mistakes and blunders he committed, led to a difficulty between them, and Colonel Blair was most unjustly placed in arrest by him. Such an arbitrary measure aroused the people of St. Louis, where the colonel was known and beloved, and the public journals expressed their opinion freely against the commanding general. In September, 1861, President Lincoln ordered Colonel Blair's release, much to the joy of the citizens of St. Louis, and to the great annoyance of Fremont. General Fremont again caused his arrest, but the denunciation of the act by the press and the people soon caused his release. Colonel Blair now rose rapidly as a soldier, fulfilling the prediction of General Jackson, while he was playing on his knee as a child, that he would become a skillful general and superior commander, when his country should need his services. He was soon commissioned a general, and then a major-general, and devoted himself mainly to serving in the army until the close of the war. He commanded a division in General Sherman's attack on Vicksburgh, on the 22d of May, 1862. His division was composed of the brigades of Ewing, Smith and Kirby Smith. General Blair led the attack in person. It was terrific, and although five batteries concentrated their guns on the position of the rebels, the attack was repulsed. Had General Grant, as he ought to have done, placed his supporting division within a reasonable distance, this attack would have proved a success. When Vicksburgh was finally taken, General Blair's division participated and did the heaviest fighting in Sherman's command. It was on this occasion that General Grant declared, "Frank Blair is the best volunteer general in the United States Army," which was reiterated by General Sherman. This opinion was sustained by his conduct in action, and his sound judgment manifested on all occasions. While engaged in active service, General Blair was elected to the thirtyeighth Congress, and took his seat, but soon resigned to resume his command in the army. He preferred as more useful the real army combats, to the talking fights in Congress. The great army march of the age was undertaken and executed by General Sherman. He swept from the interior south to the sea, prostrating and subduing everything before and near him. Among the army corps selected by him for this arduous service, was the seventeenth,

commanded by General Blair. This was deemed the finest corps in the whole army, made so by the activity, skill and energy of its commander, aided by those serving under him. He crossed the Ogeechee near Barton, and captured the first prisoners. His division laid pontoons across the river, and the two wings of the army army became united before Savannah. His division was the first to enter that city. From Savannah the fourteenth corps was taken by water to Pocotaligo, whence it threatened Charleston, while Slocum, with the twentieth corps and Kilpatrick's cavalry, marched up the Augusta to Sister Ferry, threatening an advance on Savannah at Tallahatchie. General Blair waded through a swamp three miles wide, with water some feet deep, when the weather was bitter cold. Here the seventeenth corps had another fight and lost a number of killed and wounded, but drove the rebels behind the Edisto at Branchville. The army then directed its march on Orangeburgh. Here the seventeenth carried the bridge over the South Edisto by a gallant dash, General Blair leading his men, as usual, up to the battery's mouth, which was covered by a parapet of cotton and earth, extending as for as could be seen.

General Blair threw General Smith's division in front, while his other division crossed below and carried the bridge after a hard fight. A half dozen men of General Blair's corps were the first to enter Columbia. But the Seventeenth corps were not guilty, as has been charged, of burning that city. At the battle of Bentonville, N. C., on the march up to Richmond, the Seventeenth Corps were engaged heavily. We will close our account of General Blair's military career by saying that he fulfilled every duty, and the highest expectations of his friends. His deportment was such as not to excite envy, while it commanded the esteem of the officers, and secured the affections of the soldiers. It is those who served with him, and who saw and best knew what he did, who have caused his nomination for the Vice-Presidency.

General Blair's political principles are those of General Jackson, Col. Benton, and Silas Wright. These patriotic statesmen have been his political standards in civil and military life. He believes that the Constitution of the United States is, like the reserved State rights under it, sacred and not to be violated with impunity under

any pretence. He holds that powers not conferred upon the Federal Government by the Constitution cannot be rightly exercised by either branch of the Government. He has shown us by his example, that, when insurrection and rebellion occur, every man owes his country the duty of repressing them at the hazard of his life. When the war is over and the Constitution vindicated, and those in arms against the Government have laid them down in good faith, he believes that then the erring states should be received back into our family of states and treated as equals. He has nothing to conceal, and will never seek a vote by resort to false pretences or double dealing. When his name went before the nominating convention, his sailing chart was laid before it. In a published letter, he said:

"If the President elected by the Democracy enforces, or permits others to enforce, these Reconstruction acts, the Radicals, by the accession of twenty spurious Senators and fifty Representatives, will control both branches of Congress, and his Administration will be as powerless as the present one of Mr. Johnson.

