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BLAIR- •BLANC 273 their native land, were subject to prosecution on charges and died in St Louis, Missouri, 8th July 1875. He was of disloyalty, enlisted his active interest and support, educated at Princeton College, and, in 1843, began the and the agitation in which he was conspicuous led to practice of law in St Louis. In succession he served the treaty of 1870 between the United States and Great in the Mexican war, was a Democratic editor, and a Britain, which placed adopted and native citizens on the member of the Missouri legislature. He was elected as a same footing. Republican to the national House of Representatives in As the presidential election of 1876 approached, Mr 1856, 1860, 1862. Vigorous measures on his part were Blaine was clearly the popular favourite of his party. In instrumental in preventing Missouri from joining the the Republican National Convention he missed by only Confederacy. He became colonel of volunteers in 1861, twenty-eight votes nomination for President, being finally rose to the rank of major-general, and performed imbeaten by a combination of all the other candidates. portant military services. He strenuously opposed the Thereupon, through a vacancy, he entered the Senate, congressional plan of reconstruction, and in 1868 was the where his activity was unabated. Currency legislation Democratic candidate for the vice-presidency. To fill an was specially prominent. Blaine, who had previously unexpired term, he was United States Senator from opposed greenback inflation, now resisted depreciated Missouri, 1871-73. silver coinage. He was the earnest champion of the Blairgowrie, a police burgh of Perthshire, advancement of American shipping, and advocating liberal subsidies, insisted that the policy of protection Scotland, finely situated on the Ericht, at the terminus should be applied on the sea as well as on land. The of a branch of the Caledonian railway, 20 miles N.E. of The town is entirely modern, and owes its National Convention of 1880, divided between the two Perth. progress to the water-power supplied by the Ericht for nearly equal forces of Blaine and Grant, struggled through thirty-six ballots, when the friends of Blaine succeeded in linen and jute factories. There are also sawmills and a nominating General Garfield. In the new Administration large factory for bee appliances. Strawberries, raspberries, Blaine became Secretary of State, but, through the assassina- and other fruit are largely grown in the neighbourhood. tion of the President, held the office only a few months. His Among the public buildings are the town hall and the brief service was distinguished by several notable steps. mechanics’ institute. A public park was presented to the In order to promote the friendly understanding and co- town in 1892. Population (1881), 4537; (1891), 3714> v /> operation of the nations on the American continent he (1901), 3377. projected a Pan-American Congress, which, after being Blanc, Jean Joseph Charles Louis, arranged for, was frustrated by his retirement. He also generally known as Louis Blanc (1811-1882), French sought to secure a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer politician and historian, was born on 29th October 1811 treaty, and in an extended correspondence with the British at Madrid, where his father held the post of inspectorGovernment strongly asserted the policy of an exclusive general of finance under Joseph Bonaparte. Failing to American control of any isthmian canal. receive aid from Pozzo di Borgo, his mother’s uncle, Louis With undiminished hold on the imagination and devotion Blanc studied law in Paris and became a contributor to of his followers he was nominated for President in 1884. various journals. In 1839 appeared his VOrganisation du After a heated canvass, in which he made a series of brilliant travail. The principles laid down in this famous essay speeches, he was beaten by a narrow margin in New York. form the key to Louis Blanc’s whole political career. He Refusing to be a candidate in 1888, he became Secretary attributes all the evils that afflict society to the pressure of State under President Harrison, and resumed his work of competition, whereby the weaker are driven to the wall. which had been interrupted nearly eight years before. He demanded the equalization of wages, and the merging The Pan-American Congress, then projected, now met in of personal interests in the common good—“a chacun Washington, and Blaine, as its master spirit, presided selon ses besoins, de chacun selon ses facultes.” This was over and guided its deliberations through its session of to be effected by the establishment of “ social workshops,” five months. Its most important conclusions were for a sort of combined co-operative society and trade-union, reciprocity in trade, a continental railway, and compulsory where the workmen in each trade were to unite their arbitration in international complications. Shaping the efforts for their common benefit. On the outbreak of the tariff legislation for this policy, Blaine negotiated a large Revolution of 1848 Louis Blanc became Minister of number of reciprocity treaties which augmented the com- Labour, and presided over the “ Commission du gouvernemerce of his country. He upheld American rights in ment pour les travailleurs,” which served only to air a great Samoa, pursued vigorous diplomacy with Italy over the variety of theories. He was generally held responsible New Orleans lynchings, held a firm attitude through the for the establishment of national workshops, which were Chilian complications and the Barrundia affair, and carried really due to the Minister of Public Works, Marie, and on with Great Britain a resolute controversy over the seal were, on the confession both of Lamartine and of the fisheries of Bering Sea,—a difference afterwards settled director of the workshops, J^mile Thomas, intended to by arbitration. He resigned on the eve of the National counteract Blanc’s influence. Nevertheless, the failure of Convention of 1892, wherein his name was ineffectually this attempt to provide for thousands of idle or incomused, and died at Washington, D.C., on 27th January petent workmen, for whom no real work could be found, 1893. During his later years of leisure he wrote Twenty undermined Blanc’s position; and after the abortive Years in Congress, a brilliant historical work in two Socialist movement of 15th May, the triumph of the volumes. Of singularly alert faculties, with remarkable Moderates obliged him, after suffering personal violence, knowledge of the men and history of his country, and an to flee, first to Belgium, and thence to London. Ten extraordinary memory, his masterful talent for politics years later he published (in English) a defence of his and statecraft, together with his captivating manner and share in the Revolution under the title of 18Jf.8: engaging personality, gave him, for nearly two decades, Historical Revelations. As far back as 1839 Louis an unrivalled hold upon the fealty and affection of his Blanc had vehemently opposed the idea of a Napoleonic Party(c. E. s.) restoration, predicting that it would be “ despotism without glory,” “ the Empire without the Emperor.” He thereBlair, Francis Preston (1821 -1875), American fore remained in exile till the fall of the Second Empire soldier and politician, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1870. In the following February he was elected a S. IL —35