Bib-Blo: Bibb through Blow

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.


BIBB, Henry Walton, 1815-1854, African American, author, newspaper publisher, former slave, anti-slavery lecturer.  Wrote Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, 1849.  Published Voice of the Fugitive: An Anti-Slavery Journal, in 1851.  Organized the North American League.  Lectured for Michigan Liberty Party.  (Dumond, 1961, p. 338; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 220, 447, 489, 618-619,

632-634; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 717; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 532)


BIDWELL, Barnabas, 1763-1833, writer, lawyer, member of the U.S. Congress from Massachusetts, opposed slavery in U.S. House of Representatives (Locke, 1901, pp. 93, 149, 151; Annals of Congress; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 246-247)

BIDWELL, BARNABAS (August 23, 1763- July 27, 1833), writer, lawyer, the son of Reverend Adonijah Bidwell and Jemimah Devotion Bidwell, was born in Tyringham (now Monterey), Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale in the class of 1785. During his senior year he wrote and published a tragedy, The Mercenary Match, which was acted by his college mates. Immediately after graduation he began teaching in a young ladies' school at New Haven, and in October 1787 he was appointed to a tutorship at Yale, a position from which he resigned in September 1790. He then took up the study of law and began to practise at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was appointed treasurer of Berkshire County in September 1791. After serving as state senator from 1801 to 1805, he was elected to Congress, but here he disappointed those who expected leadership from him. President Jefferson, however, found him useful as a member of committees by which he aimed to carry out his plans, especially those having to do with the purchase of Florida from Spain. In this connection Bidwell, "timid indeed, but cunning, supple, and sly," as one historian describes him, incurred the contempt of John Randolph, who branded him and his kind as Jefferson's "back stairs favorites" and "pages of the presidential water-closet." When the abolition of the slave trade came up for discussion in the House in 1806, Bidwell strongly opposed a bill that would substantially make the government a dealer in slaves (Richard Hildreth, History of the United States of America, 1851, V, 566-71, 630). In 1807 he accepted an appointment as attorney-general of Massachusetts in place of returning to Congress. Three years later, at a time when President Madison was considering him for the Supreme Court of the United States, an investigation of his accounts as county treasurer, an office he had held for nineteen years, put an end to all further political aspirations by disclosing a shortage of about $10,000. In order to avoid trial Bidwell absconded to Canada and settled with his family on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Being an alien, he was barred from practising in the Canadian courts, and for the same reason he was not permitted to serve in the legislature, although elected to that body. In his last years he was described as "a profound jurist, a man of great culture and attainments outside the law as well as in it." Before his disgrace his abilities had won for him the honorary degrees of master of arts from Yale and Williams and of doctor of laws from Brown. He was married in 1793 to Mary Gray, a native of Stockbridge. To-day Bidwell is known chiefly as the author of an undergraduate tragedy. The Mercenary Match is a not unimportant specimen of early American drama. Designed, like other school plays of the time, to display the oratorical powers of the performers, it is filled with long, declamatory speeches as artificial as the improbable plot. It is distinguished, however, by the general smoothness of the blank verse and the occasional felicity of the phrasing-qualities seldom found in eighteenth-century American plays. Aside from this drama Bidwell's published writings consist of a few orations and political speeches. He is also said to have contributed eleven sketches to Robert Gourlay's Statistical Account of Upper Canada (1822).

[Edwin M. Bidwell, Genealogy to the Seventh Generation of the Bidwell Family in America (1884); Reminiscences of the Reverend Geo. Allen (1883); The Lit. Diary of Ezra Stiles (1901), ed. by Franklin B. Dexter; John F. Schroeder, Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Anna Boardman (1849); Franklin B. Dexter, Biography Sketches of the Grads. of Yale College, IV ( 1907), 387 ff.]

O.S.C.


BINGHAM, John Armor, 1815-1900, Republican Congressman, judge, advocate, U.S. Army.  Bingham was one of the writers and sponsors of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  One of three military judges presiding in the Lincoln assassination trial.  (Appletons’, 1888) B. B. Kendrick, Journal of the Comm. of Fifteen on Reconstruction (1914);

BINGHAM, JOHN ARMOR (January 21, 1815-March 19, 1900), lawyer, Ohio politician, was born in Mercer, Pennsylvania, the son of Hugh Bingham, a carpenter. After securing such elementary education as his neighborhood offered, he spent two years in a printing office, a like period at Franklin College, then studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began practise at Cadiz, Ohio, in 1840. He soon became prominent as a stump speaker in Harrison's "log cabin, hard cider" campaign. In 1854 he was elected to Congress, and served continuously until 1873, except for the Thirty-eighth Congress, when, failing of reelection, he was appointed judge-advocate in January 1864, and solicitor of the court of claims the following August. When political fortunes failed him again in 1873 he was solaced by the appointment as minister to Japan, a position he held for twelve uneventful years.

Bingham was a clever and forceful speaker, overflowing with invective, rhetorical phrases, and historical allusions of varying degrees of accuracy. In two of the most dramatic episodes of the immediate post-war period-the trial of the assassins of Lincoln, and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson-he played a leading role. In the conspiracy trial his part as special judge-advocate was to bully the defense witnesses and to assert in his summary of the evidence that the rebellion was "simply a criminal conspiracy and a gigantic assassination" in which "Jefferson Davis is as clearly proven guilty. … as is John Wilkes Booth, by whose hand Jefferson Davis inflicted the mortal wound upon Abraham Lincoln" (Benn Pitman, Assassination of President Lincoln ..., 1865, pp. 351,380). In defending the legality of the military court set up by President Johnson, he argued that the executive could exercise all sorts of extra-constitutional powers, even to "string up the culprits without any court an argument which was somewhat embarrassing when he was selected by the House as one of seven managers to conduct the impeachment of President Johnson. He had voted against the first attempt at impeachment and had opposed the second, holding the President guilty of no impeachable offense (D. M. DeWitt, Impeachment, p. 506), but he finally yielded to party pressure and voted for impeachment after the Senate had declared the President's removal of Secretary Stanton illegal. It fell to him to make the closing speech at the trial. For three days (May 4-6) he rang the changes on the plea of the defense that the President might suspend the laws and test them in the courts-"the monstrous plea interposed for the first time in our history" (Trial of Andrew Johnson, II, 389 ff.). His confident manner carried conviction to the galleries, who pronounced it one of his greatest speeches.

In the work of reconstruction, Bingham's chief contribution was the framing of that part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment which forbade any state by law to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or to deny the equal protection of the laws (Kendrick, Journal, p. 106).

Bingham was married to Amanda Bingham, a cousin, by whom he had three children. He died at his home in Cadiz, Ohio. He did not introduce the resolution at the Whig national convention of 1848 containing the spirited anti-slavery apothegm carved on his monument at Cadiz, the resolution ascribed to him having been introduced by Lewis D. Campbell. Stenographic reports fail to show that Bingham ever spoke on the floor of the convention (North American and United States Gazette, and Public Ledger, both Philadelphia, for June 8, 9, 10, 1848).

[B. B. Kendrick, Journal of the Comm. of Fifteen on Reconstruction (1914); Trial of Andrew Johnson, pub. by order of the Senate as a supplement to Congressional Globe 1868); Congressional Globe, 1854-73, passim; Ohio Arch. and History Pub., X, 331-52; D. M. DeWitt, The Judicial Murder of Mrs. Surratt (1895) and The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903); Evening Star (Washington), March 19, 1900; Cadiz Democrat Sentinel, March 22, 1900.]

T. D.M.


BINTLIFF, James, 1824-1901, abolitionist, newspaper editor, publisher, proprietor, businessman, Union Army colonel, helped found Republican Party.  (Hunt, Roger, Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue. Gaithersburg, MD, 1990)


BIRD, Francis William, 1809-1894, anti-slavery political leader, radical reformer.  Member of the anti-slavery “Conscience Whigs,” leader of the Massachusetts Free Soil Party.  Led anti-slavery faction of the newly formed Republican Party.  Supported abolitionist Party leader Charles Sumner.  Opposed Dred Scott decision.  “Bird Club” greatly influenced radical Republican politics in Massachusetts and in the U.S. Senate.  Organized Emancipation League.  Supported enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army and emancipation of Blacks in the District of Columbia.  Supported women’s rights, Indian rights, suffrage rights for Chinese, and other causes. (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 805).


