John C. Breckinridge

• 1. Introduction

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  John C. Breckinridge announced Abraham Lincoln as the winner of the 1860 presidential election on the 13th of February 1861. He had run against Lincoln in that same race. He came in second in the Electoral College with 72 votes to Lincoln's 180. Within months of that ceremonial duty, he would flee behind Confederate lines, be expelled from the United States Senate for treason, and take up arms against the government he had just served as its second-highest officer.

  Breckinridge was only 36 years old when he was inaugurated as the 14th vice president of the United States in 1857, making him the youngest person ever to hold that office. He had risen with startling speed from a Kentucky law practice to the Senate's presiding chair, carrying with him a firmly pro-slavery worldview and a gift for oratory that moved even his enemies.

  How did a man who urged compromise to save the Union become the Confederate Secretary of War? And how did the youngest vice president in American history end his life in exile, only to return home and refuse every offer to re-enter politics? Those are the questions this documentary will answer.

• 2. Kentucky Roots

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  Breckinridge was born at Thorn Hill, his family's estate near Lexington, Kentucky, on the 16th of January 1821, the only son among six children. His mother was a granddaughter of John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a daughter of Samuel Stanhope Smith, who founded Hampden-Sydney College in 1775. His father had served as speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives before being appointed the state's secretary of state.

  That father died when Breckinridge was barely two years old. An illness described as "the prevailing fever" swept Frankfort in August 1823, and both parents fell sick on their return from sheltering the children in Lexington. His father did not recover; his assets were insufficient to pay his debts, and his widow raised the children with the support of her mother-in-law.

  His grandmother filled a formative role, teaching him the political philosophies of his grandfather John Breckinridge, who had served in the U.S. Senate and as attorney general under President Thomas Jefferson. That grandfather had introduced the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, which stressed states' rights and endorsed nullification in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. These ideas would echo through his grandson's career in ways the family could not have anticipated.

  After a family argument in 1832, his mother moved the children to Danville, Kentucky, where they lived with his sister Frances and her husband, John C. Young, then president of Centre College. Breckinridge enrolled there in November 1834, studying alongside future figures such as Beriah Magoffin and Theodore O'Hara. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in September 1838, then spent a winter at the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University, before reading law back in Kentucky under Judge William Owsley and then at Transylvania University. He received his Bachelor of Laws on the 25th of February 1841, and was licensed to practice the following day.

• 3. A Lawyer Finds His Party

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  On the 10th of October 1841, Breckinridge and former classmate Thomas W. Bullock departed for the Iowa Territory, seeking better prospects than an overcrowded Kentucky bar. They considered settling on land Breckinridge had inherited in Jacksonville, Illinois, but the local bar already included Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, and they pressed on to Burlington, Iowa. By the winter of 1842-1843, Breckinridge reported to family that his firm handled more cases than almost any other in Burlington.

  His family back in Kentucky were largely Whigs. When his uncle William learned of his Democratic affiliation, he declared he felt as he would have done "if I had heard that my daughter had been dishonored." Breckinridge made his party loyalty official by February 1843, when he was named to the Democratic committee of Des Moines County.

  A visit home in May 1843 stretched into the summer after he contracted influenza. During that stay, he met Mary Cyrene Burch, a cousin of Bullock's, and the two were engaged by September. He returned to Iowa to close his business, came back to Kentucky, and married on the 12th of December 1843. The couple settled in Georgetown, then moved to Lexington in 1845. He formed a law partnership with future U.S. Senator James B. Beck. The couple had six children, their last, Mary Desha, born in 1854.

  His legal work brought him into orbit around the Whig statesman Henry Clay, whose library he borrowed when he was first starting out. He paid back a kind of debt in the summer of 1852, when he made daily visits to the dying Clay in Lexington and was then chosen to deliver Clay's eulogy before Congress at the next session. The eulogy solidified his standing as Clay's political heir in the district.

• 4. Rising Through Congress

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  Breckinridge won his first congressional seat in 1851 in what was called the "Ashland district," a Whig stronghold that had not even fielded a Democratic candidate in the previous election. His opponent, Leslie Combs, was expected to win easily. Breckinridge carried only three of the district's seven counties, but accumulated a two-to-one victory margin in Owen County alone, winning the county by 677 votes and the election by 537.

