Although unknown to Jackson, who would have been uninterested if he had known, Frank Blair was qualified by blood to sit at the table of the first gentleman of the land. His grandfather had been acting president of Princeton when Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration, was summoned to New Jersey to accept the presidency. Born forty years before becoming editor of the “Globe,” he had displayed, in college, the remarkable intellectual qualities that were to make him the adviser of Presidents, and one of the most influential moulders of public opinion of his time. He distinguished himself as the best rhetorician and linguist of his class.[363] The [Illustration: FRANCIS P. BLAIR ROGER B. TANEY WILLIAM B. LEWIS] weakness of his voice discouraged his ambition for forensic distinction. In the Governor’s Mansion at Frankfort he was married, early in life, to a charming woman noted for “her extraordinary mental force and her sagacity.”[364] Like Kendall and Barry, Blair had begun his political career as an ardent supporter of Clay, and like them, had broken with him on the “bargain” story. According to Blair’s contention through life, Clay had confided to him in advance that, if such a contingency as did develop should arise in the congressional caucus, he would throw his support to Adams, and that he had protested against the plan. Whether true or not, that event marked the end of Blair’s interest in the political ambitions of the man from Ashland. From 1823 to 1827 he played a conspicuous part as one of the principals in the famous fight between the New and the Old Courts which all but reduced the State to a condition bordering on anarchy. This part of his career is difficult to understand. The New Court Party, with which he was affiliated, was a revolutionary organization mustering its strength from the indebtedness and poverty of the people. It proposed to relieve the condition of the poor through methods frankly revolutionary and worse. During the period of the court fight, and while acting as the clerk of the revolutionary court, two events completely changed the course of his career. He broke with Clay and allied himself with the Democratic Party; and he became a regular contributor to the columns of the “Frankfort Argus,” and a journalist by profession. On abandoning the court clerkship he immediately identified himself with Kendall in the publication of the paper, and the combined genius of these two extraordinary men converted the little Western journal into one of the most powerful and popular of the Jacksonian organs. All the credit appears to have gone to Kendall and none to his associate, for after the election it was Kendall and not Blair who was assured of recognition from the incoming Administration. After Kendall went to Washington, Blair, without the slightest notion of ever following, remained in Frankfort, writing special articles in support of Jacksonian policies for the “Argus.” Thus he plied his trenchant pen