BIRNEY, DAVID BELL (May 29, 1825-October 18, 1864), Union soldier, was the son of James G. Birney [q.v.], who was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of Princeton, but who later moved to Huntsville, Ala., where he became a successful planter as well as one of the leaders of the Alabama bar. Here it was that David Bell Birney was born. In the year 1838 the Birney family moved to Cincinnati-after the father had freed his own slaves and had actively identified himself with the emancipation movement. In 1844 James G. Birney became the national presidential candidate of the Anti-Slavery party. With such family influences, it was natural that the son should take an active part in the war between the states. Young Birney received his education at Andover, and after graduation, went into business, first in Cincinnati and later in Upper Saginaw, Michigan, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. But in the year 1848 he moved to Philadelphia and became a clerk in a mercantile agency, which position he held until 1856, when he engaged in law practise. The year preceding the Civil War found him a successful practitioner with many influential friends. He foresaw the outbreak of war, and late in the year 1860, entered upon an intensive study of military subjects. For some years he had been a member of the historic 1st Troop of Philadelphia City Cavalry, and in February 1860 he secured appointment as lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of Pennsylvania militia. The young civilian was better prepared for a military career than most of the inexperienced field-officers, hastily mustered into the United States service in the spring of 1861. Although it never assembled or paraded, his militia regiment formed the basis of the 23rd Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, upon the President's call for volunteers; and, as such, performed guard duty north of the Susquehanna, and during the summer of 1861 engaged in minor operations along the upper Potomac. Birney received his baptism of fire at Falling Waters, West Virginia, and later his regiment occupied Winchester. The term of enlistment of the three-months volunteers expiring, a new regiment was formed from the old through consolidation and reenlistments; and within a few days after August 17, 1861, due to his energy and leadership, the regimental commander was able to parade a new 23rd Regiment through the streets of Washington, its soldiers sworn in for three years' service. Then began a long period of drill and training, and such was the favorable impression created by Birney's capacity for command and proper ideas of discipline, that early in 1862 he was appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers. His first assignment was to a brigade of General Kearny's division. As a brigade commander, he participated in the early operations of the Army of the Potomac, including Centreville and Manassas, and later in 1862 engaged with his brigade in the sanguinary battles of the Peninsular campaign-Yorktown, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill. At Fair Oaks, he was unjustly charged with having "halted his command a mile from the enemy," and was brought before a court martial. After careful consideration of the evidence, the court, composed in the main of regular officers, honorably acquitted him. Transported back to Alexandria, Virginia, Birney's brigade was pushed forward to the support of troops engaged in Pope's campaign, and on August 31, 1862, took an active part in the Union victory at Chantilly, Virginia, where Birney's warm friend and military superior, General Phil Kearny, lost his life. He succeeded Kearny as division commander, and led his division through the battles of the Army of the Potomac, until the middle of July 1864. At Fredericksburg, his -division was in support of Meade; and although it was charged that Birney failed to comply with urgent instructions, careful investigation at the time failed to substantiate such charges, and General Stoneman reported that Birney's division "probably saved the entire left wing from disaster." For his able leadership at Chancellorsville, Birney was promoted, May 5, 1863, to be major-general of volunteers. At Gettysburg, he commanded the 3rd Army Corps after General Sickles was wounded, and was struck twice by enemy's bullets,   but was only slightly injured (New York Herald, July 6, 1863). Thereafter, Birney's division followed Grant through his first campaign against Richmond until July 23, 1864, when Grant selected Birney to command the 10th Army Corps. After these major operations in which for months his system had been weakened by exposure and fatigue, Birney became seriously ill with malarial fever of an especially virulent type ; and against his wishes to remain in the field, was ordered home for recuperation. He reached Philadelphia on October 11, 1864, where,   after acute suffering, he died on October 18, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. His last words in delirium were, "Boys ! Keep your eyes on that flag!" Resolutions of the Philadelphia Board of Trade characterized him as "an honest citizen, a gallant soldier, and a pure, chivalric, self-sacrificing patriot." So great was the esteem in which Birney's life and services were held, that during the fall of 1864 and the spring of 1865 a group of Philadelphia friends raised a trust fund of nearly thirty thousand dollars by popular subscription, which was wisely invested by trustees for the benefit of Birney's widow and six small children.

[Oliver W. Davis, Life of David Bell Birney (pub. anonymously, 1867) is the principal source; see also Official Records, Army and Navy Journal, October 22, 29, November 19, 1864, and "Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War," Senate Report No. 142, 38 Congress, 2 Session. The honorable acquittal of Birney by court martial is in General Order No. 135, Headquarters Army of the Potomac, June 19, 1862 (War Department files).]

C.D.R.


BIRNEY, JAMES (June 7, 1817-May 8, 1888), lawyer and diplomatist, the eldest son of James G. Birney [q.v.] and brother of David Bell Birney [q.v.] and of William Birney [q.v.], was born at Danville, Kentucky. His academic education was obtained at Centre College, Danville, and at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, from which latter institution he graduated in 1836. In 1837-38 he taught in the Grammar School of Miami University; then he studied law at Yale for two years and began to practise at Cincinnati. He became a trustee of the Saginaw Bay Company, and in 1857 removed to Lower Saginaw (now Bay City), Michigan, where he made his home until his death. In 1859 he was elected to the state Senate as a Republican, and successfully opposed the transfer to the state school fund of the proceeds of the sales of swamp lands given to the state by the federal government in aid of the construction of roads. From January 1 to April 3, 1861, he was lieutenant-governor, resigning that office to accept an appointment as judge of the eighteenth judicial circuit to fill a vacancy. Although his standing as a lawyer was high, he appears to have been somewhat wanting in judicial temperament, and at the end of four years, notwithstanding that he had been nominated to succeed himself, he failed of election. In the state constitutional convention of 1867, of which he was a member, he was made chairman of a select committee on procedure, and of a committee which reported the provisions for the executive department. In 1871 he established the Bay City Chronicle, changing the paper from a weekly to a daily in 1873. In 1876 he was a commissioner from Michigan to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. Toward the end of that year he was appointed by President Grant minister resident at The Hague, a post which he retained until 1882, when he resigned. At the time of his death he was president of the Bay City board of education. He married, June 1, 1841, Amanda S. daughter of John and Sophia Moulton of New Haven, Connecticut, and cousin of Commodore Isaac Hull.

[There is a summary sketch of Birney's life in Michigan Biographies. (1924), I, 84; and there is a brief account by A. C. Maxwell in the Michigan Pioneer and History Colls., XXII, 227-30 (1893). See also the Journal of the Michigan Constitutional Convention of 1867.]

W.M.


BIRNEY, James Gillespie, 1792-1857, abolitionist leader, statesman, orator, writer, lawyer, jurist, newspaper publisher and editor, the Philanthropist, founded 1836.  On two occasions, mobs in Cincinnati attacked and wrecked his newspaper office.  Founder and president of the Liberty Party in 1848.  Third party presidential candidate, 1840, 1844.  Founder University of Alabama.  Native American rights advocate.  Member of the American Colonization Society.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-1836, Vice President, 1835-1836, 1836-1838, Executive Committee, 1838-1840, Corresponding Secretary, 1838-1840. American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Secretary, 1840-1841, Executive Committee, 1840-1842.  His writings include: “Ten Letters on Slavery and Colonization,” (1832-1833), “Addresses and Speeches,” (1835), “Vindication of the Abolitionists,” (1835), “The Philanthropist,” a weekly newspaper (1836-1837), “Address of Slaveholders,” (1836), “Argument on Fugitive Slave Case,” (1837), “Political Obligations of Abolitionists,” (1839), “American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery,” (1840), and “Speeches in England,” (1840).  (Birney, 1969; Blue, 2005, pp. 20-21, 25, 30, 32, 48-51, 55, 9-99, 101, 139, 142, 163, 186, 217; Drake, 1950, pp. 141, 149, 159; Dumond, 1938; Dumond, 1961, pp. 90, 93, 176, 179, 185, 197, 198, 200-202, 257-262, 286, 297, 300-301, 303; Filler, 1960, pp. 55, 73, 77, 89, 94, 107, 128, 131, 137, 140-141, 148, 152, 156, 176; Fladeland, 1955; Mabee, 1970, pp. 27, 36, 40, 41, 49, 54, 55, 60, 71, 92, 195, 228, 252,293, 301, 323, 328, 350; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4-5, 7, 8, 13-15, 18, 21-31, 35, 50, 101, 199, 225; Pease, 1965, pp. 43-49; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 43-44, 46, 48, 163, 188-189, 364, 522; Sorin, 1971, pp. 25, 47, 51, 52, 65, 70n, 97, 103n; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 267-269; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 291-294; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 79-80; Birney, William, Jas. G. Birney and His Times, 1890; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 312-313). 

