James B. McCreary

James Bennett McCreary (July 8, 1838 – October 8, 1918) was an American lawyer and politician from Kentucky. He was a member of the Democratic Party; identified with its reform wing.

He represented the state in both houses of the U.S. Congress and served as its 27th and 37th governor. Shortly after graduating from law school, he was commissioned as the only major in the 11th Kentucky Cavalry, serving under Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan during the American Civil War. He returned to his legal practice after the war. In 1869, he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives where he served until 1875; he was twice chosen Speaker of the House. At their 1875 nominating convention, state Democrats chose McCreary as their nominee for governor, and he won an easy victory over Republican John Marshall Harlan. With the state still feeling the effects of the Panic of 1873, most of McCreary's actions as governor were aimed at easing the plight of the state's poor farmers.

In 1884, McCreary was elected to the first of six consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a legislator, he was an advocate of free silver and a champion of the state's agricultural interests. After two failed bids for election to the Senate, McCreary secured the support of Governor J. C. W. Beckham, and in 1902, the General Assembly elected him to the Senate. He served one largely undistinguished term, and Beckham then successfully challenged him for his Senate seat in 1908. The divide between McCreary and Beckham was short-lived, however, and Beckham supported McCreary's election to a second term as governor in 1911.

Campaigning on a platform of progressive reforms, McCreary defeated Republican Edward C. O'Rear in the general election. During this second term, he became the first inhabitant of the state's second (and current) governor's mansion; he is also the only governor to have inhabited both the old and new mansions. During his second term, he presided over the passage of various labor laws and succeeded in convincing the legislature to make women eligible to vote in school board elections, to mandate direct primary elections, to create a state public utilities commission, and to allow the state's counties to hold local option elections to decide whether or not to adopt prohibition. He also realized substantial increases in education spending and won passage of reforms such as a mandatory school attendance law, but was unable to secure passage of laws restricting lobbying in the legislative chambers and providing for a workers' compensation program. McCreary was one of five commissioners charged with overseeing construction of the new governor's mansion and exerted considerable influence on the construction plans. His term expired in 1915, and he died three years later. McCreary County was formed during McCreary's second term in office and was named in his honor.

Early life James Bennett McCreary was born in Richmond, Kentucky, on July 8, 1838. He was the son of Edmund R. and Sabrina (Bennett) McCreary. He obtained his early education in the region's common schools, then matriculated to Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1857. Immediately thereafter, he enrolled at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, to study law. In 1859, he earned a Bachelor of Laws from Cumberland and was valedictorian of his class of forty-seven students; he was admitted to the bar and commenced practice at Richmond.

Shortly after the Battle of Richmond on August 29, 1862, David Waller Chenault, a Confederate sympathizer from Madison County, came to Richmond to raise a Confederate regiment. On September 10, 1862, Chenault was commissioned as a colonel and given command of the regiment, dubbed the 11th Kentucky Cavalry. McCreary joined the regiment and was commissioned as a major, the only one in the unit. The 11th Kentucky Cavalry was pressed into immediate service, conducting reconnaissance and fighting bushwhackers. Just three months after its muster, they helped the Confederate Army secure a victory at the Battle of Hartsville. In 1863, the unit joined John Hunt Morgan for his raid into Ohio. Colonel Chenault was killed as the Confederates tried to capture the Green River Bridge at the July 4, 1863, Battle of Tebbs Bend. McCreary assumed command of the unit after Chenault's death. Following the battle, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel on the recommendation of John C. Breckinridge.

Most of the 11th Kentucky Cavalry was captured by Union forces at the Battle of Buffington Island on July 17, 1863. Approximately two hundred men, commanded by McCreary, mounted a charge and escaped their captors, but they were surrounded the next day and surrendered. McCreary was taken to Ninth Street Prison in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was later transferred to Fort Delaware and eventually to Morris Island, South Carolina, where he remained a prisoner through July and most of August 1863. In late August, he was released as part of a prisoner exchange and taken to Richmond, Virginia. He was granted a thirty-day furlough before being put in command of a battalion of Kentucky and South Carolina troops. He commanded this unit, primarily on scouting missions, until the end of the war.

Following the war, McCreary resumed his legal practice. On June 12, 1867, McCreary married Catherine "Kate" Hughes (April 15, 1844 – October 22, 1908), the only daughter of Julia Ann Smith and Thomas Hughes, a wealthy Fayette County farmer. The action was opposed by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, a bitter rival of the Cincinnati line. Moreover, newly elected governor Preston Leslie had opposed a bill granting Cincinnati Southern's request when he was in the state Senate in 1869. In the lead-up to the 1871 session, frustrated Central Kentuckians threatened to defect from the Democratic Party in future elections if the bill were not passed in the session. With the will of the people clearly expressed through the legislature, Governor Leslie did not employ his gubernatorial veto. However, McCreary defeated Williams on the fourth ballot. In joint debates across the state, McCreary stressed what many Kentuckians felt were abuses of power by Republican President Ulysses S. Grant during the Reconstruction Era.