  House Speaker Linn Boyd assigned him to the lightly regarded Committee on Foreign Affairs, despite supporters pushing him for Speaker. What looked like a slight became an opportunity: his first major speeches defending former General William Butler from attacks by supporters of Stephen Douglas earned him a reputation for principled argument and enhanced his standing above what the committee assignment suggested.

  He also defended the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and opposed Andrew Johnson's proposed Homestead Act, fearing it would create territories that excluded slavery. Yet he simultaneously sought increased federal funding for Kentucky's rivers, harbors, and hemp farmers, showing the practical distance between his constitutional rhetoric and his constituents' needs.

  A near-duel during debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act illustrated the era's volatility. New York's Francis B. Cutting demanded that Breckinridge explain or retract a statement. Breckinridge interpreted this as a formal challenge and named rifles at 60 paces at Silver Spring, Maryland. Cutting had not intended a duel and proposed pistols at 10 paces instead. Mutual friends resolved the standoff peacefully, which was fortunate: the recently adopted Kentucky Constitution barred anyone who participated in a duel from holding elected office.

  After reapportionment in February 1854 redrew his district, removing the reliably Democratic Owen County and replacing it with Harrison and Nicholas Counties, Breckinridge concluded re-election was unlikely and retired from the House. President Pierce nominated him U.S. Minister to Spain, but Breckinridge declined on the 8th of February 1855, citing reasons "of a private and domestic nature." He wanted to care for his sick wife and rebuild his personal finances through his law practice.

• 5. Youngest Vice President

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  At the 1856 Democratic National Convention in Cincinnati, Breckinridge backed Pierce, then Douglas when Pierce's hopes collapsed. Douglas still could not secure two-thirds of the delegates and withdrew, leaving James Buchanan as the nominee. Kentucky-born Illinois Representative William Alexander Richardson then suggested Breckinridge for vice president, arguing he would balance the ticket and pacify supporters of both Douglas and Pierce.

  Despite Breckinridge's nominal refusal out of deference to fellow Kentuckian Linn Boyd, eight state delegations cast 55 votes for him on the first ballot regardless, making him the second-highest vote-getter behind Mississippi's John A. Quitman with 59. By the second ballot, his nomination was inevitable, and the delegates made it unanimous.

  Inaugurated on the 4th of March 1857, at age 36, Breckinridge exceeded the constitutional minimum age by only a year. His relationship with Buchanan was strained from the start. Buchanan resented that Breckinridge had supported both Pierce and Douglas before endorsing his nomination. A misunderstanding about how to request a private meeting at the White House deepened the rift, and Buchanan rarely consulted him on patronage. In November 1857, Breckinridge sold a slave woman and her infant while finding lodging in Washington, which historian James C. Klotter suggests probably ended his days as a slaveholder.

  As the Senate's presiding officer, Breckinridge could not participate in floor debates but won praise for presiding "gracefully and impartially." On the 4th of January 1859, he was asked to deliver the final address in the Old Senate Chamber before the Senate moved to its new room. He expressed hope that "another Senate, in another age, shall bear to a new and larger Chamber, this Constitution vigorous and inviolate." The Senate had grown from 32 to 64 members during its half century in that chamber.

• 6. The Four-Way Election

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  Southern Democrats walked out of the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, after the party failed to adopt a federal slave code plank. After 57 inconclusive ballots, delegates agreed to reconvene in Baltimore. There, the party split: pro-Douglas delegates nominated Douglas and Herschel Vespasian Johnson; the protesting Southern delegates, meeting separately on the same day, nominated Breckinridge on the first ballot with 81 votes, later made unanimous, and chose Joseph Lane of Oregon as his running mate.

  Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis attempted to broker a unity withdrawal under which Douglas, Breckinridge, and Constitutional Union nominee John Bell would all step aside for a compromise candidate. Both Breckinridge and Bell agreed. Douglas refused, his supporters still bitter toward Breckinridge, and the plan collapsed.