BIRNEY, JAMES GILLESPIE (February 4, 1792- November 25, 1857), anti-slavery leader, was the son of James Birney, an Irish expatriate who migrated to America in 1783 and in 1788 removed to Kentucky, where he eventually became one of the richest men in the state. Although a slaveholder, the elder Birney advocated a free state constitution for Kentucky and favored emancipation. He married about 1790 a daughter of John Read, also an Irish exile; she died in 1795. James Gillespie, the only son of the marriage, was born at Danville. He was educated at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, and at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), where he graduated in 1810. He read law in the office of Alexander J. Dallas [q.v.] at Philadelphia, was admitted to the bar in 1814, and began what presently became an important practise at Danville. On February 1, 1816, he married Agatha, daughter of William McDowell, United States district judge, and niece of Governor George McDowell of Kentucky. The marriage brought him some slaves. In August 1816 he was elected to the lower house of the legislature. Two years later he removed to Madison County, Alabama. He was not a member of the Alabama constitutional convention, but he seems to have been largely responsible for the inclusion in the state constitution, in amended form, of certain provisions of the Kentucky constitution permitting the legislature to emancipate slaves and prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the state for sale. In October 1819 he took his seat as a representative in the first General Assembly of Alabama, but his opposition to a resolution indorsing the candidacy of Andrew Jackson for president was unpopular, and he was not reelected. He had already attained marked prominence as a lawyer, but by 1820 neglect of his plantation, together with gambling, brought financial embarrassment, and in January 1823 he removed to Huntsville, later selling his plantation with its slaves. At Huntsville his legal practise shortly recouped his finances, and thereafter, for most of his life, he was comparatively wealthy. For several years he acted as counsel for the Cherokee Nation. He had been brought up an Episcopalian, but in 1826, mainly through the influence of his wife, he became a Presbyterian. From about this time dated his interest in the colonization movement and the restriction of slavery and the domestic, slave trade. A bill which he drafted to give effect to the provision of the Alabama constitution prohibiting the importation of slaves for sale, although passed by the General Assembly in January 1827, was repealed in 1829, following the election of Jackson. He was nominated a presidential elector on the Adams ticket in 1828, but Birney strongly disapproved of the policy of attacking Jackson personally, and urged the Northern element of the party to direct their opposition to the annexation of Texas and the issue of nullification. A visit to New York and New England in the fall of 1829 impressed him with the superiority of free institutions, economic and social, to those of the slave states, but he was not yet an abolitionist, and his growing reputation as an anti-slavery supporter rested upon his repugnance to slavery in general and his advocacy of gradual emancipation. For reasons not divulged he parted company politically with Henry Clay, one of his father's intimate friends, in October 1830. Another antislavery bill, the passage of which in Alabama he secured in January 1832, was repealed in December. In August of that year he accepted a commission as agent of the American Colonization Society, and for some months traveled and lectured in the South in behalf of that organization. An idea that Kentucky was "the best site in our whole country for taking a stand against slavery" (letter to Gerrit Smith, in W. Birney, Life and Times of James G. Birney, p. 131) led him in November to return to Danville. Several of his occasional writings, among them two letters on slavery and colonization addressed to Reverend R. R. Gurley (1832), essays on slavery and colonization contributed to the Huntsville Advocate (1833), and two letters to the Presbyterian Church (1834), belong to this period. The emancipation of his six slaves in 1834 was later described in detail in a letter (1836) to Colonel Stone, editor of the New York Spectator (Birney, op. cit., Appendix D). Convinced that colonization would increase the interstate slave-trade, and unable to reconcile it with his views of religion and justice, he resigned in 1834 the vice-presidency of the Kentucky Colonization Society, stating his reasons in a Letter on Colonization (first published in the Lexington Western Luminary and later reprinted in several editions), which added to his reputation and definitely allied him with the more aggressive anti-slavery forces. March 1835 saw him active in forming the Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society, but the membership of the American Anti-Slavery Society, whose meeting at Cincinnati he attended, did not seem to him effective. In a speech at the New York meeting of the Society in May 1835 he forcibly urged united action by all opponents of slavery. A second visit to New England, after the New York meeting, was interrupted by news of outspoken hostility to the publication in Kentucky of an anti-slavery weekly, the first number of which he had planned to issue on August 1. An attempt to mob him on his return was defeated, but the publication of the paper was delayed and his mail was repeatedly rifled. The continuance of opposition determined him to remove to Ohio, and at the beginning of January 1836 he issued at New Richmond, near Cincinnati, the first number of the Philanthropist, continuing the publication, with the editorial assistance of Gamaliel Bailey, until September 1837, when he removed to New York. In the Philanthropist Birney not only attacked both Democrats and Whigs for their attitude toward slavery, but also urged upon the abolitionists the necessity of political action. On July 30 another plan to assault him at a public meeting was frustrated; his Narrative of the Late Riotous Proceedings, published soon after, described the episode, and was followed in October by a letter To the Slaveholders of the South. On several occasions later he was exposed to personal danger, meetings at which he spoke were interrupted, and his paper suffered; his son and biographer, however, is authority for the statement that "no man ever laid an unfriendly hand upon him during his public career" (Birney, op. cit., p. 252). The convention of the New England Anti-Slavery Society at Boston, May 30-June 2, 1837, which he attended, found him an open dissenter from the "no government" or political abstention views of Garrison's followers, and a champion of organized political action and voting. For harboring in his home an escaped slave, Matilda, who was subsequently claimed and returned as a fugitive, he was indicted in Cincinnati, was acquitted after pleading his own case, and presently published his argument. In September, having been elected executive secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he removed to New York, and spent the winter of 1837-38 in visiting such of the state legislatures as were in session. A published letter to Representative F. H. Elmore of South Carolina, in response to a request for information regarding anti-slavery organizations, separated him still farther from the Garrisonians by establishing his position as an upholder of the Federal Constitution. A Letter on the Political Obligations of Abolitionists, prepared as a "report on the duty of political action" for the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society in May 1839 (published in the Boston Emancipator May 2; replied to at much length by Garrison May 31; the two reprinted as a pamphlet), was an incisive criticism of the constitution of the Society and of the Garrisonian policy, and brought appreciably nearer the ultimate breach in the abolition ranks. For the next few years Birney was the most conspicuous representative and the ablest spokesman of those who sought to get rid of slavery by political means as well as by moral suasion. On November 13, 1839, a state convention at Warsaw, New York, unanimously nominated him for president, but the nomination was declined, partly because the convention was not national in character, and partly because he thought it inexpedient to make an independent nomination until the candidate of the Whigs had been selected. In April 1840, the Whigs having nominated William Henry Harrison, Birney was again nominated at Albany, New York, by an anti-slavery convention representing six states. The new party, generally known as the Liberty party, had at first no name and adopted no platform. The popular vote polled was 7,069, drawn from the six New England states, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan (Edward Stanwood, History of the Presidency, I, 203). In the same year Birney went to England, where he was one of the vice-presidents of the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. His best known work, The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery, was written and published in England (1840; 2nd, and first American, edition, "By an American," 1842; 3rd ed., 1885). He had already, in 1839, emancipated twenty-one slaves, a part of his father's estate, at a cost of $20,000 in the form of compensation for the interest of a co-heir. His wife died in 1839, and in 1841 he married Miss Fitzhugh, sister-in-law of Gerrit Smith. The next year he removed to Bay City, Michigan. In August 1843 he was again nominated for president, this time by a convention at Buffalo, New York, comprising 148 delegates from twelve states. The platform, by far the longest that any party had yet adopted, added to its denunciation of slavery an announcement of the purpose of the abolitionists, "whether as private citizens or as public functionaries sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, to regard and to treat the third clause of the fourth article of that instrument, whenever applied to the case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null and void, and consequently as forming no part of the Constitution of the United States, whenever we are called upon or sworn to support it." No electoral votes were won, but the popular vote of the Liberty party, drawn from the same states that voted for Birney in 1840, with the addition of Indiana, was 62,300. The "Garland Letter," issued on the eve of the election and purporting to solicit for Birney a Democratic nomination for the Michigan legislature and stating his intention to defeat Clay, was a forgery. Horace Greeley's charge in the New York Tribune that Birney had sought a Democratic nomination in New York and tried to catch the Democratic vote was widely believed at the time but appears improbable (Stanwood, op. cit., I, 224). In the summer of 1845 a fall from a horse, resulting in partial paralysis, made Birney an invalid and brought his public career to a close. His Examination of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham, concluding with an Address to the Free Colored People, advising them to remove to Liberia (1852), was written in 1850: the decision in question was one much relied upon by Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case (1857). About 1853 Birney removed from Michigan to Eagleswood, near Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and died there November 25, 1857. In the history of the American anti-slavery movement he occupies a peculiar position. Never a supporter of slavery in principle, notwithstanding that he owned slaves, he accepted the institution for a time as he found it and worked earnestly to ameliorate its conditions. He early manifested an almost insuperable repugnance to selling slaves, and was at pains to explain and defend his course in disposing of the few that he held. Acquaintance with the North convinced him that the overthrow of slavery was as necessary for the whites as for the negroes, and he passed gradually, but on the whole rapidly, from advocacy of gradual emancipation, reinforced by colonization in Africa, to a conviction that abolition must be secured by constitutional political means. He was too reasonable, and perhaps too good a lawyer, to follow Garrison in the latter's denunciation of the Constitution, but he was nevertheless willing at last, as the party platform on which he stood in 1844 showed, to nullify so much of the Constitution as gave countenance to fugitive slave legislation or identified the federal government with the support or extension of slavery. The assertion of his biographer that he "voted Free Soil or Republican tickets, state and national, except Van Buren, as long as he lived," helps ------ to explain the distrust with which Garrison and other radical abolitionists regarded him, although the statement could hardly have applied to the elections of 1840 and 1844.

