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Black Friday.-On Friday, September 24, 1869, gold sold as high as 1624. It had been quoted at 143 in the Gold Board in New York the previous evening. The rise was in consequence of an attempt by "Jim" Fisk, Jay Gould and others to corner the gold market. It was intended to force gold to 180. This plan was thwarted by the offer of the Secretary of the Treasury late on Friday to sell $4,000,000 of gold to the highest bidder on the next day, and an offer to purchase government bonds to the same amount. The effect of this corner was a violent panic in the stock market; business was upset, for merchants needed gold to pay at the Custom House, and the general aspect was so threatening that the day has been named as above. The Gold Board was so convulsed that its officers deemed it best to suspend business, and the Board remained closed until the Wednesday following.

Black Hawk War. (See Indian Wars.)

Black Horse Cavalry is a name given to those legislators (more or less numerous in every legislative body) that act together for the purpose of exacting money from friends of any measure under consideration and threaten its defeat in case of non-compliance. Their number is frequently great enough to be of considerable influence.

Black Jack.-A name by which Major General John A. Logan was known on account of his swarthy complexion, black hair and moustache.

Black Laws.-Laws passed in many of the Northern States before the abolition of slavery requiring certain acts to be performed by free negroes, as a condition to their residing in those States, or prescribing disabilities under which they labored. Such were laws requiring them to file certificates of their freedom; forbidding them to testify in cases in which a white man was interested; excluding them from the militia and from the public schools, and requiring them to give bonds for their good behavior.

Black Republicans.-The Republicans were socalled by their opponents. The term was especially applied by Southerners to anti-slavery members of that party.

Blaine, James Gillespie, was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, January 31, 1830. He was in early life a journalist. From 1863 to 1875 he was in Congress, being Speaker during the last six years; from 1876 to 1881 he was United States Senator; in 1881 he became Secretary of State under Garfield; soon after Garfield's death he resigned his position. He is a Republican. In 1876 and 1880 he was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination of his party; in 1884 he was nominated but defeated by a small majority, owing to the defection of a part of the Republican party. (See Independents.) In 1888 he wrote a letter saying that his name would not be presented to the convention, and in 1889 became Secretary of State, under Harrison.

Blockade is the prevention of neutral commerce with an enemy's coasts or ports. It is a measure well recognized in international law as justified by the necessities of war. Certain ports or portions of coast may be blockaded, or the blockade may extend to all parts of the enemy's dominions bordering on the sea. One side of a river may be blockaded while the other remains free. It is now well settled that in order to render a neutral vessel liable to the penalty for trying to evade or "run" a blockade the latter must be effective and due notice must be given of it. A cabinet or paper blockade is one that is merely announced or ordered, but which is not or cannot be enforced. Such are not recognized as effective. The blockading nation must maintain a sufficient number of vessels to at least render an attempt to run the blockade hazardous. The notice may be actual, by informing vessels individually as they approach a blockaded coast or by calling on them to leave blockaded waters, or it may be constructive, by giving diplomatic notice to neutral governments. A neutral vessel is equally liable to seizure whether seeking access to or departure from a blockaded region. The penalty is confiscation of the vessel and of the cargo also, if it appears that the latter was the object of the attempted evasion of the blockade. Neutral war ships are sometimes permitted to enter a blockaded port as a matter of comity,

and vessels in danger from stress of weather may seek shelter in such harbor if there be no other refuge. A blockade, when terminated, is said to be raised, and due notice of this fact should be given to neutral governments.

Blockade-Runner.-A term applied to a vessel that endeavors to evade the blockade of a coast or harbor. During the Civil War many vessels succeeded in running the Union blockade of the Southern harbors and coasts, carrying cotton from the Confederates and bringing food supplies and munitions of war to them.

Bloody Bill. (See Force Bill.)

Bloody Shirt.-Since the Civil War, politicians of the Republican party have from time to time attempted to draw votes and gain partisan advantages by appeals to the passions raised by that struggle. The phrase, "bloody shirt," is employed in reference to the now dead issues involved in that struggle, and a politician reviving them for partisan purposes is said to "wave the bloody shirt."

