John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was an American politician who served as the 14th vice president of the United States, with President James Buchanan, from 1857 to 1861, and as a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Having assumed office at the age of 36, Breckinridge is the youngest vice president in U.S. history. He was also the Southern Democratic candidate in the 1860 presidential election, losing to Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln.
Breckinridge was born near Lexington, Kentucky, to a prominent local family. After serving as a noncombatant during the Mexican–American War, he was elected as a Democrat to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1849, where he took a pro-slavery stance. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1851, he allied with Stephen A. Douglas in support of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. After reapportionment in 1854 made his re-election unlikely, he declined to run for another term. He was nominated for vice president at the 1856 Democratic National Convention to balance a ticket headed by James Buchanan. The Democrats won the election, but Breckinridge had little influence with Buchanan, and as presiding officer of the Senate, could not express his opinions in debates. He joined Buchanan in supporting the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, which led to a split in the Democratic Party. In 1859, he was elected to succeed Senator John J. Crittenden at the end of Crittenden's term in 1861.
After Southern Democrats walked out of the 1860 Democratic National Convention, the party's northern and southern factions held rival conventions in Baltimore that nominated Douglas and Breckinridge, respectively, for president. A third party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell. These three men split the Southern vote, while Lincoln won all but three electoral votes in the North, winning the election. Breckinridge carried most of the Southern states. Taking his seat in the Senate, Breckinridge urged compromise to preserve the Union. Unionists were in control of the state legislature, and gained more support when Confederate forces moved into Kentucky. After fleeing behind Confederate lines, Breckinridge was commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate Army and then expelled from the Senate.
Following the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, Breckinridge was promoted to major general, and in October, he was assigned to the Army of Mississippi under Braxton Bragg. After Bragg charged that Breckinridge's drunkenness had contributed to defeats at Stones River and Missionary Ridge, and after Breckinridge joined many other high-ranking officers in criticizing Bragg, he was transferred to the Trans-Allegheny Department, where he won his most significant victory in the 1864 Battle of New Market. After participating in Jubal Early's campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley, Breckinridge was charged with defending supplies in Tennessee and Virginia. In February 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of War in the Confederate Cabinet. Concluding that the war was hopeless, he urged Davis to arrange a national surrender. After the fall of Richmond, Breckinridge ensured the preservation of Confederate records. He then escaped the country and lived abroad for over three years. When President Andrew Johnson extended amnesty to all former Confederates in 1868, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky, but resisted all encouragement to resume his political career. War injuries sapped his health, and he died in 1875. Breckinridge is regarded as an effective military commander.
Early life John Cabell Breckinridge was born at Thorn Hill, his family's estate near Lexington, Kentucky, on January 16, 1821, the fourth of six children and only son of Joseph "Cabell" Breckinridge from the Breckinridge family and Mary Clay (Smith) Breckinridge. His mother was a daughter of Samuel Stanhope Smith, who founded Hampden–Sydney College in 1775, and granddaughter of John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Having previously served as speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, Breckinridge's father had been appointed Kentucky's secretary of state just prior to his son's birth. In February 1821, the family moved with Governor John Adair to the Governor's Mansion in Frankfort, so his father could better attend to his duties as secretary of state.
In August 1823, an illness referred to as "the prevailing fever" struck Frankfort, and Cabell Breckinridge took his children to stay with his mother in Lexington. On his return, both his wife and he fell ill. Cabell Breckinridge died, but she survived. His assets were not enough to pay his debts, and his widow joined the children in Lexington, supported by her mother-in-law. While in Lexington, Breckinridge attended Pisgah Academy in Woodford County. His grandmother taught him the political philosophies of her late husband, John Breckinridge, who served in the U.S. Senate and as attorney general under President Thomas Jefferson. As a state legislator, Breckinridge had introduced the Kentucky Resolutions in 1798, which stressed states' rights and endorsed the doctrine of nullification in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts.
After an argument between Breckinridge's mother and grandmother in 1832, his mother, his sister Laetitia, and he moved to Danville, Kentucky, to live with his sister Frances and her husband, John C. Young, who was president of Centre College. Breckinridge's uncle, William Breckinridge, was also on the faculty there, prompting him to enroll in November 1834. Among his schoolmates were Beriah Magoffin, William Birney, Theodore O'Hara, Thomas L. Crittenden, and Jeremiah Boyle. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in September 1838, he spent the following winter as a "resident graduate" at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Returning to Kentucky in mid-1839, he read law with Judge William Owsley. In November 1840, he enrolled in the second year of the law course at Transylvania University in Lexington, where his instructors included George Robertson and Thomas A. Marshall of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. On February 25, 1841, he received a Bachelor of Laws and was licensed to practice the next day.