[The chief authority, except for the presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1844, is Jas. G. Birney and His Times (1890), by his son, Wm. Birney. The book was inspired by what the writer believed to be the misrepresentations of W. P. and F. J. Garrison's William Lloyd Garrison (1885-89), with which its statements and comments should be compared; it is extremely hostile to Garrison and to much of the view of the abolition movement which Garrison's biographers present. The latter, in turn, are persistently hostile to Birney. A review of Wm. Birney's book in the Nation (New York), L, 206, is informing. An earlier life by Beriah Green, Sketches of the Life and Writings of las. Gillespie Birney 1844), written as a campaign document and laudatory, contains many extracts from Birney's writings ; see especially pp. 100-04, a summary of Birney's letter of acceptance in 1840, and pp. 105-15, virtually the whole of the letter of acceptance in 1843, dissecting the claims of John Quincy Adams to the support of abolitionists. See also the anonymous Tribute to Jas. G. Birney (Detroit, Michigan, n. d., c. 1865). References in the voluminous literature of the anti-slavery movement are many, but usually brief. Most of Birney's writings appeared first as contributions to newspapers or magazines, subsequently in pamphlets ; to those already mentioned are to be added Vindication of the Abolitionists (1835), a reply to resolutions of an Alabama committee proposing drastic dealings with abolition agitators; Addresses and Speeches (1835); various articles in the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine and the Emancipator (1837-44), and Speeches in England (1840).]

W.M.

His chief writings were as follows: “Ten Letters on Slavery and Colonization,” addressed to R. R. Gurley (the first dated 12 July, 1832, the last 11 December, 1833); “Six Essays on Slavery and Colonization,” published in the Huntsville (Ala.) “Advocate” (May, June, and July, 1833); “Letter on Colonization,” resigning vice-presidency of Kentucky colonization society (15 July, 1834); “Letters to the Presbyterian Church” (1834); “Addresses and Speeches” (1835); “Vindication of the Abolitionists” (1835); “The Philanthropist,” a weekly newspaper (1836 and to September, 1837); “Letter to Col. Stone” (May, 1836); “Address to Slaveholders” (October, 1836); “Argument on Fugitive Slave Case” (1837); “Letter to F. H. Elmore,” of South Carolina (1838); “Political Obligations of Abolitionists” (1839); “Report on the Duty of Political Action,” for executive committee of the American anti-slavery society (May, 1839); “American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery” (1840); “Speeches in England” (1840); “Letter of Acceptance”; “Articles in Q. A. S. Magazine and Emancipator” (1837-'44); “Examination of the Decision of the U. S. Supreme Court,” in the case of Strader et al., v. Graham (1850). —His son, James, born in Danville, Kentucky, 7 June, 1817; was a state senator in Michigan in 1859, and was lieutenant-governor of the state and acting governor in 1861-'3. He was appointed by President Grant, in 1876, minister at the Hague, and held that office until 1882.—Another son, William, lawyer, born near Huntsville, Ala., 28 May, 1819. While pursuing his studies in Paris, in February, 1848, he took an active part in the revolution, and he was appointed on public competition professor of English literature in the college at Bourges. He entered the U. S. national service as captain in April, 1861, and rose through all the grades to the rank of brevet major-general of volunteers, commanding a division for the last two years of the civil war. He participated in the principal battles in Virginia, and, being sent for a short time to Florida after the battle of Olustee, regained possession of the principal parts of the state and of several of the confederate strongholds. ln 1863-'4, having been detailed by the war department as one of three superintendents of the organization of U. S. colored troops, he enlisted, mustered in, armed, equipped, drilled, and sent to the field seven regiments of those troops. In this work he opened all the slave-prisons in Baltimore, and freed their inmates, including many slaves belonging to men in the confederate armies. The result of his operations was to hasten the abolition of slavery in Maryland. He passed four years in Florida after the war, and in 1874 removed to Washington, D. C., where he practised his profession and became attorney for the District of Columbia.— The third son, Dion, physician, entered the army as lieutenant at the beginning of the civil war, rose to the rank of captain, and died in 1864 of disease contracted in the service.—The fourth son, David Bell, born in Huntsville, Ala., 29 May, 1825; d. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 18 October, 1864, studied law in Cincinnati, and, after engaging in business in Michigan, began the practice of law in Philadelphia in 1848. He entered the army as lieutenant-colonel at the beginning of the civil war, and was made colonel of the 23d Pennsylvania volunteers, which regiment he raised, principally at his own expense, in the summer of 1861. He was promoted successively to brigadier and major-general of volunteers, and distinguished himself in the battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, the second battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. After the death of General Berry he commanded the division, receiving his commission as major-general, 23 May, 1863. He commanded the 3d corps at Gettysburg, after General Sickles was wounded, and on 23 July, 1864, was given the command of the 10th corps. He died of disease contracted in the service.—A fifth son, Fitzhugh, died, in 1864, of wounds and disease, in the service with the rank of colonel—A grandson, James Gillespie, was lieutenant and captain of cavalry, served as staff officer under Custer and Sheridan, was appointed lieutenant in the regular army at the close of the war; and died soon afterward of disease contracted in the service. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 267-269.


BIRNEY, William, 1819-1907, lawyer, Union soldier, abolitionist leader, strong opponent of slavery, commander of U.S. Colored Troops (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 269; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936 Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 294; Who’s Who in America, 1899-1907; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 819).

BIRNEY, WILLIAM (May 28, 1819-August 14, 1907), Union soldier, author, was born in Madison County Alabama, the son of James G. Birney [q.v.] and Agatha McDowell. At some time prior to 1845 he was practising law in Cincinnati, Ohio. In February 1848, being a member of a Republican student organization in Paris, he commanded at a barricade in the Rue St. Jacques during the revolutionary outbreak. In the same year he won in a competitive examination an appointment as professor of English literature at the Lycée at Bourges, where he remained for two years. During his five years' residence abroad he wrote for English and American papers, among other things reporting the first World's Fair at London (1851). He appears also to have paid some attention to the history of art and current activities in art education (see his Art and Education, a lecture before the Washington Art Club, February 6, 1878). Upon his return to the United States he established the daily Register at Philadelphia (1853) and edited it for two years. At the outbreak of the Civil War he raised a volunteer company in New Jersey, and became in succession captain of the 1st New Jersey Infantry and major and colonel of the 4th New Jersey Infantry. In 1863 he was, appointed one of the superintendents of the enlistment of colored troops, in which capacity he organized seven regiments. On May 22, 1863, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers. While in command of colored troops he freed the inmates of the slave prisons at Baltimore. He took part in a number of important engagements, and after the battle of Olustee, Florida (February 20, 1864), aided in recovering the state from the Confederates. During the last two years of the war he commanded a division. On March 13, 1865, he was made brevet major-general of volunteers "for gallant and meritorious service during the war," and on August 24 was mustered out. After a residence of four years in Florida he removed to Washington, where he practised law, wrote fortnightly letters to the New York Examiner, and served for a time as United States attorney for the District of Columbia. His best-known writing, James G. Birney and His Times, appeared in 1890. In his later years he interested himself in religious controversy, publishing Functions of the Church and State Distinguished: A Plea for Civil and Religious Liberty (1897); Revelation and the Plan of Salvation (1903); Creeds not for Secularists (1906); Hell and Hades (Truth Seeker Tracts, New Series, No. 51; New York, n. d.), and How Christianity Began (Ibid., No. 54, n. d.). He was twice married: in 1845 to Catherine Hoffman, and in 1891 to Mattie Ashby.

[Who's Who in America, 1899-1907; F. B. Heitman, History Register (1903); Official Records, see Index; Washington Post, and Evening Star, August 15, 1907.]

W.M.


BLACKBURN, Gideon, 1772-1838, Virginia, clergyman, abolitionist.  Went to Illinois in 1833.  Assisted Elijah P. Lovejoy in organizing Illinois Anti-Slavery Society.  Founded Blackburn College at Carlinville, Illinois. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 91, 92, 135, 198-199; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 272; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936 Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 314).

BLACKBURN, GIDEON (August 27, 1772- August 23, 1838), Presbyterian clergyman, missionary to the Indians, was born in Augusta County; Virginia, the son of Robert Blackburn. In his boyhood his family moved to eastern Tennessee where he attended Martin Academy and studied for the ministry under Dr. Robert Henderson. In 1792 he was licensed to preach by the Abingdon Presbytery and began his ministry by holding services for some soldiers whom he had accompanied on an expedition against the Indians. Soon he established the New Providence Church and was given charge of another ten miles distant. On October 3, 1793, he married Grizzel Blackburn, a distant cousin, by whom he had eleven children. His most notable work was the establishment of a mission to the Cherokee Indians. When he was unable to interest his own presbytery in the subject, he took his plea to the General Assembly, which, in 1803, voted $200 for the support of the work. Blackburn collected additional funds on the outside and having secured the approval of President Adams and the Secretary of War, opened a school for the Cherokee children in 1804. A teacher was employed, and Blackburn had general supervision in addition to his regular church services. This work he continued until 1810, by which time the hardships of the frontier had so undermined his health and the demands of the mission work so strained his finances that he felt compelled to resign. During the next twenty-three years he continued his teaching and preaching, was president of Harpeth Academy, and of Centre College, served as pastor of churches in Louisville and Versailles, Kentucky, and did much itinerant preaching. He is described as "the best type of backwoods eloquence” a commanding figure, above average height, with strongly marked features and flowing black locks.

