Beschreibung:

Lot of 116+ items. The highlight of the archive is a 4pp letter dated December 21, 1860 from "Silver Spring," written by Francis Preston Blair Sr. to his son, Francis Preston Blair Jr., in which he discusses advising John J. Crittenden on the "Crittenden Compromise" as well as his attempts to find a place for his other son Montgomery in Lincoln's administration. Francis Preston Blair Sr. (1791-1876) was a well-respected figure in Washington politics. His speech impediment kept him from running for office, but his adept management of The Washington Globe made him a vital part of the Democratic Party’s success in the 1830s and 1840s. His service to the party earned him a position on President Andrew Jackson’s “Kitchen Cabinet,” and allowed him to continue to advise other presidents including Abraham Lincoln. He is credited with helping form the original Republican Party. Lincoln said that, "The Blairs have to an unusual degree the spirit of clan. Their family is a close corporation. Frank is their hope and pride. They have a way of going with a rush for anything they undertake, especially have Montgomery and the Old Gentleman" (Mr. Lincoln's White House: Frank P. Blair Jr. (1821-1875), The Lehrman Institute). Demonstrating the power of Blair Sr.’s opinion, Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden pulled aside Blair Sr. and asked the former Kentuckian for his advice days after proposing his failed Crittenden Compromise. In Blair Sr.'s December 21, 1860 letter to his son, he described the exchange with Crittenden. He told me he was ready to do anything in his power to stop the headlong course on which S. Carolina sought to involve the slave states & to give Lincoln an easy & prosperous administration, wrote Blair. I asked him to hunt up the law establishing the New Mexican Territory, & then pointed to the section giving power to its Legislature to make laws touching all proper subjects of local concern – such laws to be submitted to Congress & to become invalid if disapproved by that body… I told him I had proposed to Crittenden & King to meet Douglas’s new project by the old one of 1850. They assented to the idea of making our stand immoveably on the old Landmarks. Crittenden told me he would instantly modify his plan so as to base it on this suggestion. If he does & [missing paper] replacing the Missouri line limited at its old point on the west, & makes both compromises permanent in an amendment to the Constitution the effect would be to give the free states that part of Texas above 36.30 and around the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott principle, in all the territories by recognizing the supreme Legislative power of Congress over them. Crittenden commended Blair Sr.’s suggestions and said they were in line with the political legacy left behind by Henry Clay. He immediately went to work on the revisions, but Blair Sr.’s suggestions did not stave off the war. In the same letter, Blair Sr. discusses his son Montgomery Blair's political prospects in Lincoln’s administration. Trumbull showed me a letter from Lincoln to Hamlin today, in which the latter says he means to tender [Mony.?] a place in his Cabinet – but will not commit himself, he wrote. This is a proper reservation. I mentioned it to your brother, who said he would be sorry(?) to take a place, if any circumstances should occur to change the favorable disposition now entertained. Montgomery denied the first appointment, but the following year he accepted a position in Lincoln’s cabinet as Postmaster General. The recipient of the letter, Francis Preston Blair Jr. (1821-1875) used his political influence to convince Missouri to stay with the Union rather than join the Confederacy. He also became a major general in the Union Army, commanding Sherman’s troops during his March to the Sea, which won him the respect of Sherman in addition to General Ulysses S. Grant. He enjoyed a successful political career and earned the Democratic nomination for Vice President in 1868, but lost the electi