Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Albert Taylor Bledsoe (November 9, 1809 – December 8, 1877) was an American Episcopal priest, attorney, professor of mathematics, and officer in the Confederate army and was best known as a staunch defender of slavery and, after the South lost the American Civil War, an architect of the Lost Cause. He was the author of Liberty and Slavery, "the most extensive philosophical treatment of slavery ever produced by a Southern academic", which defended slavery laws as ensuring proper societal order.

Early life and education Bledsoe was born on November 9, 1809, in Frankfort, Kentucky, the oldest of five children of Moses Owsley Bledsoe and Sophia Childress Taylor (who was a relative of President Zachary Taylor). He was a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1825 to 1830, where he was a fellow cadet of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. After serving two years in the United States Army, he studied law and theology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and received his M.A. and LL.M. In 1836. he married Harriet Coxe of Burlington, New Jersey, and they had seven children, four of whom survived childhood.

His daughter was the author Sophia Bledsoe Herrick.

Mathematics professor Adjunct Professor of Mathematics and French, Kenyon College, (OH) 1833–1834. Professor of Mathematics, Miami University 1834–1835. Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy, University of Mississippi 1848–1854. Professor of Mathematics, University of Virginia 1854–1861. Bledsoe in his lectures at the University of Virginia would frequently "interlard his demonstration of some difficult problem in differential or integral calculus—for example, the lemniscata of —with some vigorous remarks in the doctrine of States' rights". The first chapter concludes with the opinion, "attempts of Dr. Whewell to solve the enigmas of the calculus are, as we shall have occasion to see, singularly awkward and unfortunate."

Public service

In 1835, Bledsoe became an Episcopal minister and became an assistant to Bishop Benjamin Bosworth Smith of Kentucky. He abandoned his clerical career in 1838 because of his opposition to infant baptism. Later in life, he was ordained a Methodist minister in 1871, but he never took charge of a church. He was a strenuous advocate of the doctrine of free will and his views are set forth in his book Examination of Edwards on the Will (1845).

In 1838, Bledsoe moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he was a law partner of Edward D. Baker, and where he practiced law in the same courts as Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. He practiced before the United States Supreme Court in Washington DC from 1840 to 1848.

Bledsoe is remembered for his 1856 treatise An Essay on Liberty and Slavery, which presented an extended proslavery argument. Bledsoe argued that the natural state of humans was in society, not in nature, and that humans in society needed to have restraints on their actions. That is, he argued that liberty was greatest when humans were allowed to exercise only the amount of freedom they were naturally suited to. Some had to be restrained; others were entitled to freedom.

In 1861, Bledsoe received a commission as a colonel in the Confederate army, and later became Acting Assistant Secretary of War. He was the "epitome of an unreconstructed Southerner" and published articles defending slavery and secession.

Bledsoe died on December 8, 1877, in Alexandria, Virginia.

Writings 1845: Examination of Edwards on the Will 1853: A Theodicy, or Vindication of the Divine Glory 1856: Essay on Liberty and Slavery 1866: Is Davis a Traitor? or Was Secession a Constitutional Right previous to the War of 1861? 1868: The Philosophy of Mathematics, with Special Reference to the Elements of Geometry and the Infinitesimal Method

The Southern Review In 1867 Bledsoe began The Southern Review which he edited until his death when his daughter Sophia Bledsoe Herrick became editor (1877 to 1879). The first year had two volumes, later one volume per year. Each issue contained book notices of recent publication. History was the primary topic, but volumes contain diverse content. Volume 1 begins with Bledsoe's philosophy of history, citing five sources. Volume 2 begins with “Ireland and her miseries”. It includes an article “Canada and the United States”. Volume 3 begins with Draper's history of the American Civil War. It also includes review of 11 textbooks on history of the United States. Volume 4 includes a biography of William Shakespeare by C Knight. Voume 5 includes articles on the nature and laws of light. 1867—79: The Southern Review via HathiTrust (26 volumes)