John Breckinridge (U.S. Attorney General)
| John Breckinridge | |
|---|---|
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| 5th United States Attorney General | |
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In office August 7, 1805 – December 14, 1806 |
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| President | Thomas Jefferson |
| Preceded by | Levi Lincoln Sr. |
| Succeeded by | Caesar A. Rodney |
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United States Senator from Kentucky |
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In office March 4, 1801 – August 7, 1805 Serving with John Brown (1801–1805) Buckner Thruston (1805) |
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| Preceded by | Humphrey Marshall |
| Succeeded by | John Adair |
| 3rd Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives | |
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In office 1799–1800 |
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| Preceded by | Edmund Bullock |
| Succeeded by | John Adair |
| Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives | |
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In office 1798–1800 |
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| 2nd Attorney General of Kentucky | |
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In office 1795 – November 30, 1797 |
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| Governor | Isaac Shelby |
| Preceded by | George Nicholas |
| Succeeded by | James Blair |
| Member of the Virginia House of Delegates | |
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In office 1781–1781 |
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In office 1783–1784 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
John Breckenridge December 2, 1760 Augusta County, Colony of Virginia |
| Died | December 14, 1806 (aged 46) Fayette County, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Resting place | Lexington Cemetery |
| Political party | Democratic-Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Hopkins Cabell |
| Relations | Progenitor of the Breckinridge family |
| Children | Nine children, including Cabell Breckinridge, William Lewis Breckinridge, and Robert Jefferson Breckinridge |
| Residence | Cabell's Dale |
| Alma mater | Augusta Academy (now Washington and Lee University) William and Mary College (now College of William & Mary) |
| Occupation | Planter, horse breeder |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Thirteen Colonies |
| Service/branch | Virginia militia |
| Battles/wars | Revolutionary War |
John Breckinridge (December 2, 1760 – December 14, 1806) was a lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of Virginia. He served in the state legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky before being elected to the U.S. Senate and appointed 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 a local politician, and his mother was a member of 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 his election to the Virginia House of Delegates. One of the youngest members of that body, his political activities acquainted him with many prominent politicians. In 1785, he married "Polly" Cabell, a member of the Cabell political family. Despite making a comfortable living through a combination of legal and agricultural endeavors, 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 was appointed as the state's attorney general soon after arriving. In November 1797, he resigned and was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives the next month. As a legislator, he secured passage of a more humane criminal code that abolished the death penalty for all offenses except first-degree murder. On a 1798 trip 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. He opposed calling a state constitutional convention in 1799 but 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 was selected Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1799 and 1800.
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