  Accused of favoring disunion, Breckinridge denied it in a speech in Frankfort: "I am an American citizen, a Kentuckian who never did an act nor cherished a thought that was not full of devotion to the Constitution and the Union." To Varina Davis he confided, "I trust I have the courage to lead a forlorn hope."

  In the final count, Breckinridge finished third in the popular vote with 18.1% but second in the Electoral College with 72 votes. Lincoln took 180, Bell 39, and Douglas 12. Historian James C. Klotter observes that, while Douglas claimed every disunionist in America was a Breckinridge man, Breckinridge's support in the Deep South came mostly from rural areas with low slave populations; the urban areas with higher slave populations generally went for Bell or Douglas. Bell even captured Breckinridge's home state of Kentucky.

• 7. From Senator to Confederate General

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  In December 1860, the Kentucky General Assembly elected Breckinridge to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by John J. Crittenden, defeating Joshua Fry Bell by a vote of 81-53. Taking his seat in January 1861, with seven states already seceded, he used his remaining influence as vice president to try to get Crittenden's proposed compromise amendments passed, but the Committee of Thirteen reported it could not reach agreement.

  On the 4th of March 1861, his last day as vice president, Breckinridge swore in Hannibal Hamlin as his successor. Hamlin then swore in the newly elected senators, including Breckinridge himself. In his new Senate role, he urged Lincoln to withdraw federal forces from Confederate states to avert war and proposed a border states conference, which the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12 ended.

  He was the only senator to vote against a resolution authorizing Lincoln to use "the entire resources of the government" for the war. On August 1, he declared that if Kentucky sided with the federal government, "she will be represented by some other man on the floor of this Senate." Word reached him that Union General Thomas E. Bramlette intended to arrest him, and on the 19th of September 1861, he left Lexington. He was joined in Prestonsburg by Confederate sympathizers George W. Johnson, George Baird Hodge, William Preston, and William E. Simms.

  On the 4th of December 1861, the Senate expelled him by a vote of 36-0 under a resolution declaring him "the traitor." He had already officially enlisted in the Confederate army and been commissioned a brigadier general on the 2nd of November 1861, on the recommendation of Simon Bolivar Buckner. He was given command of what would become known as the Orphan Brigade on November 16, so called because its Kentucky men felt orphaned by their Unionist state government.

• 8. War, Exile, and Return

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  Breckinridge's most celebrated military action came at the Battle of New Market on the 15th of May 1864, where, commanding about 4,800 men including 261 cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, he defeated Franz Sigel's force of 6,300 and drove them west across the Shenandoah River. The victory protected a crucial railroad junction and defended the valley's wheat supply. Many in the South afterward compared him to the late Stonewall Jackson.

  His most painful engagement was the Battle of Stones River, where Bragg ordered him, against his own advice, to launch a frontal assault on a Union position on the 2nd of January 1863. Before the attack, he wrote to William Preston: "if the attack should result in disaster and I be among the killed, I want you to do justice to my memory." In just over an hour, nearly one-third of his troops were killed, wounded, or captured. As he rode among the survivors afterward, he reportedly cried out repeatedly, "My poor Orphans! My poor Orphans."

  Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed Breckinridge Secretary of War on the 6th of February 1865. His first act in office was to promote Robert E. Lee to general-in-chief of all Confederate forces. As the situation collapsed in the spring, he urged Davis to arrange a surrender, reportedly saying: "This has been a magnificent epic. In God's name let it not terminate in farce." He preserved Confederate archives and records before Richmond fell, and when he later assisted Joseph E. Johnston in surrender negotiations with William Tecumseh Sherman, Sherman praised his negotiating skills.

  When he learned of Lincoln's assassination on April 18, Breckinridge was visibly devastated. Eyewitnesses recalled him saying, "Gentlemen, the South has lost its best friend." He spent the next months in flight, eventually escaping the country with a small party that included Confederate naval officer John Taylor Wood. President Andrew Johnson extended amnesty to all former Confederates in 1868, and Breckinridge returned to Kentucky, though he refused every invitation to return to political life. War injuries steadily undermined his health, and he died on the 17th of May 1875, at the age of 54.