Montgomery Blair

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Montgomery Blair (May 10, 1813 – July 27, 1883), the son of Francis Preston Blair, Jr.'s elder brother and cousin of B. Gratz Brown, was a Maryland politician and advocate.

During the Civil War, he served in Lincoln administration from 1861 to 1864.

Early life and education

Blair was born in Franklin County, Kentucky, home to Frankfort's state capital. During the Jacksonian period, his father, Francis Preston Blair, Sr., was editor of the Washington Globe and a prominent figure in the Democratic Party. Montgomery "often listened to the conversation of his father and Andrew Jackson" as a youth.

Blair graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1835, but after a year of service in the Seminole War, he resigned from the Army, married Caroline Buckner of Virginia, and began pursuing law at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Blair began practicing law in 1839 in St Louis, Missouri, as a United States district attorney. He married Mary Elizabeth Woodbury, daughter of Levi Woodbury, following the death of his first wife, Carolina, in 1844.

Blair moved to Maryland in 1852 and concentrated himself in the United States Supreme Court, serving as both counsel attorney (1839–41) and later as judge of common pleas (1843-1859). He was a Solicitor in the Court of Claims (1855–58) and was associated with George T. Curtis as counsel for the plaintiff in the Dred Scott vs. Sandford case of 1857.

Later life and death

In present-day Silver Spring, Maryland, his 600-acre (2.4 km2) manor was named Falkland. "Inflammation of the spinal membranes" caused it to be sparked by Confederate troops during their march toward Washington, D.C., he died at Silver Spring in 1883. He was buried in Rock Creek Cemetery during the funeral services, and he was buried at Rock Creek Cemetery. The United States Post Office closed on July 30, 1883, in honor of Blair.

Personal life

Mary Woodbury, Levi Woodbury's daughter, was Blair's wife. Minnie Blair and her partner had just one daughter, Minnie Blair. Woodbury Blair, Gist Blair, and Montgomery Blair Jr., all of whom were attorneys, had three sons, Woodbury Blair, Gist Blair, and Montgomery Blair Jr.

Montgomery Blair and Mary Woodbury Blair were the great-grandparents of actor Montgomery Clift.

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Career

The Blairs, like many other nationalist Democrats, but unusual for politicians from the border states, had abandoned the Democratic Party in the wake of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and had been among the founding leaders of the new Republican Party. Four years after Blair switched political parties, President Buchanan removed Blair from his position as Solicitor of the United States Court of Claims in 1858. In 1860, Blair took an active part in the presidential campaign on behalf of Abraham Lincoln. After his election, Lincoln appointed Blair to his cabinet as Postmaster General in 1861. Lincoln expected Blair, who advocated taking a firm stance with the southern states, to help balance more conciliatory members of his cabinet. While Postmaster-General, Blair instituted a uniform rate of postage and free delivery in cities. Blair also began the sale of money orders by post offices to reduce the mailing of currency to reduce post office robberies. He also called for the First International Postal Conference, which was held in Paris in 1863 and began the process that led to the Universal Postal Union.

While the Blairs, as a family, were often characterized as conservative on the issue of slavery, Blair notably served as the defense counsel for Dred Scott when the enslaved African-American took his case to the Supreme Court in 1857. Scott was the slave of an Army doctor, who had taken his enslaved servant along for prolonged stays in free territory. On Scott's behalf, Blair argued that the time the black man had spent in the free state of Illinois and in Minnesota, free territory since the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, made him a free man. The ruling by Court's majority against Scott's right to freedom is often cited as one of the contributing causes of the Civil War. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roger Taney affirmed that the black man had no rights "that the white man was bound to respect" and that black slaves could not be considered American citizens despite having been born in the U.S. This landmark decision was denounced as a step toward the "nationalization" of slavery by Lincoln and others opposed to the expansion of that institution. Conservative as he may have been on other aspects of the slavery issue, Blair's work in the case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford suggests a willingness to embrace more progressive viewpoints.

Blair served as Postmaster-General from 1861 until September 1864, when Lincoln accepted an earlier offer by Blair to resign. Lincoln's action may have been a response to the hostility of the Radical Republican faction, which stipulated that Blair's retirement should follow the withdrawal of John C. Frémont as a candidate for President in that year. Regarding Lincoln's action, Blair told his wife that the president had acted "from the best motives" and that "it is for the best all around." After he left the cabinet, Blair still campaigned for Lincoln's re-election and Lincoln and the Blair family retained close ties.

Under Blair's administration, such reforms and improvements as the establishment of free city delivery; the adoption of a money order system; and the use of railway mail cars were instituted, the last of which had been suggested by George B. Armstrong (d. 1871), of Chicago, general superintendent of the United States railway mail service from 1860 to his death.

Differing from the Republican Party on the Reconstruction policy, Blair gave his adherence to the Democratic Party after the Civil War, along with his brother, who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1868.

In 1876, Blair was counsel to Secretary of War William W. Belknap during the House of Representatives investigation into the Trader post scandal and requested the House Investigation Committee chaired by Hiester Clymer to drop the charges against Belknap if the latter resigned office. Clymer, however, declined Blair's offer. Belknap was impeached by the House of Representatives for receiving illicit payments from the Fort Sill trader post on the Western frontier while Secretary of War. Belknap had been given sole power by Congress to choose sutlers to operate lucrative trader posts that sold supplies to U.S. soldiers and Indians. Belknap resigned over the scandal and was acquitted in a Senate trial during the summer of 1876. Many senators did not believe that Congress could convict a private citizen, but the Senate passed a resolution that stated Congress could convict a private citizen.

In 1882, Blair unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Representative from Maryland's sixth district.

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