"There is but one way to restore the Government and the Constitution, and that is for the President elect to declare these acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State Governments, allow the white people to re-organize their own governments, and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the co-operation of the President, it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Constitution. It will not be able to withstand the public judgment, if distinctly invoked and clearly expressed, on this fundamental issue; and it is the sure way to avoid all future strife to put this issue plainly to the country.

"I repeat that this is the real and only question which we should allow to control us: Shall we submit to the usurpations by which the Government has been overthrown, or shall we exert ourselves for its full and complete restoration? It is idle to talk of bonds, greenbacks, gold, the public faith, and the public credit. What can

a Democratic President do in regard to any of these, with a Congress in both branches controlled by the carpet-baggers and their allies? He will be powerless to stop the supplies by which idle negroes are organized into political clubs, by which an army is maintained to protect these vagabonds in their outrages upon the ballot. These, and things like these, eat up the revenues and resources of the Government and destroy its credit, make the difference between gold and greenbacks."

In selecting him as a candidate, the Convention endorsed his views. After his nomination, in his letter of acceptance, he said: "Whole States and communities of people of our race have been attainted, convicted, condemned, and deprived of their rights as citizens without presentment or trial, or witnesses, but by Congressional enactment of ex post facto laws, and in defiance of constitutional prohibition.

"The same usurping authority has substituted as electors in the place of men of our own race, thus illegally attainted and disfranchised, a host of ignorant negroes, who are supported in idleness with the public money, and combined together to strip the white race of their birthright through the management of Freedmen's Bureaus, and emissaries of conspirators in other States; and to complete the oppression, the military power of the Nation has been placed at their disposal, in order to make their barbarism supreme. "The Nation will say the Constitution must be restored, and the will of the people again prevail. The appeal to the peaceful ballot to attain this end is not war, is not revolution. They make war and revolution who attempt to arrest this quiet mode of putting aside military despotism, and the usurpations of a fragment of a Congress, asserting absolute power over that benign system of regulated liberty left us by our fathers."

His views are most frankly and clearly given, so that those who vote for him, will do so with a full knowledge of them. He says, restore the Constitution, and give the states their rights, and all other questions will soon settle themselves to our satisfaction. Few will be found hardy enough to deny the correctness of this conclusion, whatever party tyranny may compel them to do.

General Blair is personally very popular, and his friends cling to

him under all circumstances, with a firm grasp. He is open and frank in his manners and intercourse, and benevolent and generous almost to a fault. With a fellow-soldier he would share his last ration, and for a sick one he would spend his last shilling to meet his necessary wants. It is the attachment of his neighbors, and those who know him well, that secures him success when a candidate for office. Judging from the past, he will command success on the present occasion. It will be a splendid triumph for him to preside over a Senate that refused him confirmation when nominated for the less important office of collector of internal revenue in St. Louis. It will call to recollection the fate of those who attempted to crush Mr. Van Buren by the same means. They saw him made Vice-President, and then President, while their party passed away, and has been forgotten, except for the wrongs it originated, and evils it nursed into active life.

General Blair is a ripe scholar, and thoroughly versed in the law of nations. He is also a sound constitutional lawyer, and well informed upon all legal subjects. The machinery of the Federal Government is perfectly familiar to him. He understands its working and management. He is fully competent for any position in the Government. He can be relied upon in every emergency where the Constitution and the liberties of the people are in danger. If an ill-fated chance should throw upon him the Executive Government, it would be in energetic and safe hands. The Constitution and laws would be maintained and protected, and the rights of the people defended with unflinching firmness and superior ability.