Because of his success as a money raiser he was invited, in 1833, to go to Illinois by some persons interested in education in that region, and in 1835 was given the task of raising funds for Illinois College. Later he conceived a unique plan for raising an endowment for a school at Carlinville, Illinois. The government was placing large tracts of land on the market and Blackburn offered to enter lands for friends of the cause at the rate of two dollars an acre. After paying the $1.25 per acre to the government, twenty-five cents was to go to him for his services and fifty cents for lands for the school. In this way he raised funds to enter a little over 16,656 acres for the institution. In the following year, 1838, he died. The institution he planned for was not opened until 1857. Beginning as a primary school, it later became Blackburn Theological Seminary and, when the theological courses were discontinued, Blackburn College.

[Sketches in W. B. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. IV (1858), and E. H. Gillett's History of the Presbyt. Church iii the U.S. (1864). In the Panoplist, June, July, and December 1807 and February, March, May, and December 1808, are letters from Blackburn describing his mission Blackburn work. For endowment plan see Blackburn College Bull., 1915.]

B.R.


BLACKBURN, William Jasper, born 1820.  Editor, Blackburn’s Homer Iliad, in Homer, Louisiana.  Published editorials against the assault in the Senate against Charles Sumner, who was opposed to slavery.  Published pro-Union newspaper during the Civil War.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 272-273)


BLACKWELL, Antoinette Louisa, 1825-1921, abolitionist, reformer (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 271; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 319-320; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 82-83)

BLACKWELL, ANTOINETTE LOUISA BROWN (May 20, 1825-November 5, 1921), reformer, was born in Henrietta, Monroe County, New York, the daughter of Joseph and Abby (Morse) Brown, both of New England descent. At the age of nine she joined the Congregational Church and soon was speaking publicly in meetings; at sixteen she was teaching school; later she attended Oberlin College, completing the literary course in 1847 and the theological course in 1850. Refused a ministerial license, because of her sex, she preached wherever churches, of any creed, would receive her until in 1852 she became the regular pastor of the Congregational Church in South Butler, New York. She had already joined the movements for abolition, prohibition, and woman's rights-three reforms which, however illogically, usually drew the same supporters. Her efforts at first were devoted mainly to harmonizing these reforms with the teachings of the Bible, but theological difficulties grew upon her until she resigned her pastorate in 1854 and, eventually, became a Unitarian. In the summer of 1853 she came into national prominence when although a regularly authorized delegate to the World's Temperance Convention in New York City she was refused permission to speak; her "unwomanly conduct" in striving quietly for three hours to be heard, amid a tumultous group of angry, shouting men, was severely criticized by many newspapers, although Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune succinctly characterized the convention's achievements toward temperance as consisting in " First Day-Crowding a woman off the platform; Second Day-Gagging her; Third Day-Voting that she shall stay gagged" (New York Daily Tribune, September 9, 1853).

Miss Brown was married on January 24, 1856, to Dr. Samuel C. Blackwell, brother of Elizabeth Blackwell and Henry Brown Blackwell [qq.v.]. She became the mother of six children. During the early years of the Civil War she was prominent in the movement for the immediate emancipation of the slaves and until the end of her life remained active in the causes of woman suffrage and prohibition. A very effective speaker, she habitually devoted her eloquence to the presentation and support of particular resolutions rather than to mere general inspiration. Although far from unemotional, her appeal was mainly to the reason, and to considerations of practise. The same qualities appeared in her numerous books: Shadows of Our Social System (1855); Studies in General Science (1869); A Market Woman (1870); The Island Neighbors (1871); The Sexes Throughout Nature (1875); The Physical Basis of Immortality (1876); The Philosophy of Individuality ( 1893); Sea Drift; or Tribute to the Ocean (1902); The Making of the Universe (1914); The Social Side of Mind and Action (1915).

[Who's Who in America, 1899-1921; Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, A Woman of the Century ( 1893), later included in their Portraits and Biographies of Prominent American Women (1901); History of Woman Suffrage, ed. by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, I (1881), 119, 152, 186, 449 (portrait), 473, 524, 553, 624, 723, 862; II (1882), 723,862; obituary in Newark Evening News, November 5, 1921.]

E. S. B.


BLACKWELL, Elizabeth, abolitionist, physician

BLACKWELL, ELIZABETH (February 3, 1821- May 31, 1910), the first woman doctor of medicine of modern times, was born in Bristol, England, one of nine children of Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner, and his wife, Hannah Lane. Henry Brown Blackwell [q.v.] was her younger brother; another brother, Samuel, was to become the husband of Antoinette Louisa (Brown) Blackwell [q.v.]. At the age of twelve (August 1832), she sailed with her family in the merchant ship Cosmos from Bristol to New York, where the family remained for six years and then moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Elizabeth had attended local schools at Bristol and New York, but her formal education was cut short by the death of her father (1838) a few months after reaching Ohio. This calamity left the family unprovided for, and consequently when twenty-one (1842) Elizabeth began to teach school, her first position being in Henderson, Kentucky, but her ardent antipathy to slavery caused her after a year to seek another post. In 1844 she first thought of studying medicine, and during the next year, while. supporting herself by teaching at Asheville, North Carolina, she began to read medical works, and in 1847 continued her medical studies under the guidance of Dr. Samuel H. Dickson, professor at Charleston Medical College. The problem of securing entry into a medical school proved difficult; she was refused at Philadelphia and New York, but in October 1847 the Geneva Medical School of Western New York accepted her application. Through tact and dignity she succeeded in overcoming the prejudice of undergraduates and instructors, but in the world at large she was regarded "as either mad or bad." She received her M.D. in 1849, which led to much comment in the public press both in America and abroad (see Punch, XVI, 226, 1849). After graduation she sailed immediately for England and was courteously received, but she regarded the opportunities on the Continent as more favorable and accordingly went to Paris, where, on June 30, 1849, she entered La Maternite and had six months of obstetrical experience in that institution. A purulent ophthalmia contracted at the end of her service there caused her to lose the sight of one eye, which put an end to the surgical aspirations which she had previously entertained. She then studied at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London and was permitted to practise in all branches of medicine except, ironically enough, gynecology and pediatrics. At this time she received congratulations from Florence Nightingale, Lady Byron, the Herschels, Faraday, and others of note. She returned to New York in 1850 to practise, and, on encountering prejudice, opened a private dispensary of her own which later (May 1857) became incorporated into the New York Infirmary and College for Women, a hospital entirely conducted by women. In this venture she was joined by her sister, Emily, who had also become qualified in medicine, and by Marie Zakrzewska, and they were supported by the Quakers of New York. During the Civil War, Dr. Blackwell was active in the organization of a unit of field nurses which did much to win sympathy for the feministic movement in medicine. In 1869 she decided to settle permanently in England where, as in America, she aimed to secure free and equal entrance of women into the medical profession. Later (1875) she became professor of gynecology in the London School of Medicine for Women which had just been established, and continued her activities there until 1907 when she became enfeebled following an accident in Scotland. She had taken a house in Hastings where she died, May 31, 1910. She was buried at Kilmun, Argyllshire. An excellent portrait of her hangs in the London School of Medicine for Women.

Dr. Blackwell was an active writer and her works had a wide circulation. The Laws of Life (New York, 1852) was reissued in London in 1859 and again in 1871. She was active in public health, and several of her popular Lectures" How to Keep a Household in Health" (1870), The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (1852), The Religion of Health (1871), and Counsel to Parents (1879)---did much to arouse popular interest in the subject. She wrote extensively also on problems of sex and moral education of the young. Her other writings are listed in the Index Catalogue of the Surgeon-General's Library and in the Dictionary of National Biography.

[Elizabeth Blackwell, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women; Autobiographical Sketches (London, 1895); The Times (London), June 2, 1910; New York Evening Post, June 1, 1910; Mesnard, Miss E. Blackwell et les femmes medecins (Paris, 1889); Frances Hays, Women of the Day (London, 1885); Brit. Medical Journal, 1910, I, 1523; Delaware State Medic. Journal, 1916, VII, 3-24; Lancet (London, 1910), I, 1657; Medic. Mag. (London), IX, II7-25; Medic. Record (New York), LXXVII, 1016; Woman's Medic. Journal (Cincinnati), XX, 155, 174, 188, 208.]

J.F.F.


