John BRECKINRIDGE

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HON. JOHN BRECKINRIDGE of Cabell's Dale, Kentucky; b. near Staunton, Virginia, 2d December, 1760; d. 14th December, 1806; entered William and Mary College in 1778; elected a Member of the House of Delegates, 1780, when but nineteen years of age, and served there until 1785; admitted to the Bar, 1785; elected to the 3d Congress, 1793; removed to Kentucky, 1793; appointed Attorney General of the new State, 1795; at this time the Criminal Court of Kentucky prescribed death penalty to no less than one hundred and sixty crimes, juries could not be found to convict except in cases of aggravated criminalty and while in the legislature Mr. BRAINRIDGE secured a revision of the code so as to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except murder in the first degree; in 1799 he introduced into the Kentucky Legislature another bill that passed, affirming that “any State might nullify any act of Congress which it regarded as unconstitutional;” while the authorship of the original resolution is almost unanimously attributed to Thomas JEFFERSON it has been made clear that while the basis of the paper was from the hand of Mr. JEFFERSON, the most important portions were the work of Mr. BRECKINRIDGE, Member of the Legislature (serving as Speaker during his third and last term), 1707-1800; United States Senator, 1801-1805; United States Attorney General, 1805-1806; m. 28th June, 1785, Mary HOPKINS CABELL.



Alexander Breckinridge ( - )
Breckinridge Family*, Alexander Breckinridge, a man of education, a native of Ulster Province, Ireland, came to America about 1739 and settled on land near the present site of Staunton, Virginia. He was accompanied by his wife, Letitia Preston, and by her brother, John Preston. Alexander Breckinridge and John Preston were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and their ancestors had been Protestant since the Reformation. John Preston was the ancestor of the Prestons, Browns, Blairs, Marshalls, Woolleys, McDowells and other families.
Robert Preston, a son of Alexander, by his first marriage, had two sons, Robert and Alexander, who settled near the present site of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1783. Robert was a subaltern officer in the Revolutionary army and after coming to Kentucky served in several Indian campaigns, was a member of the various conventions in the Territory of Kentucky and was the first speaker of the House of Representatives in 1792.
The second wife of Robert Breckinridge, son of Alexander, was Letitia Preston, daughter of John Preston. The oldest child of this marriage was John Breckinridge.
FILE: 93ABreck.wrd

Footnotes
* Taken from the Biographical Encyclopaedia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century. Published by J. M. Armstrong & Company, Cincinnati, Ohio 1878.
Hon. John Breckinridge (December 1760 - December 1806)
Hon. John Breckinridge* lawyer, was born December 2, 1760, on a farm where Staunton, Virginia, now stands and was the oldest child of Robert and Letitia Breckinridge. His brother, Robert, was a subaltern officer in the Revolutionary army, and after the declaration of peace came to Kentucky, settling in Jefferson County. He served in several Indian campaigns during that period; was a member of the various conventions in the Territory of Kentucky, and was the first speaker of the House of Representatives in 1792. His mother, Letitia Preston, was his father's second wife, and the daughter of John Preston, an ancestor of the Prestons, Browns, Blairs, Marshalls, Woolleys, McDowells and other families. His grandparents, Robert Breckinridge and John Preston, were Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, whose ancestors had been Protestants since the Reformation John Breckinridge's father moved to Botetourt County, where he died, leaving a large family in narrow circumstances, when the subject of this sketch was but eleven years old. After the death of his father, his opportunities for education were exceedingly limited, he attending no school until reaching his nineteenth year, at which time he entered William and Mary College. While attending that institution he was elected to represent his county in the House of Burgesses, without his knowledge, and being under age was elected the third time before being permitted to take his seat. From that time, throughout his life, he was almost constantly in public position. In 1785, he married Mary Hopkins Cabell, daughter of Col. Joseph Cabell, an officer in the Revolutionary army, who was a don of Dr. William Cabell, from whom the Cabells, Carringtons, Dixons and others are descended; settled in Albemarle County, where he practiced law for seven years; emigrated to Kentucky late in 1792; purchased and settled on a tract of land in Fayette County, which he called Cabell's Dale, in honor of his wife. He soon became one of the leading citizens of Kentucky, and at that time had but one rival (George Nicholas) as a lawyer in the state. As a public speaker he was probably without an equal until Henry Clay rose to position; he obtained a large and lucrative practice; at first declining political honors, he soon became the head of the Democratic Society as it was then called, whose purpose was the securing of the free use of the Mississippi River and a state rights' construction of the Federal Constitution; as early as 1793 he advocated the acquisition of Louisiana by peaceable or forcible means; he was an intense anti-Federalist, and probably shared Patrick Henry's opposition to the Federal Constitution; was the undoubted author of the Resolutions of 1799, and probably of those of 1798; at least, his immediate friends and relatives never doubted that he was. In 1801 he took his seat in the Senate of the United States, as the recognized leader of the Administration or Jefferson party, and to his views Mr. Jefferson finally yielded, as to the power of the general Government in acquiring new territory. In 1805, he became attorney-general in the cabinet of Mr. Jefferson. He died December 14, 1806, at Cabell's Dale, Kentucky, bare,y in the middle life and at a time when there seemed to be no eminence which he could not reach. Humanly speaking, no life could have had a more untimely end. In stature, he was slightly over six feet in height, slender and muscular; a man of great power and noble appearance; was extremely grave and silent in his ordinary intercourse, but courteous and gentle in manners; possessed a melodious and impressive voice; was unostentatious and exemplary in his habits; a man of numerous but private charities; patient, forbearing and just; possessed great bravery; was extremely warm in his friendships and was everywhere beloved. He left a widow and seven children, the youngest of whom died in youth; another, the wife of David Castleman, died within a few years, and the five remaining children were Letitia Preston, Joseph Cabell, John, Robert Jefferson and William Lewis.
Her daughter, Letitia Preston Breckinridge, married Colonel Grayson, who had one son, John Breckinridge, married Colonel Grayson, who had one son. John Breckinridge Grayson, educated at West Point and in the regular army until 1861, when resigning his commission, he entered the Confederate service, and died, in Florida, in 1862, as brigadier-general. After the death of her first husband Mrs. Grayson married Gen. Peter Porter of New York, secretary of war under John Quincy Adams, and by that marriage had one son, Peter A. Porter, who was killed at the head of a brigade under General Grant, in one of the terrific charges at Cold Harbor, in 1864, a man of splendid social and soldierly attainments and one of the most daring and able of the defenders of the National cause, who like many of his relatives on the opposite side, gave his life in defense of his convictions.
to Wendover, Leslie County, Ky., where he died on December 3, 1932; interment in

John married Mary Hopkins "Polly" CABELL, daughter of Col. Joseph CABELL and Mary HOPKINS, on 28 Jun 1785 in Buckingham, Virginia, USA. (Mary Hopkins "Polly" CABELL was born in 1769 and died on 26 Mar 1858.)