Political Career
Morehead was elected as a Whig to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1828 and was re-elected in 1829. Following his second term in the legislature, he moved to Frankfort, Kentucky, believing it provided better opportunities for his legal practice. He was appointed as state attorney general in 1832 and served for five years. In 1834, he co-authored A Digest of the Statute Laws of Kentucky with Mason Brown. He represented Franklin County in the state house from 1838 to 1842 and again in 1844; he was chosen Speaker of the House in 1840, 1841, and 1844.
Morehead was elected the Thirtieth and Thirty-first Congresses, serving from March 4, 1847 until March 3, 1851. During the Thirty-first Congress, the Whig caucus considered him as a candidate for Speaker of the House. The voting for speaker began December 3, 1849. The caucus first chose Robert C. Winthrop as their candidate, but after several ballots, Winthrop was still unable to obtain a majority because of sectional rivalries within the caucus. Some Whigs from northern states voted for David Wilmot, a Free Soiler, while five southern Whigs steadfastly voted for Meredith Gentry. The Democrats were similarly unable to muster a majority for their candidate, Howell Cobb.
At their caucus meeting on the night of December 10, the Whigs agreed to continue voting for Winthrop for one more day, and if he was not elected, to switch their support to Morehead, who they believed could hold all of Winthrop's votes and win the votes of the southern Whigs as well as some southern Democrats. They made their intentions known on December 11, and by the end of the day, Morehead reported that he had received commitments of support from twenty southern Democrats. During the day's voting, the five southern Whigs shifted their support from Gentry to Morehead. This shift cost Morehead the support of many northern Whigs who, at the caucus meeting the night of December 11, declared that Morehead's election "would ruin the Whig party in the North", especially if he gained the support of southern Democrats. Rather than further fracture the caucus, Morehead withdrew his name from consideration. Cobb was finally elected on the sixty-third ballot on December 22.
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