked dark, an appeal was made to Blair to raise troops and lead them to the front. He immediately raised seven regiments, received the appointment of brigadier-general, and saw his first hard fighting at Vicksburg where he showed bravery and leadership. He was in many engagements, was raised to the rank of major-general, and completed his military career with Sherman on the march through the South. As commander of the 15th and 17th Corps, respectively, he received the praises of Generals Sherman and Grant. Blair was considerate of his officers and men and was popular among them. While in the army he made his own opinions and the wishes of Gen. Sherman known to his brother, the Postmaster General, who in turn communicated the information to the President. In 1864 Blair was recalled from the battlefield to help organize Congress and to defend Lincoln's plan of reconstruction. On February 5 and 27, 1864, he made two provocative speeches: one defending the President's policy; the other, against Secretary Chase and the Radicals whom he derisively called Jacobins. A storm of condemnation from the Radicals fell on his head. Chase threatened to resign, and Blair returned to his command.

When the war closed Blair was financially ruined as he had spent much of his private means in support of the Union. His attempt to retrieve his lost fortune on a cotton plantation in Mississippi failed. He then turned his attention to politics in Missouri where a set of Radical Republicans had gained control within the party. He opposed the registry laws, test oaths, the policy of sending carpetbaggers to the South, and the disfranchisement of the whites and the enfranchisement of the negroes. He wished to allow the states to return to the Union to work out their own problems if they recognized abolition as an accomplished fact and swore allegiance to the Constitution. President Johnson nominated Blair for collector of internal revenue at St. Louis, and then to the Austrian mission, only to see the Senate refuse to confirm his appointment in each case. Blair was then appointed as commissioner on the Pacific Railroad but Grant removed him as soon as he became president. The Radicals in Missouri caused Blair to defend the conservatives and ex-Confederates. He began his work of reorganization of the Democratic party in 1865, supported Johnson in 1866, and received the nomination for vice-president with Seymour in 1868.

In the latter year his public utterances and his notorious "Broadhead Letter, " addressed to J. O. Broadhead, declaring that it would be the duty of the Democratic candidate if elected to abolish the Reconstruction governments, gave the opposition an opportunity to distort Blair's meaning when he advanced his plan of reconstruction. He maintained that the Constitution had been perverted. To restore it, he would have the people, by their mandate expressed at the polls, declare the acts of the Radical Congress "null and void"; compel the army to undo its usurpations of power in the South; disperse the carpetbag governments; allow the whites to reorganize their own governments and elect senators and representatives.

After the Democratic defeat in 1868 he cooperated with the Liberal Republicans, secured election as representative to the Missouri legislature; and was, by that body, chosen United States senator. He helped to secure the nomination of Horace Greeley for president (1872), and through cooperation with the Liberal Republicans saw the Radicals ousted from power in Missouri. He was defeated for reelection to the United States Senate in 1873. During the same year Blair was stricken with paralysis, never to recover. He was nominally state superintendent of insurance when he died.

Achievements

• Francis Blair was instrumental in keeping Missouri part of the Union during the early stages of the Civil War. For this purpose he organized Unconditional Union Political Party in Missouri. Blair was also known for his views opposing slavery and strong advocacy of free soil politics. He even founded and led the Free-Soil party and established a Free-Soil paper, the Barnburner.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Speech of Hon. Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, on the Kansas question;

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Secretary Chase scheming for the presidency. his intrigues and official abuses: speech of Hon. F. P. Blair, of Missouri : delivered in the House of Representatives, April 23, 1864.

    (Originally published in 1864. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)

  • Voice from the grave of Jackson! Letter from Francis P. Blair, Esq. to a public meeting in New York, held April 29, 1856, A

    (Originally published in 1856. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)

Politics

Blair was a member of the Democratic Party before 1848, 1866–1875; the Free Soil Party from 1848 to 1854; the Republican Party from 1854 to 1866. He was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Missouri's 1st district (1861-1864; 1860; 1857-1859).

Personality

Blair was generous to a fault, cordial, and seldom held a personal grudge against a political enemy. His scathing denunciations of his political opponents antagonized them but his faculty for remembering names and his sociability endeared him to many people.

Quotes from others about the person

• "There was no man braver than he, nor was there any who obeyed all orders of his superior in rank with more unquestioning alacrity. He was one man as a soldier, another as a politician. " - Ulysses Grant, United States President
  
  "I always regarded him as one of the truest patriots, most honest and honorable men, and one of the most courageous soldiers this country ever produced. " - William T. Sherman

Connections

Blair was married on September 8, 1847, to Appoline Alexander of Woodford County, Kentucky.

Father:

Francis Preston Blair

Mother:

Eliza Violet (Gist) Blair

Spouse:

Appoline (Alexander) Blair

Brother:

James Blair

Brother:

Montgomery Blair

Sister:

Elizabeth (Blair) Lee

Daughter:

Christine Biddle (Blair) Graham

Daughter:

Eveline M. Blair

Son:

William Alexander Blair

Son:

Francis Preston Blair

Son:

Andrew Alexander Blair

Son:

Cary Montgomery Blair

Son:

James Lawrence Blair

References

• FRANCIS PRESTON BLAIR (A BIOGRAPHY)