BLACKWELL, Elizabeth, physician, born in Bristol, England, in 1821. Her father emigrated with his family in 1832, and settled in New York, but removed in 1838 to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he died a few months afterward, leaving a widow and nine children almost destitute. Elizabeth, then seventeen years old, opened a school in connection with two elder sisters, and conducted it successfully for several years. A friend now suggested that she should study medicine, and she resolved to become a physician. At first she pursued her studies in private, with some help from Dr. John Dixon, of Asheville, North Carolina, in whose family she was governess for a year. She then continued her studies in Charleston, South Carolina, supporting herself by teaching music, and after that in Philadelphia, under Dr. Allen and Dr. Warrington. She now made formal application to the medical schools of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston for admission as a student, but in each instance the request was denied, although several professors avowed interest in her undertaking. Rejecting advice to adopt an assumed name and male attire, she persevered in her attempt, and after several more refusals was finally admitted to the medical school at Geneva, New York, where she took her degree of M. D. in regular course in January, 1849. During her connection with the college, when not in attendance there upon lectures, she pursued a course of clinical study in Blockley hospital, Philadelphia. After graduation she went to Paris, and remained there six months, devoting herself to the study and practice of midwifery. The next autumn she was admitted as a physician to walk the hospital of St. Bartholomew in London, and after nearly a year spent there she returned to New York, and began practice in 1851. In 1854, with her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, she organized the New York infirmary for women and children. In 1859 she revisited England, and delivered in London and other cities a course of lectures on the necessity of medical education for women. In 1861, having returned to New York, she held, with Dr. Emily Blackwell, a meeting in the parlors of the infirmary, at which the first steps were taken toward organizing the women's central relief association for sending nurses and medical supplies for the wounded soldiers during the civil war. In 1867 the two sisters organized the women's medical college of the New York infirmary, in which Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell held the chair of hygiene and Dr. Emily Blackwell the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women. In 1869, leaving Dr. Emily in. charge of their joint work, Dr. Elizabeth returned to London and practised there for several years, taking an active part in organizing the women's medical college, in which she was elected professor of the diseases of women. She also took part in forming in England the national health society, and the society for repealing the contagious-diseases acts. Besides several health tracts, she has published “Laws of Life, or the Physical Education of Girls” (Philadelphia, 1852), and “Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children” (1879), which has been translated into French.


BLAINE, James Gillespie, 1830-1893, statesman.  Founding member of the Republican Party.  Member of Congress 1862-1880.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 275-280; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 322-329; Congressional Globe)


BLAIR, FRANCIS PRESTON (February 19, 1821-July 9, 1875), Union soldier, statesman, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, the third and youngest son of Francis Preston Blair [q.v.]. While a child he was taken to Washington, D. C., by his father and there he attended a select school. As a young man he contributed to the editorial columns of the Globe, edited by his father, who took great pride in educating his son for a political career. Blair graduated at Princeton (1841) and then entered the law school at Transylvania University. After graduating there, and upon admission to the bar at Lexington, Kentucky, he went to practise with his brother, Montgomery [q.v.] in St. Louis (1842). Three years of intense study and practise of law injured his health. While he was seeking rest and recreation in the Rocky Mountains the Mexican War broke out; consequently, he joined a company of Americans which was commanded by George Bent. When General Kearny took New Mexico Blair was appointed attorney-general for the territory.

Upon returning from the West Blair was married on September 8, 1847, to Appoline Alexander of Woodford County, Kentucky, and resumed his law practise in St. Louis. Having pronounced views on the extension of slavery he established a Free-Soil paper, the Barnburner, to further the interests of the cause in Missouri. He organized and led the Free-Soil party in that state and voted for Van Buren in 1848. Henry Clay found supporters in him, his father, and Montgomery, for his Compromise of 1850. Though a slave owner, Blair denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a violation of the Missouri Compromise, and his views on slavery, so clearly and forcefully expressed, marked him as a character dangerous to slave interests. Two terms in the Missouri legislature (1852-56) gave him opportunity to express his Free-Soilism and prepare himself for Congress. He was like Thomas Hart Benton in his methods, although in 1856 he refused Benton's request to retract some of his public statements on slavery. Benton was defeated for governor of Missouri in that year, while Blair, who voted for Fremont, was the only Free-Soiler elected to Congress from a slave state. In his first speech in Congress he warned the South that slavery was bound to die. He urged the South to adopt the policy of gradual emancipation by deportation and colonization. He was defeated for reelection to Congress (1858). In 1859 he published an argumentative "address" on colonization, entitled, The Destiny of the Races on This Continent.

The years 1858 to 1861 were eventful years for Blair. He opposed the extension of slavery on the basis that it was an economic hindrance to the development of the West, as well as socially and morally wrong. His family connections, his brilliance, his ability as an extemporaneous speaker, and his courageous frank manner, made him one of the popular orators of the day. As a speaker he was in demand in Minnesota and Vermont where he campaigned for the Republicans, in Illinois where he hoped to ruin the political fortunes of Douglas, and in Missouri where he battled against the "Nullificationists" and Benton's old enemies, especially the "Fayette Clique." He organized the Union party in Missouri and largely transformed it into the Republican party; in the latter he became the "leading spirit and chief adviser" in his own state. Like his father, he was a constitutionalist and an unyielding unionist. He was a Democrat-Republican who used parties merely as a means to an end.

The speeches and letters of Blair indicate that he feared a coming catastrophe long before the Civil War. The spectre of "Nullification" haunted him. He tried in vain to convert Northern men to his scheme of colonization. He supported Edward Bates for the presidential nomination through fear of secession early in the campaign of 1860, but he turned to Lincoln on the third ballot in the Chicago convention. After the convention few men labored as faithfully as he in the campaign. Consequently, he was ready to act quickly and decisively when civil war loomed. He organized the "Wide Awakes" in St. Louis, had men secretly drilled, secured ammunition and arms, kept himself informed of movements at Washington, and as a friend and supporter stood well in Lincoln's favor.

Blair was elected to Congress in 1860. In the spring of 1861 he determined to save Missouri for the Union. After much political maneuvering and "Home Guards" organizing, he and General Lyon marshalled their forces sufficiently to compel the surrender of Camp Jackson, a camp of state militia sympathetic with the Confederacy. It was a play of Blair and his Unconditional Unionists against Governor Jackson and his confederates, who desired to carry Missouri into the Confederacy. The capture of Camp Jackson drove thousands of Missourians into the Confederate cause, but the issue was now sharply drawn in the state; the United States arsenal at St. Louis was saved, and the state remained Unionist. Blair was offered a brigadier-generalship but refused in order to avoid political complications in Missouri.

In the Thirty-seventh Congress, as chairman of the Committee on Military Defense, Blair's policy was to crush the rebellion as quickly as men and money could do it. His policy included the acceptance of all volunteer troops for service, government control of railroads and telegraph lines, and the construction of a ship canal from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River for commercial and military purposes. He caused Fremont to be sent to Missouri to command the forces in that region but soon became disgusted with Fremont's policy, criticized him, and was, in turn, arrested and imprisoned by him. Blair's father and brother attempted unsuccessfully to stop the quarrel. For this and other reasons Lincoln removed Fremont. Blair's enemies in Missouri increased in number, particularly while he was in the army. In 1862, when the Union cause looked dark, an appeal was made to Blair to raise troops and lead them to the front. He immediately raised seven regiments, received the appointment of brigadier-general, and saw his first hard fighting at Vicksburg where he showed bravery and leadership. He was in many engagements, was raised to the rank of major-general, and completed his military career with Sherman on the march through the South. As commander of the 15th and 17th Corps, respectively, he received the praises of Generals Sherman and Grant. Blair was considerate of his officers and men and was popular among them. While in the army he made his own opinions and the wishes of General Sherman known to his brother, the Postmaster General, who in turn communicated the information to the President. In 1864 Blair was recalled from the battlefield to help organize Congress and to defend Lincoln's plan of reconstruction. On February S and 27, 1864, he made two provocative speeches: one defending the President's policy; the other, against Secretary Chase and the Radicals whom he derisively called Jacobins. A storm of condemnation from the Radicals fell on his head. Chase threatened to resign, and Blair returned to his command.

