Biography:

Francis Preston Blair Jr. was a US Representative and later Senator from Missouri and an officer in the Union Army, rising to the rank of major general and becoming corps commander under General Sherman. In 1868, Blair, a Democrat, ran for vice-president alongside presidential candidate Horatio Seymour. They lost the presidential contest to Ulysses S. Grant, and some Democrats blamed Blair’s racist and vitriolic speeches warning of the dangers of African American emancipation and Reconstruction policies for costing them the election. A snippet of one of these speeches is quoted in Thomas Nast’s editorial cartoon “Patience on a Monument.” Following the 1868 election, Blair returned to the US Senate and served until 1873. He died in 1875.