Background
Montgomery Blair was born on May 10, 1813, in Franklin County, Kentucky, United States, the eldest son of Francis Preston Blair, Sr.
(Originally published in 1863. 22 pages. This volume is pr...)
Originally published in 1863. 22 pages. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
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Montgomery Blair was born on May 10, 1813, in Franklin County, Kentucky, United States, the eldest son of Francis Preston Blair, Sr.
The schools of Kentucky gave Blair his early education. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1835. Later he studied law in Transylvania University.
Blair settled in St. Louis in 1837 as the protégé of Thomas Hart Benton. After practising law two years he was appointed United States district attorney for Missouri, only to be removed for political reasons by President Tyler. He served in St. Louis as mayor (1842 - 1843) and as judge of the court of common pleas (1845 - 1849). In 1849 he resigned to resume his law practise. In 1853 he moved to Maryland where he practised law chiefly before the Supreme Court of the United States. President Pierce made him the first solicitor for the court of claims of the United States (1855) but President Buchanan dismissed him because of his pronounced views on slavery.
Blair was a Free-Soiler in principle, believed slavery could be peaceably settled, generally held the political views of border statesmen, and had sympathy with the interests of the West. After joining the American party he left it because of its silence on slavery and became a Democratic-Republican in the Republican party. His prestige was greatly increased among antislavery people when he became counsel for Dred Scott. His sense of fairness led him to help secure a defense attorney for John Brown after the Harper's Ferry incident. He was a delegate to the Democratic national conventions in 1844, 1848, and 1852. In 1860 he presided at the state Republican convention at Baltimore and attended the Chicago national convention as a delegate from Maryland. Because of his services to the Republican party, his family connections, and his political views and experiences he was made postmaster general in Lincoln's cabinet, where he belonged to the Bates-Welles-Blair group.
Blair strongly urged the reenforcement of Southern forts, particularly Fort Sumter, which he believed could be held against the Confederates, and threatened to resign if that fort were not reenforced. Without being obsequious he was a staunch supporter of Lincoln. He strongly opposed Secretary Chase's views, befriended McClellan, and insisted from the beginning of the incident that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was illegal. In his own department he organized the postal system for the army, introduced compulsory payment of postage and free delivery in cities, improved the registry system, established the railway post-office, organized the postal draft plan which his successor put into operation, stopped the franking privileges of postmasters, and was instrumental in bringing about the Postal Union Convention at Paris (1863).
In the Union national convention (1864) the Radicals succeeded in passing a resolution which virtually demanded the dismissal of Blair from the cabinet. The President, after a fair assurance of victory at the polls, bowed to political expediency and requested Blair's resignation, which was cheerfully given. Blair continued, however, to work loyally for Lincoln. After the assassination of Lincoln, Blair advised Johnson to dismiss the old and appoint a new cabinet. He sought moderation for the South, asserting and believing that Lincoln's plan of reconstruction was just and best. He decried the disfranchisement of the Southern whites and enfranchisement of the negroes. His views brought him into conflict with those held by the radical reconstructionists.
He drifted back to the Democratic party, where he supported Seymour in 1868 and Greeley in 1872, and championed Tilden's cause in 1876. With the financial aid of W. W. Corcoran he established a newspaper, the Union, to uphold Tilden's claims to the Presidency. As Tilden's counsel he appeared before the Electoral Commission. Being elected to the Maryland House of Delegates (1878) and immediately made chairman of the judiciary committee, Blair proposed the resolution which denied the right of President Hayes to office. Though honest in his belief that Hayes was illegally chosen president, he aroused the intense enmity of many people by his method of agitating the question. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1882. He was an inveterate worker and died while engaged in writing a life of Andrew Jackson.
(Originally published in 1863. 22 pages. This volume is pr...)
Montgomery Blair was a member of the Democratic Party before 1854 and from 1865 to 1883 and of the Republican Party from 1854 to 1865.
Blair was tall and spare, clean-shaven, with light hair and bluish-grey eyes. His speech was slow, his voice calm. Few men were more courteous and genial than he, but he was temperamentally combative and obstinate when he thought he was right. As a lawyer he used persuasive argument which was the result of research and logical reasoning. While he had strong prejudices, he was shrewd, frank, and thoroughly honest.
Blair was twice married: to a Miss Buckner of Virginia, who died in 1844, and to a daughter of Judge Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire.