Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 10 (1/2)
In 1868 Blaikie was called to the chair of apologetics and pastoral theology at New College, Edinburgh. In dealing with the latter subject he was seen at his very best. He had wide experience, a comprehensive grasp of facts, abundant sympathy, an extensive knowledge of men, and a great capacity for teaching. In 1870 he was one of two representatives chosen from the Free Church of Scotland to attend the united general a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian churches of the United States. He prolonged his visit to make a thorough acquaintance with American Presbyterianism, and this, followed by a similar tour in Europe, fitted him to become the real founder of the Presbyterian Alliance. Much of his strength in the later years of life was given to this work. In 1892 he was elected to the chairmans.h.i.+p of the general a.s.sembly, the last of the moderators who had entered the church before the disruption. In 1897 he resigned his professors.h.i.+p, and died on the 11th of June 1899.
Blaikie was an ardent philanthropist, and an active and intelligent temperance reformer, in days when this was far from easy. He raised 14,000 for the relief of the Waldensian churches. Although he took an active part in the affairs of his denomination, he was not a mere ecclesiastic. He had a keen eye for the evidences of spiritual growth or decline, and emphasized the need of maintaining a high level of spiritual life. He welcomed Moody to Scotland, and the evangelist made his headquarters with him during his first visit. His best books are _The Work of the Ministry--A Manual of Homiletic and Pastoral Theology_ (1873); _The Books of Samuel_ in the _Expositors' Bible Series_ (2 vols.); _The Personal Life of David Livingstone_ (1880); _After Fifty Years_ (1893), an account of the Disruption Movement in the form of letters of a grandfather; _Thomas Chalmers_ (1896). (D. Mn.)
BLAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE (1830-1893), American statesman, was born in West Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the 31st of January 1830, of st.u.r.dy Scottish-Irish stock on the side of his father. He was the great-grandson of Colonel Ephraim Blaine (1741-1804), who during the War of Independence served in the American army, from 1778 to 1782 as commissary-general of the Northern Department. With many early evidences of literary capacity and political apt.i.tude, J.G. Blaine graduated at Was.h.i.+ngton College in Was.h.i.+ngton, Pennsylvania, in 1847, and subsequently taught successively in the Military Inst.i.tute, Georgetown, Kentucky, and in the Inst.i.tution for the Blind at Philadelphia. During this period, also, he studied law. Settling in Augusta, Maine, in 1854, he became editor of the _Kennebec Journal_, and subsequently of the _Portland Advertiser_. But his editorial work was soon abandoned for a more active public career. He was elected to the lower house of the state legislature in 1858, and served four years, the last two as speaker. He also became chairman of the Republican state committee in 1859, and for more than twenty years personally directed every campaign of his party.
In 1862 he was elected to Congress, serving in the House thirteen years (December 1863 to December 1876), followed by a little over four years in the Senate. He was chosen speaker of the House in 1869 and served three terms. The House was the fit arena for his political and parliamentary ability. He was a ready and powerful debater, full of resource, and dexterous in controversy. The tempestuous politics of the war and reconstruction period suited his aggressive nature and constructive talent. The measures for the rehabilitation of the states that had seceded from the Union occupied the chief attention of Congress for several years, and Blaine bore a leading part in framing and discussing them. The primary question related to the basis of representation upon which they should be restored to their full rank in the political system. A powerful section contended that the basis should be the body of legal voters, on the ground that the South could not then secure an increment of political power on account of the emanc.i.p.ated blacks unless these blacks were admitted to political rights. Blaine, on the other hand, contended that representation should be based on population instead of voters, as being fairer to the North, where the ratio of voters varied widely, and he insisted that it should be safeguarded by security for impartial suffrage. This view prevailed, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution was substantially Blaine's proposition. In the same spirit he opposed a scheme of military governments for the southern states, unless a.s.sociated with a plan by which, upon the acceptance of prescribed conditions, they could release themselves from military rule and resume civil government. He was the first in Congress to oppose the claim, which gained momentary and widespread favour in 1867, that the public debt, pledged in coin, should be paid in greenbacks. The protection of naturalized citizens who, on return to their native land, were subject to prosecution on charges of disloyalty, enlisted his active interest and support, and the agitation, in which he was conspicuous, led to the treaty of 1870 between the United States and Great Britain, which placed adopted and native citizens on the same footing.
