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Montgomery Blair
20th United States Postmaster General
In office March 5, 1861 – September 24, 1864
Preceded by	Horatio King
Succeeded by	William Dennison, Jr.
Born	May 10, 1813 Franklin County, Kentucky, USA
Died	July 27, 1883 Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Political party	Republican, Democrat
Spouse	Mary Elizabeth Woodbury Blair
Profession	Lawyer, Politician

Montgomery Blair (May 10, 1813 – July 27, 1883), the son of Francis Preston Blair, elder brother of Francis Preston Blair, Jr. and cousin of B. Gratz Brown, was a politician and lawyer from Maryland. he was a member of the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.

Lincoln met with his Cabinet for the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation draft on July 22, 1862. L-R: Edwin M. Stanton, Salmon P. Chase, Abraham Lincoln, Gideon Welles, Caleb Smith, William H. Seward, Montgomery Blair and Edward Bates.

Blair was born in Franklin County, Kentucky. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1835, but after a year's service in the Seminole War, he left the Army, studied law, and began practice at St Louis, Missouri. After serving as United States district attorney (1839–43) and as judge of the court of common pleas (1834–1849), he moved to Maryland in 1852 and devoted himself to law practice principally in the United States Supreme Court. He was United States Solicitor in the Court of Claims (1855–58) and was associated with George T. Curtis as counsel for the plaintiff in the Dred Scott v. Sanford case of 1857.

In 1860 he took an active part in the presidential campaign in behalf of Abraham Lincoln, in whose cabinet he was Postmaster-General from 1861 until September 1864, when he resigned as a result of the hostility of the Radical Republican faction, who stipulated that Blair's retirement should follow the withdrawal of John C. Frémont's name as a candidate for the presidential nomination in that year. Under his administration, such reforms and improvements as the establishment of free city delivery, the adoption of a money order system, and the use of railway mail cars were instituted — the last having been suggested by George B. Armstrong (d. 1871), of Chicago, who from 1869 until his death was general superintendent of the United States railway mail service.

Differing from the Republican Party on the Reconstruction policy, Blair gave his adherence to the Democratic Party after the Civil War, along with his brother, who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1868.

His manor in present-day Silver Spring, Maryland was named Falkland. It was burned by Confederate troops during the War. He died at Silver Spring.

Montgomery Blair in his postbellum.

• Speech on the Causes of the Rebellion (1864)

Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland.

• Croly, Seymour and Blair: Their Lives and Services (1868)

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

• Biography
• Mr. Lincoln and Friends: Montgomery Blair
• Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Montgomery Blair
• Mr. Lincoln's White House: Montgomery Blair

United States Postmaster Generals

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