When the war closed Blair was financially ruined as he had spent much of his private means in support of the Union. His attempt to retrieve his lost fortune on a cotton plantation in Mississippi failed. He then turned his attention to politics in Missouri where a set of Radical Republicans had gained control within the party. He opposed the registry laws, test oaths, the policy of sending carpet-baggers to the South, and the disfranchisement of the whites and the enfranchisement of the negroes. He wished to allow the states to return to the Union to work out their own problems if they recognized abolition as an accomplished fact and swore allegiance to the Constitution. President Johnson nominated Blair for collector of internal revenue at St. Louis, and then to the Austrian mission, only to see the Senate refuse to confirm his appointment in each case. Blair was then appointed as commissioner on the Pacific Railroad but Grant removed him as soon as he became president. The Radicals in Missouri caused Blair to defend the conservatives and ex-Confederates. He began his work of reorganization of the Democratic party in 1865, supported Johnson in 1866, and received the nomination for vice-president with Seymour in 1868. In the latter year his public utterances and his notorious "Broadhead Letter," addressed to J. O. Broadhead, declaring that it would be the duty of the Democratic candidate if elected to abolish the Reconstruction governments, gave the opposition an opportunity to distort Blair's meaning when he advanced his plan of reconstruction. He maintained that the Constitution had been perverted. To restore it, he would have the people, by their mandate expressed at the polls, declare the acts of the Radical Congress "null and void"; compel the army to undo its usurpations of power in the South; disperse the carpet-bag governments; allow the whites to reorganize their own governments and elect senators and representatives. After the Democratic defeat in 1868 he cooperated with the Liberal Republicans, secured election as representative to the Missouri legislature; and was, by that body, chosen United States senator. He helped to secure the nomination of Horace Greeley for president (1872), and through cooperation with the Liberal Republicans saw the Radicals ousted from power in Missouri. He was defeated for reelection to the United States Senate in 1873. During the same year Blair was stricken with paralysis, never to recover. He was generous to a fault, cordial, and seldom held a personal grudge against a political enemy. His scathing denunciations of his political opponents antagonized them but his faculty for remembering names and his sociability endeared him to many people. He was nominally state superintendent of insurance when he died. His friends erected a fitting monument to his memory in Forrest Park (St. Louis) and Missouri placed his statue in the United States Capitol.

[The chief sources are the Blair Papers (unpublished). Two biographies of a political and biased nature are: Jas. Dabney McCabe (Edward Martin), The Life and Public Services of Horatio Seymour Together with a Complete and Authentic Life of Francis P. Blair, Jr. (1868); David Goodman Croly, Seymour and Blair: Their Lives and Services (1868). A manuscript copy of a sketch of the life of Blair, presumably written by Montgomery Blair, is in the Blair Papers. Short sketches exist by Wm. Van Ness Bay, in Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri (1878); Augustus C. Rogers, Sketches of Representative Men North and South (1874); Chas. P. Johnson, "Personal Recollections of Missouri's Statesmen" in Proc. Missouri History Society, January 22, 1903; and John Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War (1900). The best account of Blair's services in Missouri during the early part of the Civil War is found in General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861 (1866) by Jas. Peckham.]

W.E.S.


BLAIR, Montgomery, 1813-1883, statesman, attorney, jurist, abolitionist, Postmaster General of the United States.

BLAIR, MONTGOMERY (May 10, 1813- July 27, 1883), lawyer, statesman, eldest son of Francis Preston Blair, Sr. [q.v.], was reared in Franklin County, Kentucky, amidst the scenes of political strife between "relief" and "anti-relief" and "Old" and "New Court" factions. The schools of Kentucky gave him his early education. He was appointed by President Jackson to West Point in 1831; after his graduation in 1835 he received a lieutenancy in the army in time to serve in the Seminole War. The next year he resigned his commission in order to study law in Transylvania University. He settled in St. Louis in 1837 as the protege of Thomas Hart Benton. After practising law two years he was appointed United States district attorney for Missouri, only to be removed for political reasons by President Tyler. He served in St. Louis as mayor (1842-43) and as judge of the court of common pleas (1845-49). In 1849 he resigned to resume his law practise. In 1853 he moved to Maryland where he practised law chiefly before the Supreme Court of the United States. President Pierce made him the first solicitor for the court of claims of the United States (1855) but President Buchanan dismissed him because of his pronounced views on slavery. He was a Free-Soiler in principle, believed slavery could be peaceably settled, generally held the political views of border statesmen, and had sympathy with the interests of the West. After joining the American party he left it because of its silence on slavery and became a Democratic" Republican in the Republican party. His prestige was greatly increased among anti-slavery people when he became counsel for Dred Scott. His sense of fairness led him to help secure a defense attorney for John Brown after the Harper's Ferry incident. He was a delegate to the Democratic national conventions in 1844, 1848, and 1852. In 1860 he presided at the state Republican convention at Baltimore and attended the Chicago national convention as a delegate from Maryland. Because of his services to the Republican party, his family connections, and his political views and experiences he was made postmaster general in Lincoln's cabinet, where he belonged to the Bates-Welles-Blair group. He strongly urged the reënforcement of Southern forts, particularly Fort Sumter, which he believed could be held against the Confederates, and threatened to resign if that fort were not reenforced. Without being obsequious he was a staunch supporter of Lincoln. He strongly opposed Secretary Chase's views, befriended McClellan, and insisted from the beginning of the incident that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was illegal. In his own department he organized the postal system for the army, introduced compulsory payment of postage and free delivery in cities, improved the registry system, established the railway post-office, organized the postal draft plan which his successor put into operation, stopped the franking privileges of postmasters, and was instrumental in bringing about the Postal Union Convention at Paris (1863). In the Union national convention (1864) the Radicals succeeded in passing a resolution which virtually demanded the dismissal of Blair from the cabinet. The President, after a fair assurance of victory at the polls, bowed to political expediency and requested Blair's resignation, which was cheerfully given. Blair continued, however, to work loyally for Lincoln. After the assassination of Lincoln, Blair advised Johnson to dismiss the old and appoint a new cabinet. He sought moderation for the South, asserting and believing that Lincoln's plan of reconstruction was just and best. He decried the disfranchisement of the Southern whites and enfranchisement of the negroes. His views brought him into conflict with those held by the radical reconstructionists. He drifted back to the Democratic party, where he supported Seymour in 1868 and Greeley in 1872, and championed Tilden's cause in 1876. With the financial aid of W. W. Corcoran he established a newspaper, the Union (Washington, D. C.), to uphold Tilden's claims to the Presidency. As Tilden's counsel he appeared before the Electoral Commission. He declared Tilden represented "the one issue" reform. Being elected to the Maryland House of Delegates (1878) and immediately made chairman of the judiciary committee, Blair proposed the resolution which denied the right of President Hayes to office. Though honest in his belief that Hayes was illegally chosen president, he aroused the intense enmity of many people by his method of agitating the question. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1882. Blair was tall and spare, clean-shaven, with light hair and bluish-grey eyes. His speech was slow, his voice calm. Few men were more courteous and genial than he, but he was temperamentally combative and obstinate when he thought he was right. Though deeply religious he held anti-ritualistic sentiments. As a lawyer he used persuasive argument which was the result of research and logical reasoning. While he had strong prejudices, he was shrewd, frank, and thoroughly honest. He was twice married: to a Miss Buckner of Virginia, who died in 1844, and to a daughter of Judge Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire. He was an inveterate worker and died while engaged in writing a life of Andrew Jackson.

[The Blair Papers (unpublished); Levi Woodbury Papers (unpublished); "Montgomery Blair" in Maryland in National Politics (1915) by Jesse Frederick Essary; "Montgomery Blair" in Sketches of Representative Men North and South (1872), ed. by Augustus C. Rogers; "The Public Career of Montgomery Blair, Particularly with Reference to His Services as Postmaster General of the United States" by Madison Davis in the Records of the Columbia Historical Society, XIII (1910), 126-61; Diary of Gideon Welles (1911); J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln (10 volumes, 1890).]

W.E.S.


BLAKESLEY, J. M., anti-slavery agent.  Founded 15 anti-slavery societies in Chataqua and Erie Counties in New York.  (Dumond, 1961, pp. 186, 392n21; Friend of Man, February 1, 1837, May 10, 1837, March 21, 1838)


BLANCHARD, Jonathan, 1811-1892, clergyman, educator, abolitionist, theologian, lecturer.  Worked for more than thirty years for the abolition of slavery.  Member of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  President of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, 1845-1858.  President, Illinois Institute.  Vice president, World Anti-Slavery Convention, London, England, 1843.  (Bailey, J.W., Knox College, 1860;  Blanchard Papers, Wheaton College Library, Wheaton, Illinois; Blanchard Jonathan, and Rice, N.L. [1846], 1870; Dumond, 1961, p. 186; Kilby, 1959; Maas, 2003; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 196-197; Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 350-351)

