Because of his centrist position, Breckinridge became a very attractive candidate for the Democratic Party in 1856. The father, Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, a rising young politician, died at … In November 1864 he undertook an expedition into Tennessee and won a victory at the Battle of Bull’s Gap. He received no answer. PDF Help | He returned east to the battle of Cold Harbor, and in July 1864 he and General Jubal T. Early led a dramatic raid on Washington, D.C. Breckinridge's troops advanced as far as Silver Spring, Maryland, where they sacked Francis Blair's home but did not destroy it, supposedly at the urging of Breckinridge, who had often been a guest there. Title For President, John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. John C. Breckinridge, a former U.S. senator and representative from Kentucky with ties to Douglas, received the vice presidential nomination. John C. Breckinridge was an American statesman and who served as the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President of the United States; he served from 1857 to 1861, in the administration of James Buchanan. John Bell By Patrick Eakin In 1860 the Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell for President of the United States. After officially joining the Democrat party in 1843, John C. Breckinridgegot involved in political activities including campaigning for presidential nominee James K. Polk in 1844 campaign. Breckinridge became a spokesman for the proslavery Democrats, arguing that the federal government had no right to interfere with slavery anywhere, either in the District of Columbia or in any of the territories. www.senate.gov, Senator Baker was killed while leading his militia at the Battle of Ball's Bluff. His grandfather had served in the U.S. Senate and as attorney general under President Thomas Jefferson, and his father was a prominent lawyer and state politician. One Arkansas delegate admired "his manner, his severely simple style of delivery with scarcely an ornament [or] gesture and deriving its force and eloquence solely from the remarkably choice ready flow of words, the rich voice and intonation." Created / Published During those years, he observed, the Constitution had "survived peace and war, prosperity and adversity" to protect "the larger personal freedom compatible with public order." When President Lincoln called Congress into special session on July 4, 1861, to raise the arms and men necessary to fight the Civil War, Breckinridge returned to Washington as the leader of what was left of the Senate Democrats. During this time Breckinridge argued for an organized end to the hostilities and counseled Confederate President Jefferson Davis against extending the war through guerilla actions. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Fearing arrest, he fled to the South in September 1861 after Kentucky sided with the Union. Despite this loss, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate by the Kentucky legislature in March 1861. Breckinridge began his political career in 1849, when he won a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives. Across the river they could see the red stripes of the American flag, which Breckinridge viewed nostalgically but the more embittered Davis described as "the gridiron we have been fried on. Viewed as a traitor in the North, Breckinridge travelled to Virginia and offered his services to the Confederacy. The New Yorker objected that he had never handled a western rifle and that as the challenged party he should pick the weapons. He attended the convention as a delegate, voting first for Pierce and then switching to Douglas. The platform is quite similar to the platform of the Douglas Democrats, including the… John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. In 1849, while still only twenty-eight years old, he won a seat in the state house of representatives. John C. Calhoun (1782-1850), was a prominent U.S. statesman and spokesman for the slave-plantation system of the antebellum South. He then attended Princeton before returning to Lexington to study law at Transylvania University. When the two next encountered each other in the House, Breckinridge looked his adversary in the eye and said: "Cutting, give me a chew of tobacco!" Created / Published They thought Breckinridge would appease Douglas, since the two men had been closely identified through their work on the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Before the construction was completed, however, the friendship had become deeply strained when Douglas fell out with President Buchanan over slavery in Kansas. 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