Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/420

 BRECKINRIDGE.

BRECKINRIDGE.

Virpfinia " prare him ii soat despite his nonage. His constituents kept him in the Jiouse of dele- gates until ITS"), when, having been admitted to the bar. he moved to Albemarle county, and began to practise in the courts of Charlottesville. He rose rapiilly in his profession, was elected repre.sentative to the 3d U. S. Congress in 1792, and resigned his seat the same year, having decided to remove his residence to the newly admitted state of Kentucky. He located on a tract of about twenty-five hundred acres, some six miles north of Lexington, which, in honor of his wife, Mary Cabell, he called " CabelFs Dale," and opened there a law office and also one in Lexington, intending to devote himself to the jtractice of his profession. From 1797 to 1800 he was a member of the legislature, and during his Lust term speaker of the house. He was defeated as candidate for U. S. senator by the Federalist candidate, Humphrey Slarshall, by a few votes; and Governor Shelby, in 1795, appointed him attorney-general of Kentucky. The criminal code of Kentucky at this time prescribed the death jienalty to no less than one hundred and sixty crimes, extending it to some trivial offences, juries could not be found to convict an offen- der except in cases of aggravated criminality; and while in the legislature Mr. Breckinridge secured a revision of the code so as to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except murder in the first degree. He introduced in the Kentucky house of rei)re.sentatives on Nov. 8, 1798, certain reso- lutions strongly condemnatory of the obnoxious alien and sedition laws, which, being passed by the house on the 10th of that month, concurred in by the .senate, and approved of by the governor, were forwarded to the state and general govern- ments as the protest of Kentucky against those enactments, and in the following year the Ken- tucky legislature pas.sed another resolution — also intrrnluced by Mr. Breckinridge — affirming that " any state might rightfully nullify any act of Congress which it regarded as unconstitu- tional." The authorship of the original resolu- tions is almost unanimously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but President Ethelbert D. Warfield, in hLs volume, "Kentucky Resolutions of 1798" (1887), makes it clear that while the basis of the paper was from the hand of Mr. Jeffer.son, its more important portions were the work of Mr. Breckinridge. He was elected to the senate of the United States in 1800, and he took his seat March 4, 180l, upon the inauguration of President Jefferson, who made him his intermediary with that Ixxly, and he became the leader of his party in the senate. In December, 1805, President Jefferson appointed him as attorney-general in his cabinet. He died in Lexington, Ky., Dec. 14, 1806.

BRECKINRIDGE, John, clergjTnan, was born at Cabell's Dale, near Lexington, Ky., July 4, 1797; son of John and Mary (Cabell) Breckin- ridge. He was educated at Nassau hall, Prince- ton, N. J., and was graduated from the coUege in 1818, where he was for a short time a tutor, and served for eleven years as one of its trustees. In 1822 he was licensed to preach by the Presby- tery of New Brimswick, and in the .same year was chosen chaplain of the house of representatives in the 17th Congress. He then for four years served as pastor to a church at Lexington, Ky., and founded the Western Luminary there. He was called to the second Presbyterian church of Baltimore in 1826, and in 1831 removed to Phila- delphia to act as secretary of the Presbyterian board of education. In 1836 he was appointed professor of pastoral theology in the Theological seminary at Princeton, and while holding this position he had an extended public controversy with Archbishop Hughes of New York. In 1838 he was made secretary and general agent of the Presbyterian board of foreign missions, and he .served in that capacity until 1841, when he was appointed to the presidency of Oglethorpe college in Georgia. He was much interested in the project of colonizing the colored people of this country in Africa, and for several j-ears was president of a society organized to promote that object. His controversy with Archbishop Hughes as to the bearing of the teachings of the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, respectively, on civil or religious liberty, was published in 1836, and in 1839 he published a "Memorial of Mrs. Breckinridge." His labors were mostly confined to the pulpit and the plat- form, and he exercised a commanding influence in his denomination. He died while on a visit to Cabell's Dale, Ky., Aug. 4, 1841.

BRECKINRIDGE, John Cabell, vice president of the United States, was burn at Cabell's Dale, Ky., Jan. 16, 1821; son of John Cabell and Mary C. (Smith) Breckinridge, grandson of John Breck- inridge, U. S. district attorney, and a nephew of John and Robert J. Breckim-idge, distinguished Pre.sbji;erian divines. He was graduated at Centre college in 1838, and in law at Transylvania university in 1840. He began the practice of his profession at Frankfort, Ky., then removed to Bur- lington, Iowa. He returned to his native place in 1843 and opened an office at Georgetown, remov- ing in 1845 to Lexington, where he speedily ac- quired a lucrative practice. On the breaking out of the war with Mexico he served as major of a regiment of Kentucky volunteers, and al.so as at- torney for General Pillow in his numerous litigations with his fellow officers. On returning to his home he was elected to the lower house of the Kentucky legislature, and in 1851 and '53