Montgomery Blair, American Politician
Montgomery Blair (May 10, 1813 - July 27, 1883) was a politician and lawyer from Maryland. Blair graduated from the US Military Academy in 1835, but after a year's service in the Seminole War, he left the Army, studied law, and began practice at St Louis, in 1839. After serving as US district attorney (1839-43) and as judge of the court of common pleas (1834-49), he moved to Maryland in 1852 and devoted himself to law practice principally in the US Supreme Court. He was US Solicitor in the Court of Claims (1855-58) and was associated with George T. Curtis as counsel for the plaintiff in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857. Blair abandoned the Democratic Party in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and was among the founding leaders of the new Republican Party. In 1860, he took an active part in the presidential campaign on behalf of Abraham Lincoln. After his election, Lincoln appointed Blair to his cabinet as Postmaster-General (1861-64). Under Blair's 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 instituted. He died in 1883 at the age of 70. Study for First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, 1863.
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