He was a local politician, US senator and youngest VP in US history. Nope, not JD Vance
Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history - some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.
Jan. 16, 1821: John Cabell Breckinridge is born near Lexington.
Breckinridge was a Kentucky statesman and politician, the son of Kentucky Attorney General John Breckinridge. He served as state representative, a member of the US House of Representatives, a US senator and vice president of the United States, the country’s youngest ever at 36.
He served as the 14th vice president of the US, serving under President James Buchanan, from 1857-1861.
Coming from a family of prominent Kentuckians, Breckinridge’s history is complicated. While many in his family were abolitionists, he favored slavery and publicly opposed any infringement on the right to own slaves.
At the same time, he was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Lexington that opposed slavery, and as an attorney, he had previously represented free Blacks in court and had expressed support for voluntary emancipation.
When the Democratic party split over the issue of slavery, Breckinridge ran for president as a Southern Democrat in 1860. But the newly formed Republican Party, which resisted the expansion of slavery, proved too much, and Breckinridge lost to Abraham Lincoln.
Breckinridge went home to run for Senate and succeeded fellow Lexingtonian, John J. Crittenden. At first, he worked toward accommodation and compromise, but when the Civil War broke out, Breckinridge determined the Union no longer existed and that Kentucky should be free to succeed.
Breckinridge joined the Confederate Army for which he was expelled from the Senate and accused of treason. He served as a major general from 1862 until the waning months of the war, when he was appointed Confederate Secretary of War in 1865.
As the War Between the States came to an end, he fled to England. After three years of self-imposed exile, he returned to his Lexington law practice where he worked until his death seven years later.
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 10:00 AM.
