Blair, Francis Preston

Blair, Francis Preston

(1791–1876) journalist; born in Abingdon, Va. A founding editor of the Washington, D.C. Globe, a Democratic party paper, in 1830, he was a member of President Andrew Jackson's "kitchen cabinet" of advisers. For a time he also published the Congressional Globe, a predecessor of the Congressional Record. Opposed to the extension of slavery, he helped organize the Republican Party and became a close adviser to Abraham Lincoln.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.