Cabell Breckinridge

Joseph Cabell Breckinridge (July 14, 1788 – September 1, 1823) was an American lawyer, soldier, slaveholder and politician in Kentucky. From 1816 to 1819, he represented Fayette County in the Kentucky House of Representatives, and fellow members elected him as their speaker (1817 to 1819). In 1820, Governor John Adair appointed Breckinridge Kentucky Secretary of State, and he served until his death.

A member of the Breckinridge political family, he was the son of Virginia (then Kentucky) lawyer, Senator, and U.S. Attorney General John Breckinridge (1760–1806) and his wife Mary Hopkins Cabell Breckinridge (1769–1858), of another distinguished political family. Their son John C. Breckinridge would follow his father's (and grandfather's) path into law and politics and rise to become Vice President of the United States.

After graduating from Princeton University, Breckinridge intended to follow his late father's example by becoming a lawyer in Lexington, Kentucky, but first enlisted for service in the War of 1812. Soon after the war, he also began his political career by winning election to the Kentucky House of Representatives, where he led an unsuccessful attempt to oust Governor Gabriel Slaughter, who had ascended to the governorship upon George Madison's death. Breckinridge served as Speaker of the Kentucky House from 1817 to 1819. In 1820, he accepted Governor Adair's appointment as Secretary of State and moved to Frankfort, the state capital, to better attend to official duties, but fell ill with a fever in August 1823 and died on September 1, 1823.

Early life and family Joseph Cabell Breckinridge was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, on July 14, 1788. He was the second child and first son of John and Mary Hopkins "Polly" (née Cabell) Breckinridge. He was named for his maternal grandfather, Joseph Cabell, of Virginia's Cabell political family and known as "Cabell" throughout his life.

In 1793, his family moved to Lexington, Kentucky. Inoculations came too late, and although Breckinridge, his mother and his sister Letitia survived infection, his sister Mary and brother Robert died.

In 1801, when Breckinridge was 12 years old, Kentucky legislators elected his father to represent the new state in the U.S. Senate. A case of measles prevented him from attending the College of William & Mary, his father's alma mater, where his cousin, future Congressman James Breckinridge, was enrolled. In 1803, Cabell Breckinridge accompanied his father to the national capital, where he witnessed the debates over the Louisiana Purchase before returning to his studies.

Breckinridge did not travel eastward with his father in late 1804, but instead studied for about a year under Colonel Samuel Wilson before enrolling at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Despite completing his final exams by April 5, he declined his father's offer to come to Washington because he needed to catch up on his studies in arithmetic. When the next term began in May, Breckinridge joined the American Whig–Cliosophic Society, a debating society founded by James Madison, Philip Freneau, Aaron Burr, and Henry Lee in 1769.

In mid-1806, Cabell learned that his father was sick back in Kentucky. Not long after, however, he received word that his father was improving and expected to meet him in Virginia en route to the capital. After returning to Princeton as the new term began, Breckinridge learned that his father had attempted to leave Cabell's Dale on October 22 but collapsed off his horse and returned to his sick bed; he died December 14, 1806. Despite Cabell's declaration to a relative that, "I consider my life dedicated to my mother's ease", he did not return immediately to Kentucky. John Breckinridge died intestate, complicating the settlement of his estate and creating financial difficulties for Cabell, who had been receiving support from his father. Desperate, he appealed to Alfred Grayson, his sister Letitia's husband and son of former Virginia Senator William Grayson, for assistance.

However, that March, Cabell joined about 125 other students protesting against the Presbyterian institution's strict rules and rigorous curriculum. College administrators subsequently suspended everyone who refused to withdraw his name from the formal protest petition. Unable to afford room and board for that long, he instead traveled south toward Lynchburg, then stayed with relatives in Fincastle. He may have also managed to return to Cabell's Dale between July 1807 to July 1808, based on the absence of family correspondence. He received his bachelor's degree in 1810. About a year later, as discussed below, he married Rev. Smith's daughter.

Marriage While completing his degree, Breckinridge began courting Mary Clay Smith, the university president's daughter and granddaughter of John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and Princeton's sixth president. After graduation, Breckinridge had journeyed home to Kentucky, but returned to Princeton. He married Mary Smith on May 11, 1811. The couple had five children – Frances (born 1812), Caroline (born 1813), Mary Cabell (born 1815), John Cabell (born 1821), and Laetitia (born 1822). Their only son followed Breckinridge family tradition and became a lawyer as well as represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress, and eventually was elected Vice President of the United States in 1856, as well as became the fifth and final Confederate States Secretary of War.

Soldier, planter and lawyer After visiting friends and relatives in Princeton, Philadelphia, and New York City, the newly wed couple moved in with Breckinridge's widowed mother at Cabell's Dale. Commissioned a major, Breckinridge served as aide-de-camp under Congressman Samuel Hopkins during the War of 1812. By 1820, Cabell Breckinridge owned eight slaves.

Political career John Adair appointed Breckinridge Secretary of State in 1820. In 1816, Breckinridge won election as a Democratic-Republican to represent Fayette Countyin the Kentucky House of Representatives, gaining the largest majority given to a candidate for office in that county to that point. His legislative career began during the national "Era of Good Feelings", largely congruent with the presidency of James Monroe, when political disagreements were relatively few. Lieutenant Governor Gabriel Slaughter, as acting governor, rescinded Madison's appointment of Charles Stewart Todd as Secretary of State, replacing him with former Senator John Pope, who was unpopular because of his vote against declaring the War of 1812.

Both appointments were unpopular in the state, and on January 27, 1817, Breckinridge formed a coalition of legislators in the House that sponsored a bill to elect "a governor to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of" Madison, essentially an attempt to oust Slaughter from the governorship. The bill passed the House by a vote of 56–30, but the Senate refused to concur. Of this appointment, historian William C. Davis wrote, "It was a prestigious, albeit not too influential, position and would require his full-time presence at the capital." Originally buried on the grounds at Cabell's Dale, he and several family members were re-interred at Lexington Cemetery near the grave of his brother Robert Jefferson Breckinridge.

Breckinridge left behind $15,000 in debts, and with the nation still in the throes of the Panic of 1819, his assets were not enough to pay off the obligations. For several years, she was dependent upon her in-laws for survival; Breckinridge's brother, Robert, assumed Cabell's debts, which he paid in full in 1832.