Having failed to nominate a Republican for President, the convention unanimously nominated General Frank P. Blair, of Missouri, for Vice-President without the formality of a ballot. He was one of the most radical and aggressive of Republicans when the Republican party was organized in 1856, and brought the first important victory to that party when, in the early fall of 1856, he was elected to Congress from St. Louis, being the first Republican who ever represented a Southern State in the national Legislature. I remember meeting him in Washington just before the clash of arms began, after the bombardment of Sumter. He was impatient with Lincoln for not precipitating the war, and told me that he would go back to Missouri the next day, and that the country would soon hear of battles fought in that State. He executed his purpose, for it was through him chiefly or wholly that the early and bloody battles of Missouri were fought. He was one of the most brilliant of the corps commanders of the army, but had evidently fallen into disfavor with Grant, and Blair was as tireless a fighter as Grant himself. In a public letter, directed to J. C. Broadhead a short time before the convention met, General Blair denounced Grant as aiming at imperialism, and declared that his election to the Presidency would date the downfall of our Republican institutions. General Blair spoke frequently during the contest, but his speeches were so violent that they gave offence to many conservative Democrats; and after the October elections, which were disastrous to the Democrats, the New York _World_, the leading Democratic organ, came out in a leader demanding that he be retired from the ticket; but Blair was not the man to retreat under fire. Seymour took the stump, to present the party in a more conservative attitude, and delivered a number of speeches, which rank among the ablest popular addresses of American politics; but he could not halt the tidal wave that swept Grant into the Presidency. The following table gives the electoral and popular vote: