page_title: Francis Preston Blair
section_title: Politician
hierarchical_section_title: Francis Preston Blair / Politician
caption_attribution_description: Francis Preston Blair
context_page_description: Francis Preston Blair Sr. was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and influential figure in national politics advising several U.S. presidents across party lines.
  Blair was an early member of the Democratic Party, and a strong supporter of President Andrew Jackson, having helped him win Kentucky in the 1828 presidential election. From 1831 to 1845, Blair worked as Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Globe, which served as the primary propaganda instrument for the Democratic Party, and was largely successful. Blair was an influential advisor to President Jackson, and served prominently in a group of unofficial advisors and assistants known as the "Kitchen Cabinet".
  Blair, despite being a slaveholder from Kentucky, eventually came to oppose the expansion of slavery into western territories. He supported the Free Soil Party ticket of Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams Sr. in the 1848 presidential election. In 1854, in opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, he left the Democratic Party and helped establish the Republican Party. Blair served as an advisor to President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.
context_section_description: Blair backed James K. Polk during 1844 presidential election; however, he did not establish a good rapport with Polk and was forced to sell his interest in The Washington Globe. In 1848, he actively supported Martin Van Buren, the Free Soil candidate, for the presidency. Next, in 1852, Blair supported Franklin Pierce, but became disillusioned in his administration after Pierce backed the Kansas–Nebraska Act. With other anti-slavery, free-soil Democrats, Blair helped to organize the new Republican Party, and presided at its 1856 preliminary convention at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, forging a party block out of discordant elements of Whigs, abolitionists, free-soilers and nativists. He used his political experience, influence and persuasion to create a momentum for a new party.
  At the 1856 Republican National Convention, he was influential in securing the nomination of John C. Frémont, who was married to Jessie Benton Frémont, a daughter of his old friend, Thomas Hart Benton, for the presidency. At the 1860 Republican convention, he, as delegate at large from Maryland, initially supported Edward Bates for the 1860 presidential nomination. When it became clear that Bates would not succeed, Blair supported the nomination of Abraham Lincoln.
  The elder Blair took it upon himself to advise Lincoln, and both of his sons, Francis Jr., who became a Union general, and Montgomery Blair, who joined the Lincoln's cabinet, were president's trusted associates. On April 17, 1861, just three days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, Lincoln asked Francis Blair to convey his offer to Colonel Robert E. Lee to command the Union Army. The next day, Lee visited Blair across Lafayette Square from the White House. Lee blunted Blair's offer of the Union command by saying: "Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves at the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?"
  After Lincoln's re-election in 1864, Blair thought that his former close personal relations with the Confederate leaders, including President Jefferson Davis, might aid in bringing about a cessation of hostilities, and with Lincoln's consent went unofficially two times to Richmond and induced President Davis to appoint commissioners including Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens to confer with representatives of the United States. This political maneuvering resulted in the futile Hampton Roads Conference of February 3, 1865.
  During the Reconstruction Era, Blair advocated a speedy reunification without placing much burden on the Southern states and spoke against the Radical Republicans' Reconstruction policies in the South. He became a political ally of President Andrew Johnson, and eventually rejoined the Democratic Party.
caption: Blair in May, 1845 as painted by Thomas Sully
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