BLANCHARD, JONATHAN (January 19, 18nMay 14, 1892), Presbyterian clergyman, college president, the son of Jonathan and Mary (Lovel) Blanchard, was born in the little town of Rockingham, Vermont, of pure English ancestry. His early education was obtained in the common schools of the town and from private instructors. He was a school-teacher at the age of fourteen and entered Middlebury College at the age of seventeen, graduating in 1832, when he was twenty-one years old. For two years he taught at Plattsburg Academy and afterwards studied at Andover and at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. In the latter city he was ordained pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church in September 1838. From the beginning Blanchard was a strong temperance advocate and in 1834, at the age of twenty-three, he became a violent abolitionist. In 184 3 he attended the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London and was elected American vice-president of that body. On his return from England he delivered a series of spirited lectures on the wrongs of Ireland. In spite of the fact that Cincinnati was almost as strongly pro-slavery as any southern community, he never hesitated to attack that institution in sermons, in articles, and in private conversation (see A Debate on Slavery ... Between the Reverend I. Blanchard and N. L. Rice, 1846). Almost as violent was his hatred of secret societies and especially of the Masonic order. This, too, he attacked in every way and at every opportunity. As the Civil War approached he more and more coupled Masonry and slavery and declared that the Masonic order was concerned in the attempt at disunion. During his Cincinnati pastorate he founded and edited a church paper later known as the Herald and Presbyter. In 1845 he was elected president of Knox College, at Galesburg, Illinois, and held that position until 1857. Under his administration the financial condition of the college was greatly improved and the number of students practically doubled. Blanchard's outspoken attitude on many subjects, however, brought him into frequent controversies, and the later years of his administration were full of strife and difficulty. After resigning the presidency he served for a year as acting president and teacher, at the same time conducting the Christian Era which he had founded. In 1860 he took the presidency of Wheaton College, at Wheaton, Illinois. While there he published Freemasonry Illustrated (1879) and founded and edited the Christian Cynosure. He became president emeritus in 1882 and died on May 14, 1892. He was married in 1838 to Mary Avery Bent, by whom he had twelve children, five sons and seven daughters. One son, Charles Albert, succeeded his father as president of Wheaton College, and died on December 20, 1925.

J. W. Bailey, Knox College (1860); Rufus Blanchard, History of Du Page County, Illinois (1882), pp. 174 ff.; T. S. Pearson, Cat. of Grads. of Middlebury College; Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1892.

J A. B.


BLISS, Philemon, 1813-1889, lawyer, U.S. congressman, 1854, Chief Justice, Dakota Territory in 1861, elected Supreme Court of Missouri, 1868.  Helped found anti-slavery  Free Soil Party.  Agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  (Blue, 2005, p. 76; Dumond, 1961, p. 165; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 375-376)

BLISS, PHILEMON (July 28, 1814-August 24, 1889), congressman, jurist, was born in North Canton, Connecticut, of early Puritan stock through both parents, Asahel and Lydia (Griswold) Bliss. The family moved to Whitestown, New York, in 1821, where Philemon attended the local academy and Oneida Institute, but lack of funds compelled him to withdraw from Hamilton College in his sophomore year, and ill health cut short his training in a local law office. He began the active practise of law at Elyria, Ohio, in 1841, and two years later married Martha W. Sharp. His public career began in 1849 with his election by the Ohio legislature as judge of the 14th judicial district where he served until 1852. Of Federalist and Whig antecedents, he had campaigned actively for Clay in 1844, but his pronounced anti-slavery views carried him into the Free-Soil party in 1848 and later into the Republican. In 1854 he was elected to Congress from a formerly Democratic district and was reelected in 1856. His dislike of controversy and his weak voice-he struggled all his life against bronchial and pulmonary weakness-unfitted him for debate, but his set speeches are able statements of the advanced anti-slavery, anti-state-sovereignty views. In 1861 he accepted an appointment as chief justice of Dakota Territory, hoping that the drier climate would relieve his throat trouble. Two years later he resigned, and coming to Missouri with improved health, in 1864, he brought his family to St. Joseph. Here he served as probate judge and as a member of the county court of Buchanan County; in 1867 he was appointed a curator of the state university, serving until 1872 and taking an active part in its reorganization. In 1868 he was elected to the state supreme court for a four-year term on the Radical or Republican ticket, and won the respect and confidence of all parties in a time of great political bitterness. The dominance of the Democratic party after 1872 ended his political career. In that year the curators of the university appointed him first dean of the newly created department of law, which position he held until his death in 1889. He died at St. Paul, Minnesota, whither he had gone for his health, and he was buried at Columbia, Missouri.

While a man of decided convictions and unquestioned intellectual courage-he was a lifelong Republican in a state and community intensely Democratic-he had an essentially judicial and peaceful temperament. In spite of his lifelong struggle against physical weakness and his retiring disposition, he gave a great and well recognized service in the training of the postbellum generation of lawyers, and in the restoration and advancement of the standards of the legal profession in Missouri. His sound legal knowledge is evidenced by his Treatise upon the Law of Pleading under the Codes of Civil Procedure '': (1870), a text nationally used and frequently revised until superseded by the modern case method.

[J. H. Bliss, Genealogy of the Bliss Family in America (1881); The Bench and Bar of St. Louis (1884), pp, 376-79; W. F. Switzler, "History of the University of Missouri" (MSS.).]

J. V.


BLOOMFIELD, Dr. Joseph, 1753-1823, New Jersey, abolitionist lawyer, soldier, political leader, member and delegate, New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (Basker, 2005, pp. 223-225, 239n7; Locke, 1901, pp. 86, 92; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 175-176, 185; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 385)


BLOSS, William Clough, 1795-1863, abolitionist leader, reformer, temperance advocate.  Early abolitionist leader in Rochester, New York, area.  Founded abolitionist newspaper, Rights of Man, in 1834.  Petitioned U.S. Congress to end slavery in Washington, DC.  Early supporter of women’s rights and African American civil rights.  Activist in aiding fugitive slaves in the Underground Railroad.  manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1843-1845.  (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 54)


BLOW, Henry Taylor, 1817-1875, statesman, diplomat.  Active in pre-Civil War anti-slavery movement.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, p. 297; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 391-392; Congressional Globe)

BLOW, HENRY TAYLOR (July 15, 1817-September 11, 1875), capitalist, diplomat, congressman, was the son of Peter and Elizabeth (Taylor) Blow. When he was thirteen, his father, a Virginia planter of moderate circumstances, migrated to the West and settled in St. Louis. Henry enjoyed the best educational advantages of the time and locality and graduated with distinction from St. Louis University. He commenced the study of law but abandoned it in order to enter business with his brother-in-law. In the economic transformation of St. Louis from a frontier town to an industrial and commercial center, Blow was an important figure. He was a pioneer in the lead and lead-products business and was instrumental in the opening and development of the large lead mines of southwestern Missouri. He was also president of the Iron Mountain Railroad. The educational and cultural interests of St. Louis came soon to realize that in Blow they had a devoted friend and generous supporter; that he was, in every sense, a public-spirited citizen. In common with many of the leading business men of the city, he was a Whig. In 1854 he was persuaded to become a candidate for the state Senate and was easily elected. Here he became one of the party leaders in the turbulent sessions of the following four years when factionalism was at its height. As chairman of the important committee on banks and corporations, Blow represented adequately and effectively the commercial and financial interests of St. Louis, which were conservative. He had opposed since 1854 the extension of slavery and with the final disappearance of the Whig party, he became, successively, an American and a "black" Republican. Together with Blair, Brown, and others of similar views, Blow supported the Free-Soil movement and helped to organize the Republican party in Missouri. He was a delegate to the national convention of 1860. Laboring tirelessly to keep Missouri in the Union, in the early and critical months of the war he was active in the raising and equipping of troops for the support of the government. Lincoln appointed him minister to Venezuela in 1861 but he returned in 1862 to become a Republican candidate for Congress as a "charcoal," that is, a Republican who favored the immediate and uncompensated emancipation of the slaves in Missouri. He was elected, and was reelected in 1864. His congressional career was marked by close application to committee work and to conferences; he rarely spoke on the floor of the House and took little part in the acrimonious debates which marked the early days of reconstruction. As a member of the joint committee on reconstruction, he supported the policies of Stevens during the first session of Congress in 1866, but during the second he was a follower of the more conservative John A. Bingham. He was singularly free from those bitter personal and political animosities which were dominant during the reconstruction period, especially in the border states. As a business man he was concerned with the restoration and rehabilitation of St. Louis and her markets. He retired from public life in 1867 and devoted himself to the development of his mining properties. Because of his thorough knowledge of the important interests involved, Blow was prevailed upon to accept in 1869 the appointment as minister to Brazil, a position which he held for two years and in which he did much to further closer relations between the two countries, before returning to St. Louis to his numerous business interests. With the reorganization of the District of Columbia government in 1874, Blow reluctantly accepted an appointment on the new board of commissioners and assisted in the reconstruction of the District. He announced his definite retirement from politics in 1875, and died suddenly on September15 of that year. He was married to Minerva, daughter of Col. Thornton Grimsley of St. Louis.

[The chief facts concerning Blow's political career can be found in the files of the Missouri Republican, the Missouri Democrat, and the Missouri Statesman during the years he was in public life. The Congressional Record for the 39th and 40th Congresses is useful for the years 1863-67. Blow's work on the joint committee on reconstruction is appraised in B. B. Kendrick, Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction (1914). There are general accounts of his life in W. B. Stevens, "Lincoln and Missouri," Missouri History Review, X, 6J ff., and S. B. Harding, "Missouri Party Struggles in the Civil War Period," Annual Report, American Historical Ass., 1900; H. L. Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri (1901), I, 305-06.

J.T.S.B. 



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.