Gloucester County Democrat., 1899-03-16


his splendid military and civil record,
it may be doubted whether there was
any official position however exalted
beyond his reach if he had remained
with the Republicans. / have always
believed, and do now believe, that by
Hevering his connection with them he
probably threw away the vice presi-
dency possibly the presidency irself-
position for which most statesmen
pant even as the heart panteth for the
water brook. During his long, stormy
and vicissitudinous career he always
unhesitatingly did what he thought was
| right for right $ sake leaving the con
sequences to take care Of themselves
That he was ambitious of political pref
erment there can be no question, but
office had no charms for him if it in
volYed sacrifice Of principle or COM
promise Of conscience
Hated and Loved.
This great man. for great he was be-
yond even the shadow of doubt, en-
joyed the distinction unique among
statesmen Of being hated and loved in
turn by all Missourians of changing
his political affiliations violently twice
long after he had passed the formative
and effervescent period of youth, and
while spending nearly his entire life
in the hurly buTly of politics, of dying
at last mourned by every man and wo-
man in the state whose good opinion
was worth possessing In that respect
his career is without parallel. Born a
Democrat, he served in this house as a
Republican, in the senate as a Demo-
crat and died finally in the political
faith of his fathers
Change Of party affiliations by man
Of mature age is nearly always pain
full performance generally injurious to
his fame-but Blair's two complete
changes Of base appear to have increased
the respect in which men held him, and
the secret Of this anomaly is that in
each instance he quit triumphant and
arrogant majority with which he was a
prime favorite to link his fortunes with
a feeble and hopeless minority-pro
conclusive of his rectitude of purpose
whereas if he had abandoned a minority
to join a majority his honesty Of mo-
tive might have well been impugned.
Benton's seorn Of his opponents was
so lofty and so CALLING, the excoriations
he inflicted aye, lsvished-upon them
bred such rancor in their hearts. the
lash with which he scourged them left
such fostering wounds. that they never
forgave him until they knew be was
dead-dead as Julius Caesar dead be-
yond all cayil. Then they put ON sack
cloth and ashes and gave him the most
magnificent funeral ever seen west of
the Mississippi
Blair's was happier fate than that
of his illustrious prototype and exem-
plar. While from the day of his return
from the Mexican war to the hour Of
his retirement from the senate he was
in the forefront of every political battle
in Missouri, and nowhere on earth
were political wars waged with more
ungovernable fury, such were his en-
dearing qualities that the closing years
of his life were placid as a summer
evening, and he died amid the lamenta-
| tIo1s u a nfIgnty peopte. ItcpuDIrcans
seemed to remember only the good he
had done them. forgetting the injuries,
while Democrats forgot the injuries he
had inflicted upon them and remember
ed only the invaluable service he had
rendered. Union veterans named a
Grand Army post for him, Confederates
proudly call their boys Frank Blair, and
his fellow citizens, without regard to
creed or party, erected his statue of he
roic size in Forest park to perpetuate
his fame to coming generations.
Border States During the War.
General William Tecumseh Sherman
once said, "War is hell. Those who
lived in s'the border states during our
civil war and who are old enough to re-
member the tragic events of that bloody
but heroic epoch in our annals will
with one accord indorse his idea if not
his sulphurous language.
1t was easy to be Union man in
Massachusetts. 1t was not profitable to
be anything else. 1t was easy to be a
Confederate in South Carolina 1t was
not safe to be anything else. But in
Kentucky, Missouri and the other bor-
der states, it was perilous to be the one
thing or the other Indeed it was dam
gerous to be neither and to sit on the
fence.
| was a child when Sumter was fred
on. living in Washington county, KY.
1 remember an old fellow from whom
the Union raiders took one horse nd
the Confederate raiders another So
when third party of soldiers met him
in the road and inquired whether he
was a Union man or a rebel being du-
bious as to their army affiliations. he
answered automatically, liam neither
one nor the other and very little of
that, and thereby lost his third and
last horse to Confederates disguised in
blue uniforms.
Friends Turned to Enemies.
Men who were born and reared ON
adjoining farms, who had attended the
same schools, played the same games,
courted the same girls, danced in tue
same sets, belonged to the same lodges
and worshiped in the same churches
suddenly went cunning for each other
as remorselessly as red Indians, only
they had a clearer vision and surer
aim. From the mouth of the Big
Sandy to the mouth of the Tennessee
there was not a square mile in which
some awful act of violence did not take
place.
As all the evil passions of men were
aroused and all restraints of propriety
as well as all fear of law were removed
every latent tendency toward crime
was warmed into life. The land swarm
ed with cutthroats, robbers, thieves,
firebugs and malefactors of every de-
gree and kind, who preyed upon the
old, the infrm, the helpless, and COM
mitted thousands of brutal and heinous
crimes in the name of the Union or
the southern Confederacy.
Missouri prior to the war was more
! a Kentucky colony than anything else,
with the Kentucky characteristics,
feuds and all, reproduced in stronger
and larger form in her amazingly fertile
soil So all that goes before applies te
Missouri as we'll as to Kentucky.
From the first Missouri has been the
stormy petrelof American politics. The
richest, the most imperial common
! wealth in the Union her geographical