In the wake of the Panic of 1873, the electorate was primarily concerned with economic issues. In his first address to the General Assembly, McCreary focused on economic issues to the near exclusion of providing any leadership or direction in the area of government reforms. In response to McCreary's address, legislators from the rural, agrarian areas of the state proposed lowering the maximum legal interest rate from ten percent to six percent. The proposed legislation drew the ire of bankers and capitalists; it was also widely panned in the press, notably by Louisville Courier-Journal editor Henry Watterson. This fact, too, was widely criticized by the state's newspapers.

Also in the 1878 session, tax assessments for railroad property were raised to match those of other property. Non-economic reforms included the separation of Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College (later the University of Kentucky) from Kentucky University (later Transylvania University) and the establishment of a state board of health.

Along with Democrats John Stuart Williams, William Lindsay, and J. Proctor Knott, and Republican Robert Boyd, McCreary was nominated for a U.S. Senate seat in 1878. Democrats were divided by sectionalism and initially unable to unite behind one of their four candidates. After more than a week of caucusing among Democratic legislators, the nominations of McCreary, Knott, and Lindsay were withdrawn, and Williams was elected over Boyd. Historian Hambleton Tapp opined that the withdrawals were likely a part of some kind of deal among legislators, although the details of the deal, if it ever existed, were not made public.

Service in Congress Following his term as governor, McCreary returned to his legal practice. His opponents for the Democratic nomination were Milton J. Durham and Philip B. Thompson Jr., both of whom had held the district's seat previously.

J. C. W. Beckham, McCreary's sometime ally, succeeded him in the Senate. In 1890, McCreary's name was again placed in nomination for a U.S. Senate seat to succeed James B. Beck, who died in office. John G. Carlisle, J. Proctor Knott, William Lindsay, Laban T. Moore, and Evan E. Settle were also nominated by various factions of the Democratic Party; Republicans nominated Silas Adams. Carlisle was elected on the ninth ballot. McCreary continued his service in the House until 1896, when he was defeated in his bid for a seventh consecutive nomination for the seat. Following these defeats, he resumed his law practice in Richmond. Between 1900 and 1912, he represented Kentucky at four consecutive Democratic National Conventions. His opponent, incumbent William J. Deboe, had been elected as a compromise candidate six years earlier, becoming Kentucky's first-ever Republican senator. Following his election to the Senate, McCreary supported Beckham's gubernatorial re-election bid in 1903. In a largely undistinguished term as a senator, he continued to advocate the free coinage of silver and tried to advance the state's agricultural interests.

Second term as governor and death Despite Beckham's move to unseat McCreary in the Senate, the two were once again allies by 1911, when Beckham supported the aging McCreary for the party's gubernatorial nomination.

Republicans nominated Judge Edward C. O'Rear to oppose McCreary. McCreary also changed his stance on the liquor question, now agreeing with Beckham's prohibitionist position; this also matched the Republican position. O'Rear claimed that Democrats should have already enacted the reforms their party platform advocated, but his only ready line of attack against McCreary himself was that he would be a pawn of Beckham and his allies.

McCreary pointed out that O'Rear had been nominated at a party nominating convention instead of winning a primary, though O'Rear claimed to support primary elections.

Construction of the new governor's mansion The current Kentucky Governor's Mansion was constructed during McCreary's second gubernatorial term. One of McCreary's first acts as governor was signing a bill appropriating $75,000 for the construction of a new governor's mansion. The legislature appointed a commission of five, including McCreary, to oversee the mansion's construction. The governor exercised a good deal of influence over the process, including the replacement of a conservatory with a ballroom in the construction plan and the selection of a contractor from his hometown of Richmond as assistant superintendent of construction. Changing societal trends also affected construction. A hastily constructed stable to house horse-drawn carriages was soon abandoned in favor of a garage for automobiles.

The mansion was completed in 1914. His son's daughter, Harriet Newberry McCreary, served as the mansion's first official hostess during her summer vacations from her studies at Wellesley College. Sometimes McCreary's housekeeper, Jennie Shaw, served as hostess. McCreary authorized the state to sell the old mansion at auction, but the final bid of $13,600 was rejected as unfair by the mansion commission.

Progressive reforms Among the progressive reforms advocated by McCreary and passed in the 1912 legislative session were making women eligible to vote in school board elections, mandating direct primary elections, and allowing the state's counties to hold local option elections to decide whether or not to adopt prohibition. Near the close of the session, McCreary County was created and named in the governor's honor.

McCreary was not as successful in securing reforms during the 1914 legislative session. He advocated a comprehensive workmen's compensation law, but the law that was passed in the 1914 General Assembly was later declared unconstitutional. He also recommended a requirement for full disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures, but the majority of legislators in the House of Representatives voted to send it back to the Suffrage and Elections Committee, from whence it was never recalled. Although they did not pass a law regulating lobbying at the capitol—a law that McCreary supported—legislators showed responsiveness to McCreary's desire for this reform by putting stricter regulations on who could be in the legislative chambers while the legislature was in session. Some reforms were made in the area of education. The school year was lengthened, school attendance for children was mandated, and the legislature created a Text Book Commission to assist local school boards in adopting textbooks. Public schools expenditures were increased by 25 percent.

Following the expiration of his term as governor, McCreary continued to practice as a private attorney until his death on October 8, 1918. He was buried in Richmond Cemetery in Richmond, Kentucky.