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John Breckinridge (Virginia and Kentucky)

John Breckinridge
John-Breckinridge-portrait.jpg
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
3rd 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
In office
1798–1800
2nd Attorney General of Kentucky
In office
1795 – November 30, 1797
Governor Isaac Shelby
Preceded by George Nicholas
Succeeded by James Blair
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates
In office
1781–1781
In office
1783–1784
Personal details
Born John Breckenridge
(1760-12-02)December 2, 1760
Augusta County, Colony of Virginia
Died December 14, 1806(1806-12-14) (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 John Breckinridge
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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