Freeman's champion., 1858-08-26
I From the ST. Louis News.l
The Coming Man.

~N~N0
lf'" ADI I14 -fuI'G '.U.
The truth is, and there ia no dis
guising it, that #. P. Blair, Jr., the
Representative of this Congressional
District, has for years been the most
adroit, successful and rising politician
in the West. His career in Missouri
may in one sense be called remarka-
bic. He was one of the very first
men in the State to break loose from
the fetter that the Southern Nullifers
commenced imposing upon the Dem
ocratic party of the nation. He turned
"Barn-burner"- (which means "Free-
soiler" now-as early as lS48, and
he has been consistent in his freesoil-
ism, as well as persistent and bitter
in his denunciations ofthe fre-eating,
as he sometimes styles them, the
"nigger-driving" Democracy, ever
since. While such men as John Van
Buren, have crept back and licked the
hand and tried to nestle in the bosom
Of that perverse party that ostracised
his illustrious father, the President,
Frank Blair, though under much
greater temptation to abjure his "Van
Buren, and Adams I" detection of '48,
has maintained his integrity with a
frmness and defiance of popular sem
timent around him, that was uncom-
mon enough to be heroic.
And what is most remarkable about
Frank Blair, Notwithstanding he has
been walled around by bitter prejudi-
ces against him and his principles,
zealously kindled by the anti-Benton
party, in league with former power
in the State, the Missouri Republican,
in its days of Whig-Anti-Bentonis
Frank Blair has quietly and success
lively overcome every obstacle leopposed
to his political progress. He has
risen step by step, as he chose and
whether in office or out, he has given
his own party more shrewdness in
policy and "back bone" in battle,
and given his adversaries more con-
fusion by perplexing their counsels,
than any ether ten politicians in the
State.
A hundred times ayear the RepuJIic-
an and its anti-Benton ceterie OF
small politicians, would congratulate
themselves that Frark Blair and his
principles were utterly odious in Mis-
Somi; and that no danger was ever
to be aprehended from him. But
though confeSSedly in a minority in
the State, cur Representative has new
er failed to fool and defeat those par.
ties that have SO pcrsistently opposed
and DETAINED him--he has never fail
ed to shape the politics of the city
and the State, to serve his own po-
litical ends.
There is neither good sense nor
policy in denying obvious merit, and
the National Democrats of Missouri,
who have for years, endeavored in
vain to arrest the career of Frank
Blair, and who have come out on ev-
cry encounter with him mortified and
beaten, should be ashamed longer to
slight his abilities, his sagacity and
his determined purpose. m.
To go no deeper for the secret of
his success, it is enough to say that
Frank Blair's thorough political
knowledge is sufficient to account for
his complete and inevitable mastery
of all political bodies that he has yet
associated with. Except Col. Ben
ton, there is no man in the country
who is more thoroughly informed in
political history of the United States
than our Representative. And we
question whether he has not more
ready command Of the minuter facts
in the history Of men and parties, that
can be turned against his adversaries,
than even sod Bullion F" bimself.
There is not an anti-Benton politi-
clan in Missouri that is more than o
ten year old boy by the side of Frank
Blair, in adjusting the details of a po-
litical campaign and preparing the
strategies Of attack and defense.
There are those who know that
Frank Blair, in taking his political
position, nine years ago, against the
Multiplying National Democracy, saw
the Z" end from the beginning. - His
faith has been uuwavering, and set
forth ordinarily in the following Ian
guage, that the time would come
when the people OF the United States
would learn that there were other in
terests in the United States besides
" niggers''- the day would
arrive when "white laborers" would
assert rights equal 90 those Of the col
ored" machines ofa few Southern
aristocrats-and that Presidents of
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