Early legal career Breckinridge remained in Lexington while deciding where to begin practice, borrowing law books from the library of John J. Crittenden, Thomas Crittenden's father. Deciding that Lexington was overcrowded with lawyers, he moved to Frankfort, but was unable to find an office. After being spurned by a love interest, former classmate Thomas W. Bullock and he departed for the Iowa Territory on October 10, 1841, seeking better opportunities. They considered settling on land Breckinridge had inherited in Jacksonville, Illinois, but they found the bar stocked with able men such as Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. They continued on to Burlington, Iowa, and by the winter of 1842–1843, Breckinridge reported to family members that his firm handled more cases than almost any other in Burlington. Influenced by Bullock and the citizens of Iowa, he identified with the Democratic Party, and by February 1843, he had been named to the Democratic committee of Des Moines County. Most of the Kentucky Breckinridges were Whigs, and when he learned of his nephew's party affiliation, William Breckinridge declared, "I felt as I would have done if I had heard that my daughter had been dishonored."
Breckinridge visited Kentucky in May 1843. His efforts to mediate between his mother and the Breckinridges extended his visit, and after he contracted influenza, he decided to remain for the summer rather than returning to Iowa's colder climate. He met Bullock's cousin, Mary Cyrene Burch, and by September, they were engaged. In October, Breckinridge went to Iowa to close out his business, then returned to Kentucky and formed a law partnership with Samuel Bullock, Thomas's cousin. He married on December 12, 1843, and settled in Georgetown, Kentucky. The couple had six children – Joseph Cabell (b. 1844), Clifton Rodes (b. 1846; later a Congressman from Arkansas), Frances (b. 1848), John Milton (b. 1849), John Witherspoon (b. 1850), and Mary Desha (b. 1854). Gaining confidence in his ability as a lawyer, Breckinridge moved his family back to Lexington in 1845 and formed a partnership with future U.S. Senator James B. Beck.
Mexican–American War
A supporter of the Mexican–American War, Breckinridge sought appointment to the staff of Major General William Orlando Butler, a prominent Kentucky Democrat, but Butler could only offer him an unpaid aide position and advised him to decline it. In July 1847, Breckinridge delivered an address at a mass military funeral in Frankfort to honor Kentuckians killed in the Battle of Buena Vista. The oration brought Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, whose son was among the dead, to tears, and inspired Theodore O'Hara to write "Bivouac of the Dead".
Breckinridge again applied for a military commission after William Owsley, the governor of Kentucky, called for two additional regiments on August 31, 1847. Owsley's advisors encouraged the Whig governor to commission at least one Democrat, and Whig Senator John J. Crittenden supported Breckinridge's application. On September 6, 1847, Owsley appointed Manlius V. Thomson as colonel, Thomas Crittenden as lieutenant colonel, and Breckinridge as major of the Third Kentucky Infantry Regiment. The regiment left Kentucky on November 1 and reached Veracruz by November 21. After a serious epidemic of la Vomito, or yellow fever, broke out at Veracruz, the regiment hurried to Mexico City. Reports indicate that Breckinridge walked all but two days of the journey, allowing weary soldiers to use his horse. When they reached Mexico City on December 18, the fighting was almost over; they participated in no combat and remained as an army of occupation until May 30, 1848.
In demand more for his legal expertise than his military training, he was named as assistant counsel for Gideon Johnson Pillow during a court of inquiry initiated against him by Winfield Scott. Seeking to derail Scott's presidential ambitions, Pillow and his supporters composed and published letters that lauded Pillow, not Scott, for the American victories at Contreras and Churubusco. To hide his involvement, Pillow convinced a subordinate to take credit for the letter he wrote. Breckinridge biographer William C. Davis writes that it is "most unlikely" that Breckinridge knew the details of Pillow's intrigue. His role in the proceedings was limited to questioning a few witnesses; records show that Pillow represented himself during the court's proceedings.
Returning to Louisville on July 16, the Third Kentucky mustered out on July 21. During their time in Mexico, over 100 members of the 1,000-man regiment died of illness. Although he saw no combat, Breckinridge's military service proved an asset to his political prospects.
Political career
Early political career Breckinridge campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee James K. Polk in the 1844 election. He decided against running for county clerk of Scott County after his law partner complained that he spent too much time in politics. In 1845, some local Democrats encouraged him to seek the Eighth District's congressional seat, but he declined, supporting Alexander Keith Marshall, the party's unsuccessful nominee. As a private citizen, he opposed the Wilmot Proviso that would have banned slavery in the territory acquired in the war with Mexico. In the 1848 presidential election, he backed the unsuccessful Democratic ticket of Lewis Cass and William Butler. He did not vote in the election. Defending his decision during a speech in Lexington on September 5, 1860, Breckinridge explained:
Kentucky House of Representatives