Bluebacks. A name popularly applied to the Confederate currency by reason of its appearance, and to distinguish it from the greenbacks of the North.

Blue Hen.-A name sometimes applied to the State of Delaware, originating, it is said, in a remark of Captain Caldwell, of the First Delaware regiment, that no fighting cock could be truly game whose mother was not a blue hen. The State was once proud of its famous blue hen breed of fighting cocks.

Blue Laws are such as relate to matters that are at present usually left to the private conscience of individuals. Before the Revolution the statute books of the Colonies were full of laws enforcing attendance on church worship, forbidding smoking in the public streets, prohibiting theatres, and the like. Some of the States, the older ones especially, still retain laws forbidding blasphemy and regulating work and travel on Sundays. Connecticut has acquired unpleasant notoriety in this respect. Such Blue Laws as still remain unrepealed in the various States are seldom enforced at the present time.

Blue-Light Federalists. This term was applied to the Federalist opponents of the war of 1812. The harbor of New London was at that time blockaded by the British. Two frigates, with Decatur in command, were in the harbor, and several attempts on their part to get to sea at night failed. Decatur maintained that on each occasion blue lights had been burned at the mouth of the harbor as signals to the British fleet. It was charged that these signals had been given by Federalists opposed to the war-hence the name.

Blue Lodges.-A name applied to societies organized in Missouri, after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, for the purpose of taking "possession of Kansas on behalf of slavery.

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Blue Nose.-A name colloquially given to an inhabitant of Nova Scotia, and sometimes extended to apply to any Canadian.

Bolters. To bolt means to spring out suddenly, and in political parlance it means to leave a political party when it is no longer deemed safe or to one's interest to remain with it. Those that leave a party under these circumstances are called bolters. A bolt is usually only a temporary defection, the bolters generally being the adherents of some man who aspires to nomination for office, and whose desire is not gratified. It is quite common for a determined minority to threaten to bolt a convention unless its desires are humored.

Boodle was originally a vulgarism for money, and more particularly for booty; a phrase used in bar-rooms and at the street corners. Gradually some of the more vulgar and sensational newspapers begun to make use of it in their articles dealing with the classes that were themselves in the habit of employing the term. Among these, the majority of the Aldermen of New York City were at that time numbered, and the bribes that these were supposed to be in the habit of receiving were referred to under that name. The charges of bribery were brought prominently forward by the investigation in 1886 by a committee of the Assembly into the circumstances attending the grant by the Aldermen in the previous year

of a charter for a street railroad on Broadway .n that city. Jacob Sharp, a man largely interested in New York street railroads, was popularly thought to have bribed the Aldermen to grant the franchise. Much interest in the investigation was manifested by the public, and the terms boodle and boodlers were continually used by the newspapers. The general use into which the term was thus brought added to the fact that it is a concise term, tended to purge it of its vulgar associations and to give it standing in the vocabulary of the day. The term boodler is now universally applied to bribetakers, more particularly to those connected with municipal governments, and most accurately to bribed Aldermen. The New York boodlers were indicted on the strength of the revelations made by the Assembly Committee. Of twenty-four members of the Board of Aldermen two were not bribed, as is proved by their voting against the franchise; two are dead; four have fled to foreign countries; three have turned informers; one is insane; three were convicted and sentenced to Sing Sing Prison; in the case of one the jury disagreed on the first trial and he was finally discharged; the procedings against the others were ultimately dropped. Jacob Sharp was indicted for bribing the Aldermen; he was tried, convicted and imprisoned in the County Jail pending an appeal. The Court of Appeals granted a new trial on the strength of errors in the former, but Sharp died pending the re-hearing.

Border Ruffians.-A name applied to Missourians that (about 1854) made a practice of crossing into Kansas to drive out the Free-State settlers, or to carry the elections. They took no trouble to conceal their illegal voting; in one case 604 votes were cast, of which but twenty were legal. This is but a sample. Encounters between them and the Free-State settlers were frequent.

Border States.-Those of the Slave-States, adjoining the Free-States, were so called; namely: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, although North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas were sometimes included under that name. Their nearness to the Free

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