John Cabell Breckinridge

John Cabell Breckinridge

One day I was walking around the grounds at the capitol building in Frankfort. There sitting alone in the First Lady’s rose garden on a bench was a solemn looking fellow. He looked very distressed and confused. So, I inquired if he was feeling well or needed something. He replied that he had just discovered everyone he had ever loved was gone and for some odd reason he was all that was left. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that so I sat down beside him. He was dressed quit dapper in a dark suit with an upturned collar and some sort of fanciful scarf wrapped around his neck very tightly like a tie. I also noticed his shoes appeared to fit either foot and he had a bright gold watch chain. I thought all this was very odd, and assumed he may have been a reenacter at the capitol building. I began to inquire about his behavior the following is the account of this bizarre conversation.

I started by introducing myself, he said his name was Gen. John Breckinridge and he was in search of Gov. Leslie. I thought this was odd because Leslie was governor in the late 1800”s (1871-75). At first I told him Paul Patton was the governor this seemed to confuse him greatly. He asked me where I procured my clothing, I told him in Carrollton. He then asked if I knew Gen. Butler. I replied that I had only known his name and who he was and that I had never met him. As he began to tell me about Butler, his own life and some of the places he had been, I could do nothing but sit and listen in awe.

He told me that he was born Jan., 21st 1821 and during his younger years he had studied law at several colleges. These included Transylvania University were he earned his Associates in Arts degree, then continued studying law at Centre College and graduated from Princeton University in 1839. He had gone to Iowa to practice law with a partner Thomas Bullock who was also from the Lexington area. I asked why he went so far to practice, his answer was that this was about as far west you could go and still be “civilized”. Also he speculated in land and owned several plots in this northwestern state. In 1843 he had return to Kentucky for a rest and to visit with family and old friends. The unforeseen happened that he met and fell in love with Mary Cyrene Burch. They were married in December of 1844. After that he opened a practice in Lexington which did very well. That is until the Mexican War came about in 1847.

The Mexican War is when Gen. Butler comes into this story. John had went to Carrollton to seek a commission in the Army in Butler‘s staff. Gen Butler stated that to be a member of a general’s staff he had to be taken from “officers of the line” and that since no one in his family had been an officer he couldn’t help there. On the other hand he could offer him a place as an unsalaried volunteers aide and to advise against his accepting it. Of course he took it and was sent to Mexico City to aide in its capture. By the time he got there with a regiment the conflict was over. He spend several months there and then returned home as Major Breckinridge.

When the Major returned home he went straight to work in his law firm. Around the same time he was elected to represent his local district at Frankfort (1849). With great pleasure he ran for state rep and won so he was sent to Washington to serve in the House of Representatives (1851-55). While he was there he was approached by President Pierce. Pierce offered him a position he couldn’t say no to. That was to be Minister of Spain, but he couldn’t leave his fellow Kentuckians so he turned it down. In 1856 he was elected to the second highest position in the land. That was the vice presidency of the U.S., that was a big step from a field major. He told me that he and President Buchanan had a very cold relationship. The biggest honor he had was to be the President of the Senate. Ironically when he ran for president himself he was defeated by a tall lanky man from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Because he presided over the senate that meant he had to count the electoral votes. Some radical people thought he might try to alter the vote to favor him. So he had to post armed soldiers inside and outside of the Senate chambers. The irony was that he had to announce the winner which of course wasn’t him (1860). After his defeat he succeeded John Crittenden as US Senator from Kentucky (1861) even though Kentucky didn’t even carry him as president. In December of