John Breckinridge | |
|---|---|
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| 5th United States Attorney General | |
| In office August 7, 1805 – December 14, 1806 | |
| President | Thomas Jefferson |
| Preceded by | Levi Lincoln Sr. |
| Succeeded by | Caesar A. Rodney |
| United States Senator from Kentucky | |
| In office March 4, 1801 – August 7, 1805 | |
| Preceded by | Humphrey Marshall |
| Succeeded by | John Adair |
| Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives | |
| In office 1799–1800 | |
| Preceded by | Edmund Bullock |
| Succeeded by | John Adair |
| Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives for Fayette County | |
| In office 1798–1800 | |
| Attorney General of Kentucky | |
| In office December 19, 1793 – November 30, 1797 | |
| Governor | Isaac Shelby James Garrard |
| Preceded by | George Nicholas |
| Succeeded by | James Blair |
| Member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Montgomery County | |
| In office 1784–1785 Serving with Robert Sayers | |
| Preceded by | John Preston |
| Succeeded by | Daniel Trigg |
| Member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Botetourt County | |
| In office 1783–1784 Serving with Archibald Stuart | |
| Preceded by | Thomas Madison |
| Succeeded by | George Hancock |
| Member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Botetourt County | |
| In office 1784–1781 Serving with Samuel Lewis | |
| Preceded by | Thomas Madison |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Madison |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 2, 1760 Augusta County, Virginia, British America |
| Died | December 14, 1806 (aged 46) Fayette County, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Resting place | Lexington Cemetery |
| Political party | Democratic-Republican |
| Spouse | Mary Hopkins Cabell |
| Children | 9, including Cabell and Robert |
| Relatives | Breckinridge family |
| Education | Washington and Lee University College of William & Mary |
| Signature | &sq=&lang=&file=File:John_Breckinridge_Signature.svg){kind=small} |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Thirteen Colonies |
| Branch/service | Virginia militia |
| Battles/wars | American Revolutionary War |
John Breckinridge (December 2, 1760 – December 14, 1806) was an American lawyer, slave-owning planter, soldier, and politician in Virginia and Kentucky. He served several terms each in both state's legislatures before legislators elected him to the U.S. Senate. He also served as United States Attorney General during the second term of President Thomas Jefferson. He is the progenitor of Kentucky's Breckinridge political family and the namesake of Breckinridge County, Kentucky.
Breckinridge's father was landowner and colonel in the local Virginia militia who married into the Preston political family. Breckinridge attended the William and Mary College intermittently between 1780 and 1784; his attendance was interrupted by the Revolutionary War and he three times won election to the Virginia House of Delegates. One of the youngest members of that (part-time) body, this allowed him to meet many prominent politicians. In 1785, he married "Polly" Cabell, a member of the Cabell political family. Despite making his legal and farming activities, letters from relatives in Kentucky convinced him to move to the western frontier. He established "Cabell's Dale", his plantation, near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1793.
Breckinridge continued his legal and political career and was appointed as the state's attorney general soon after arriving. In November 1797, he resigned to campaign, then won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives. As a legislator, Breckinridge secured passage of a more humane criminal code that abolished the death penalty for all offenses except first-degree murder. On a 1798 trip back to Virginia, an intermediary gave him Thomas Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions, which denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts. At Jefferson's request, Breckinridge assumed credit for the modified resolutions he shepherded through the Kentucky General Assembly; Jefferson's authorship was not discovered until after Breckinridge's death. Although Breckinridge opposed calling a constitutional convention for the new state in 1799 he was elected as a delegate. Due to his influence, the state's government remained comparatively aristocratic, maintaining protections for slavery and limiting the power of the electorate. Called the father of the resultant constitution, he emerged from the convention as the acknowledged leader of the state's Democratic-Republican Party and fellow delegates elected him Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1799 and 1800.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1800, Breckinridge functioned as Jefferson's floor leader, guiding administration bills through the chamber that was narrowly controlled by his party. Residents of the western frontier called for his nomination as vice president in 1804, but Jefferson appointed him as U.S. Attorney General in 1805 instead. He was the first cabinet-level official from the West but had little impact before his death from tuberculosis on December 14, 1806, at the age of 46.