John C. Breckinridge Brief Biography

John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 - May 17, 1875) was a lawyer, politician, and soldier from the U.S. state of Kentucky. He represented the state in both houses of Congress and became the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He served in the U.S. Senate during the outbreak of the American Civil War, but was expelled after joining the Confederate Army. He remains the only Senator of the United States convicted of treason against the United States of America by the Senate. He was appointed Confederate Secretary of War late in the war. A member of the prominent Breckinridge family, he was the grandson of U.S. Attorney General John Breckinridge, son of Kentucky Secretary of State Cabell Breckinridge and father of Arkansas Congressman Clifton R. Breckinridge.

After non-combat service in the Mexican-American War, Breckinridge was elected as a Democrat to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1849 where he took a states' rights position against legal interference with slavery. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1851, he allied with Senator Stephen A. Douglas in support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. After reapportionment in 1854 made his re-election unlikely, he declined to run for another term. He was nominated for vice-president at the 1856 Democratic National Convention to balance a ticket headed by Pennsylvanian James Buchanan, after Breckinridge had previously supported both incumbent President Franklin Pierce and Douglas for the nomination. The Democrats won the election, but Breckinridge had little influence with Buchanan and, as presiding officer of the Senate, could not express his opinions in that body's debates. In 1859, he was elected to succeed U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden at the end of Crittenden's term in 1861. As vice president, Breckinridge joined with Buchanan in supporting the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, which led to a split in the Democratic Party. The "Southern" wing was led by Breckinridge, doughfaced Northerner Buchanan, and the northern wing, which supported popular sovereignty for determining slave-holding status, was led by Douglas.

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