As the presidential election of 1876 approached, Blaine was clearly the popular favourite of his party. His chance for securing the nomination, however, was materially lessened by persistent charges which were brought against him by the Democrats that as a member of Congress he had been guilty of corruption in his relations with the Little Rock & Fort Smith and the Northern Pacific railways.[1] By the majority of Republicans, at least, he was considered to have cleared himself completely, and in the Republican national convention he missed by only twenty-eight votes the nomination for president, being finally beaten by a combination of the supporters of all the other candidates. Thereupon he entered the Senate, where his activity was unabated. Currency legislation was especially prominent. Blaine, who had previously opposed greenback inflation now resisted depreciated silver coinage. He was the earnest champion of the advancement of American s.h.i.+pping, and advocated liberal subsidies, insisting that the policy of protection should be applied on sea as well as on land. The Republican national convention of 1880, divided between the two nearly equal forces of Blaine and General U.S. Grant--John Sherman of Ohio also having a considerable following--struggled through thirty-six ballots, when the friends of Blaine, combining with those of Sherman, succeeded in nominating General James A. Garfield. In the new administration Blaine became secretary of state, but, owing to the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Garfield and the reorganization of the cabinet by President Chester A. Arthur, he held the office only until December 1881. His brief service was distinguished by several notable steps. In order to promote the friendly understanding and co-operation of the nations on the American continents he projected a Pan-American congress, which, after being arranged for, was frustrated by his retirement. He also sought to secure a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and in an extended correspondence with the British government strongly a.s.serted the policy of an exclusive American control of any isthmian ca.n.a.l which might be built to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
With undiminished hold on the imagination and devotion of his followers he was nominated for president in 1884. After a heated canva.s.s, in which he made a series of brilliant speeches, he was beaten by a narrow margin in New York. By many, including Blaine himself, the defeat was attributed to the effect of a phrase, ”Rum, Romanism and Rebellion,”
used by a clergyman, Rev. Samuel D. Burchard (1812-1891), on the 29th of October 1884, in Blaine's presence, to characterize what, in his opinion, the Democratic party stood for. The phrase was not Blaine's, but his opponents made use of it to misrepresent his att.i.tude toward the Roman Catholics, large numbers of whom are supposed, in consequence, to have withdrawn their support. Refusing to be a presidential candidate in 1888, he became secretary of state under President Harrison, and resumed his work which had been interrupted nearly eight years before. The Pan-American congress, then projected, now met in Was.h.i.+ngton, and Blaine, as its master spirit, presided over and guided its deliberation through its session of five months. Its most important conclusions were for reciprocity in trade, a continental railway and compulsory arbitration in international complications. Shaping the tariff legislation for this policy, Blaine negotiated a large number of reciprocity treaties which augmented the commerce of his country. He upheld American rights in Samoa, pursued a vigorous diplomacy with Italy over the lynching of eleven Italians, all except three of them American naturalized citizens, in New Orleans on the 14th of May 1891, held a firm att.i.tude during the strained relations between the United States and Chile (growing largely out of the killing and wounding of American sailors of the U.S. s.h.i.+p ”Baltimore” by Chileans in Valparaiso on the 16th of October 1891), and carried on with Great Britain a resolute controversy over the seal fisheries of Bering Sea,--a difference afterwards settled by arbitration. He resigned on the 4th of June 1892, on the eve of the meeting of the Republican national convention, wherein his name was ineffectually used, and he died at Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., on the 27th of January 1803.
During his later years of leisure he wrote _Twenty Years of Congress_ (1884-1886), a brilliant historical work in two volumes. Of singularly alert faculties, with a remarkable knowledge of the men and history of his country, and an extraordinary memory, his masterful talent for politics and state-craft, together with his captivating manner and engaging personality, gave him, for nearly two decades, an unrivalled hold upon the fealty and affection of his party.
