 Scion
of a prominent Virginia family, Blair was born at Williamsburg in
1732. He was the son of John Blair, a colonial official and nephew
of James Blair, founder and first president of the College of
William and Mary. Signer Blair graduated from that institution and
studied law at London's Middle Temple. Thereafter, he practiced at
Williamsburg. In the years 1766-70 he sat in the Virginia House of
Burgesses as the representative of William and Mary. From 1770 to
1775 he held the position of clerk of the colony's council.
An active patriot, Blair signed the Virginia
Association of June 22, 1770, which pledged to abandon importation
of British goods until the Townshend Duties were repealed. He also
underwrote the Association of May 27, 1774, calling for a meeting of
the colonies in a Continental Congress and supporting the
Bostonians. He took part in the Virginia constitutional convention
(1776), at which he sat on the committee that framed a declaration
of rights as well as the plan for a new government. He next served
on the Privy Council (1776-78). In the latter year, the legislature
elected him as a judge of the General Court, and he soon took over
the chief justiceship. In 1780 he won election to Virginia's high
chancery court, where his colleague was George Wythe.
Blair attended the Constitutional Convention
religiously but never spoke or served on a committee. He usually
sided with the position of the Virginia delegation. And, in the
commonwealth ratifying convention, Blair helped win backing for the
new framework of government.
In 1789 Washington named Blair as an associate
justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he helped decide many
important cases. Resigning that post in 1796, he spent his remaining
years in Williamsburg. A widower, his wife (born Jean Balfour)
having died in 1792, he lived quietly until he succumbed in 1800. He
was 68 years old. His tomb is in the graveyard of Bruton Parish
Church. |
