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John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was a lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. He represented the Commonwealth in both houses of Congress and in 1857, became the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President of the United States (1857–1861). Serving in the U.S. Senate at the outbreak of the Civil War, he 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 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 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. 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. After Southern Democrats walked out of the 1860 Democratic National Convention, the party's northern and southern factions held rival conventions in Baltimore, Maryland that nominated Stephen Douglas and Breckinridge, respectively, for president. Breckinridge carried most of the southern states but no northern states and lost the election. Taking his seat in the Senate, he urged compromise to preserve the Union although seven states had already seceded. Unionists took control of the state legislature when Kentucky's neutrality was breached, but Breckinridge fled behind Confederate battle lines where he was commissioned a brigadier general; he was then expelled from the Senate. After the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh, he was promoted to major general, and in October he was assigned to the command of Braxton Bragg. After Bragg charged that Breckinridge's drunkenness had contributed to Confederate defeats at Stone River and Missionary Ridge, he was transferred to the Trans-Allegheny Department, where he won his most significant victory at the Battle of New Market. After participating in Jubal Early's 1864 campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley, he was charged with defending Confederate supplies in Tennessee and Virginia. In February 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of War. Concluding that the war was hopeless, he urged Davis to arrange a national surrender. After the fall of the Confederate capital at Richmond, he ensured the preservation of Confederate military and governmental records. He then fled to Cuba, Great Britain, and finally, to Canada. In exile, he toured Europe from August 1866 to June 1868. When President Andrew Johnson extended amnesty to all former Confederates in late 1868, he returned to Kentucky, but resisted all encouragement to resume his political career. Issues from war injuries sapped his health, and after two operations, he died on May 17, 1875. ==Early life== John C. Breckinridge was born at Thorn Hill, his family's estate near Lexington, Kentucky, on January 16, 1821.〔Harrison, p. 125〕 The fourth of six children born to Joseph "Cabell" and Mary Clay (Smith) Breckinridge, he was their only son.〔Davis, p. 10〕 His mother was the daughter of Samuel Stanhope Smith, who founded Hampden–Sydney College in 1775, and granddaughter of John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.〔 Having previously served as Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, his father had been appointed Kentucky's Secretary of State just prior to his son's birth.〔Klotter in ''The Kentucky Encyclopedia'', p. 117〕 In February, the family moved with Governor John Adair to the Governor's Mansion in Frankfort, Kentucky.〔Heck, p. 3〕 In August 1823, an illness referred to as "the prevailing fever" struck Frankfort, and Cabell Breckinridge took his children to stay with his mother in Lexington.〔 On his return, both he and his wife fell ill; he died, but she survived.〔Heck, p. 4〕 His assets were not enough to pay his debts, and his wife joined the children in Lexington, supported by her mother-in-law.〔Heck, p. 5〕 While in Lexington, Breckinridge attended Pisgah Academy in Woodford County.〔"Breckinridge, John Cabell". ''Biographical Directory of the United States Congress''〕 His grandmother also taught him the political philosophies of her late husband, John Breckinridge, who served in the U.S. Senate and as Attorney General under President Thomas Jefferson.〔Klotter in ''The Breckinridges of Kentucky'', p. 97〕 As a state legislator, Breckinridge had introduced the Kentucky Resolutions, which stressed states' rights and endorsed the doctrine of nullification.〔Heck, p. 1〕 After an argument between Breckinridge's mother and grandmother in 1832, he, his mother, and his sister Laetitia moved to Danville, Kentucky, to live with his sister, Frances and her husband, who was president of Centre College.〔Heck, p. 6〕 Breckinridge's uncle, William Breckinridge, was also on the faculty there, prompting him to enroll in November 1834.〔 Among his schoolmates were Beriah Magoffin, William Birney, Theodore O'Hara, Thomas L. Crittenden and Jeremiah T. Boyle.〔Davis, p. 14〕〔Heck, p. 9〕 After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in September 1838, he spent the winter of 1838–1839 as a "resident graduate" at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).〔Davis, p. 15〕〔Heck, p. 10〕 Returning to Kentucky in mid-1839, he read law with Judge William Owsley.〔 In November 1840, he enrolled in the second year of the law course at Transylvania University in Lexington, where his instructors included two members of the Kentucky Court of Appeals – George Robertson and Thomas A. Marshall.〔Heck, pp. 10–11〕 On February 25, 1841, he received a bachelor of laws degree and was licensed to practice the next day.〔Heck, p. 11〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John C. Breckinridge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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