See the _Biography of James G. Blaine_ (Norwich, Conn., 1895) by Mary Abigail Dodge (”Gail Hamilton”), and, in the ”American Statesmen Series,” _James G. Blaine_ (Boston, 1905) by C.E. Stanwood; also Mrs Blaine's _Letters_ (1908). (C. E. S.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This attack led to a dramatic scene in the House, in which Blaine fervidly a.s.severated his denial.
BLAINVILLE, HENRI MARIE DUCROTAY DE (1777-1850), French naturalist, was born at Arques, near Dieppe, on the 12th of September 1777. About 1796 he went to Paris to study painting, but he ultimately devoted himself to natural history, and attracted the attention of Baron Cuvier, for whom he occasionally lectured at the College de France and at the Athenaeum.
In 1812 he was aided by Cuvier to obtain the chair of anatomy and zoology in the Faculty of Sciences at Paris, but subsequently an estrangement grew up between the two men and ended in open enmity. In 1825 Blainville was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences; and in 1830 he was appointed to succeed J.B. Lamarck in the chair of natural history at the museum. Two years later, on the death of Cuvier, he obtained the chair of comparative anatomy, which he continued to occupy for the s.p.a.ce of eighteen years, proving himself no unworthy successor to his great teacher. He died at Paris on the 1st of May 1850. Besides many separate memoirs, he was the author of _Prodrome d'une nouvelle distribution methodique du regne animal_ (1816); _Osteographic ou description iconographique comparee du squelette, &c._ (1839-1864); _Faune francaise_ (1821-1830); _Corns de physiologie generale et comparee_ (1833); _Manuel de malacologie et de conchyliologie_ (1825-1827); _Histoire des sciences de l'organisme_ (1845).
BLAIR, FRANCIS PRESTON (1791-1876), American journalist and politician, was born at Abingdon, Virginia, on the 12th of April 1791. He removed to Kentucky, graduated at Transylvania University in 1811, took to journalism, and was a contributor to Amos Kendall's paper, the _Argus_, at Frankfort. In 1830, having become an ardent follower of Andrew Jackson, he was made editor of the Was.h.i.+ngton _Globe_, the recognized organ of the Jackson party. In this capacity, and as a member of Jackson's ”Kitchen Cabinet,” he long exerted a powerful influence; the _Globe_ was the administration organ until 1841, and the chief Democratic organ until 1845; Blair ceased to be its editor in 1849. In 1848 he actively supported Martin Van Buren, the Free Soil candidate, for the presidency, and in 1852 he supported Franklin Pierce, but soon afterwards helped to organize the new Republican party, and presided at its preliminary convention at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in February 1856.
He was influential in securing the nomination of John C. Fremont at the June convention (1856), and of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. After Lincoln's re-election in 1864 Blair thought that his former close personal relations with the Confederate leaders might aid in bringing about a cessation of hostilities, and with Lincoln's consent went unofficially to Richmond and induced President Jefferson Davis to appoint commissioners to confer with representatives of the United States. This resulted in the futile ”Hampton Roads Conference” of the 3rd of February 1865 (see LINCOLN, ABRAHAM). After the Civil War Blair became a supporter of President Johnson's reconstruction policy, and eventually rejoined the Democratic party. He died at Silver Spring, Maryland, on the 18th of October 1876.
His son, MONTGOMERY BLAIR (1813-1883), politician and lawyer, was born in Franklin county, Kentucky, on the 10th of May 1813. He graduated at West Point in 1835, but, after a year's service in the Seminole War, left the army, studied law, and began practice at St Louis, Missouri.
After serving as United States district attorney (1839-1843), as mayor of St Louis (1842-1843), and as judge of the court of common pleas (1843-1849), he removed to Maryland (1852), and devoted himself to law practice princ.i.p.ally in the Federal supreme court. He was United States solicitor in the court of claims from 1855 until 1858, and was a.s.sociated with George T. Curtis as counsel for the plaintiff in the Dred Scott case in 1857. In 1860 he took an active part in the presidential campaign in behalf of Lincoln, in whose cabinet he was postmaster-general from 1861 until September 1864, when he resigned as a result of the hostility of the Radical Republican faction, who stipulated that Blair's retirement should follow the withdrawal of Fremont's name as a candidate for the presidential nomination in that year. Under his 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 inst.i.tuted --the last having been suggested by George B. Armstrong (d. 1871), of Chicago, who from 1869 until his death was general superintendent of the United States railway mail service. Differing from the Republican party on the reconstruction policy, Blair gave his adherence to the Democratic party after the Civil War. He died at Silver Spring, Maryland, on the 27th of July 1883.
