Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol Book

When John Cabell Breckinridge was elected Vice President on the Democratic ticket along with James
Buchanan he was and still is the youngest Vice President in our history. Four years after his term
was up Breckinridge was fleeing the USA because he had become a Confederate general and in the
final months of the Confederacy its Secretary of War.

Breckinridge came from a distinguished Kentucky family, his grandfather had been in the US Senate
and Attorney General with Thomas Jefferson. Breckinridge served in the Mexican War and resumed
the law practice he had before that war. In 1850 he ran and won a seat in the House of Representatives and served two terms. Breckinridge supported states rights and the Kansas-Nebraska Act which allowed for the settlers in that territory to choose between free or slave state
status. When his district was gerrymandered in a reapportionment Breckinridge declined to run.

In 1856 Breckinridge as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention was a supporter of renominating Franklin Pierce. When James Buchanan was nominated and Buchanan was 65 years
old the powers that be thought a younger running mate was in order.

Buchanan ignored Brecknridge in his term in office. But Breckinridge did solidify his states rights
pro-southern credentials.

Come 1860 and the Democratic party blew apart. Stephen Douglas got the regular Democratic
nomination, but a rump faction of southern delegates nominated Breckinridge with Joseph Lane
of Oregon as the Vice Presidential. With Douglas, Breckinridge and a Union party ticket headed
by John Bell, Abraham Lincoln carried all the northern states and won the Electoral College. Breckinridge with one exception carried the states that became the Confederacy.

His home state of Kentucky elected him to the Senate and he did serve the greater part of 1861
there as a critic of the Lincoln administration. In the end he defected and joined the Confederate
army and was commissioned a general.

Breckinridge did distinguish himself in action and was involved in battles such as Shiloh, Chickamagua and Cold Harbor. When the Civil War was in its last months Jefferson Davis made
Breckinridge Secretary of War where his main task seemed to be insuring that a lot of Confederate
government top officials escaped. Breckinridge and his family fled to Canada and then to Europe
where he did a lot of traveling.

When he got back to Kentucky Breckinridge assumes the role of a young elder statesman. He
worked hard for reconciliation and gets high marks from me for denouncing the Ku Klux Klan.
Breckinridge dies in 1875.

As Breckinridge's career spans both political and military history, both political and military
historians will find much to praise in author William C. Davis's book.