John Breckinridge (U.S. Attorney General)

John Breckinridge
5th United States Attorney General
In office August 7, 1805 – December 14, 1806
President	Thomas Jefferson
Preceded by	Levi Lincoln Sr.
Succeeded by	Caesar A. Rodney
United States Senator from Kentucky
In office March 4, 1801 – August 7, 1805
Preceded by	Humphrey Marshall
Succeeded by	John Adair
Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives
In office 1799–1800
Preceded by	Edmund Bullock
Succeeded by	John Adair
Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives for Fayette County
In office 1798–1800
Attorney General of Kentucky
In office December 19, 1793 – November 30, 1797
Governor	Isaac Shelby James Garrard
Preceded by	George Nicholas
Succeeded by	James Blair
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Montgomery County
In office 1784–1785 Serving with Robert Sayers
Preceded by	John Preston
Succeeded by	Daniel Trigg
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Botetourt County
In office 1783–1784 Serving with Archibald Stuart
Preceded by	Thomas Madison
Succeeded by	George Hancock
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Botetourt County
In office 1784–1781 Serving with Samuel Lewis
Preceded by	Thomas Madison
Succeeded by	Thomas Madison
Personal details
Born	(1760-12-02)December 2, 1760 Augusta County, Virginia, British America
Died	December 14, 1806(1806-12-14) (aged 46) Fayette County, Kentucky, U.S.
Resting place	Lexington Cemetery
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Spouse	Mary Hopkins Cabell
Children	9, including Cabell and Robert
Relatives	Breckinridge family
Education	Washington and Lee University College of William & Mary
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Thirteen Colonies
Branch/service	Virginia militia
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War

John Breckinridge (December 2, 1760 – December 14, 1806) was an American lawyer, slave-owning planter, soldier, and politician in Virginia and Kentucky. He served several terms each in both state's legislatures before legislators elected him to the U.S. Senate. He also served as United States Attorney General during the second term of President Thomas Jefferson. He is the progenitor of Kentucky's Breckinridge political family and the namesake of Breckinridge County, Kentucky.

Breckinridge's father was landowner and colonel in the local Virginia militia who married into the Preston political family. Breckinridge attended the William and Mary College intermittently between 1780 and 1784; his attendance was interrupted by the Revolutionary War and he three times won election to the Virginia House of Delegates. One of the youngest members of that (part-time) body, this allowed him to meet many prominent politicians. In 1785, he married "Polly" Cabell, a member of the Cabell political family. Despite making his legal and farming activities, letters from relatives in Kentucky convinced him to move to the western frontier. He established "Cabell's Dale", his plantation, near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1793.

Breckinridge continued his legal and political career and was appointed as the state's attorney general soon after arriving. In November 1797, he resigned to campaign, then won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives. As a legislator, Breckinridge secured passage of a more humane criminal code that abolished the death penalty for all offenses except first-degree murder. On a 1798 trip back to Virginia, an intermediary gave him Thomas Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions, which denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts. At Jefferson's request, Breckinridge assumed credit for the modified resolutions he shepherded through the Kentucky General Assembly; Jefferson's authorship was not discovered until after Breckinridge's death. Although Breckinridge opposed calling a constitutional convention for the new state in 1799 he was elected as a delegate. Due to his influence, the state's government remained comparatively aristocratic, maintaining protections for slavery and limiting the power of the electorate. Called the father of the resultant constitution, he emerged from the convention as the acknowledged leader of the state's Democratic-Republican Party and fellow delegates elected him Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1799 and 1800.

Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1800, Breckinridge functioned as Jefferson's floor leader, guiding administration bills through the chamber that was narrowly controlled by his party. Residents of the western frontier called for his nomination as vice president in 1804, but Jefferson appointed him as U.S. Attorney General in 1805 instead. He was the first cabinet-level official from the West but had little impact before his death from tuberculosis on December 14, 1806, at the age of 46.