Another son, FRANCIS PRESTON BLAIR, jun. (1821-1875), soldier and political leader, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, on the 19th of February 1821. After graduating at Princeton in 1841 he practised law in St Louis, and later served in the Mexican War. He was ardently opposed to the extension of slavery and supported Martin Van Buren, the Free Soil candidate for the presidency in 1848. He served from 1852 to 1856 in the Missouri legislature as a Free Soil Democrat, in 1856 joined the Republican party, and in 1857-1860 and 1861-1862 was a member of Congress, where he proved an able debater. Immediately after South Carolina's secession, Blair, believing that the southern leaders were planning to carry Missouri into the movement, began active efforts to prevent it and personally organized and equipped a secret body of 1000 men to be ready for the emergency. When hostilities became inevitable, acting in conjunction with Captain (later General) Nathaniel Lyon, he suddenly transferred the arms in the Federal a.r.s.enal at St Louis to Alton, Illinois, and a few days later (May 10, 1861) surrounded and captured a force of state guards which had been stationed at Camp Jackson in the suburbs of St Louis with the intention of seizing the a.r.s.enal. This action gave the Federal cause a decisive initial advantage in Missouri. Blair was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers in August 1862 and a major-general in November 1862. In Congress as chairman of the important military affairs committee his services were of the greatest value. He commanded a division in the Vicksburg campaign and in the fighting about Chattanooga, and was one of Sherman's corps commanders in the final campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas. In 1866 like his father and brother he opposed the Congressional reconstruction policy, and on that issue left the Republican party. In 1868 he was the Democratic candidate for vice-president on the ticket with Horatio Seymour. In 1871-1873 he was a United States senator from Missouri. He died in St Louis, on the 8th of July 1875.
BLAIR, HUGH (1718-1800), Scottish Presbyterian divine, was born on the 7th of April 1718, at Edinburgh, where his father was a merchant.
Entering the university in 1730 he graduated M.A. in 1739; his thesis, _De Fundamentis et Obligations Legis Naturae_, contains an outline of the moral principles afterwards unfolded in his sermons. He was licensed to preach in 1741, and a few months later the earl of Leven, hearing of his eloquence, presented him to the parish of Collessie in Fife. In 1743 he was elected to the second charge of the Canongate church, Edinburgh, where he ministered until removed to Lady Yester's, one of the city churches, in 1754. In 1757 the university of St Andrews conferred on him the degree of D.D., and in the following year he was promoted to the High Church, Edinburgh, the most important charge in Scotland. In 1759 he began, under the patronage of Lord Kames, to deliver a course of lectures on composition, the success of which led to the foundation of a chair of rhetoric and _belles lettres_ in the Edinburgh University. To this chair he was appointed in 1762, with a salary of 70 a year. Having long taken interest in the Celtic poetry of the Highlands, he published in 1763 a laudatory _Dissertation_ on Macpherson's _Ossian_, the authenticity of which he maintained. In 1777 the first volume of his _Sermons_ appeared. It was succeeded by four other volumes, all of which met with the greatest success. Samuel Johnson praised them warmly, and they were translated into almost every language of Europe. In 1780 George III. conferred upon Blair a pension of 200 a year. In 1783 he retired from his professors.h.i.+p and published his _Lectures on Rhetoric_, which have been frequently reprinted. He died on the 27th of December 1800. Blair belonged to the ”moderate” or lat.i.tudinarian party, and his _Sermons_ have been criticized as wanting in doctrinal definiteness. His works display little originality, but are written in a flowing and elaborate style. He is remembered chiefly by the place he fills in the literature of his time. _Blair's Sermons_ is a typical religious book of the period that preceded the Anglican revival.
See J. Hall, _Account of Life and Writings of Hugh Blair_ (1807).