Bledsoe, Albert Taylor

LL.D. (Kenyon College, O., and Mi i ippi University, both 1854), Methodist; b. at Frankfort, Ky., Nov. 9, 1809; d. at Alexandria, Va., Dec. 8, 1877; graduated at the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., 1830; became lieutenant Seventh Infantry; resigned, 1832; became a istant profe or of mathematics, Kenyon College, O., 1834; entered ministry of the Episcopal Church, and was l-ector at Hamilton, O., and profe or of mathematics in Miami University, 1835-36; left the ministry, owing to some theological difficulties, and took up the practice of law in Springfield, 111., and in the Supreme Court at Washington, D.C., 1840-48; became profe or of mathematics in the University of Mi i ippi, 1848, and in the University of Virginia, 1854. On the breaking-out of the civil war he entered the Confederate service as a colonel, but was soon made a istant secretary of war by Mr. Davis. In 1863 he went to England to prepare a work on the constitutional history of the United States. He returned to America in February, 1866, and in 1867 began, at Baltimore, the publication of The Southern Review. He became a Methodist in 1871, and preached occasionally in Methodist pulpits, but never took charge of a church. His views on theological subjects are difficult to define, as he was not a strict adherent of any church creed. He was a firm believer in, and strenuous advocate of, the doctrine of free-will, — of the responsibility of men for their belief, — a stern opponent of atheism and scepticism. While always friendly towards predestinarians, he fought all his life the doctrine which he believed tarnished the Divine glory, and drove many into unbelief. His views upon these subjects are given in full in his Review of Edwards on the Will, in his Theodicy, and in the pages of The Southern Review. His views on the Constitution are to be found in Liberty and Slavery, and Is Davis a Traitor? His literary work was done in a manner somewhat peculiar. He pondered his subject long, revolving it year after year; but when he came to write, the work was done with marvellous rapidity and precision, sometimes thirty or forty pages with scarcely an erasure, and then would come a point where he could not write precisely what he wished to say, and perhaps thirty or forty pages more would be thrown aside, each being an attempt to expre one unimportant thought. His memory was prodigious for what he read. Of the six hundred and eighty moral philosophers he had read, he could tell, after the lapse of years, just the precise shade of views each upheld. He was an. honest but unsparing controversialist, dealing trenchant blows without mercy, but never once in his long militant career accused of misrepresenting the views of an antagonist though he made bitter enemies by his pen, they were made in open fair fight. After the intellectual labor of authorship was over, he lost all interest in the financial succe of his books. If a strict profit-and-lo account could be made, he probably made nothing by his books, which reached a number of editions: An Examination of Edwards on the Will, Philadelphia, 1845; A Theodicy, or Vindication of Divine Glory, New York, 1853; Liber 32 ty and Slavery, Philadelphia, 1857; Philosophy of Mathematics, 1865; Is Davis a Traitor? Baltimore (privately published), 1866. MRS. A. T. BLEDSOE.