James Turner Morehead (Kentucky) - Governor of Kentucky

Governor of Kentucky

In 1831, Morehead was also a delegate to the National Republican Party Convention in Baltimore, Maryland that nominated Henry Clay for president. During the convention, he was nominated for the office of lieutenant governor. Though his National Republican running mate, Richard A. Buckner, was defeated by Democrat John Breathitt, Morehead was elected the ninth Lieutenant Governor.

Governor Breathitt died of tuberculosis on February 21, 1834, and Morehead was sworn in as governor the following day. The replacement of a Democratic governor with one from the rival National Republican party caused a great deal of angst among Democrats, but the ascendancy of Democrat James Guthrie to president of the state senate and Morehead's willingness to retain Breathitt's secretary of state, Lewis Saunders, did much to allay their fears.

Later that year, the National Republican party began to re-brand itself as the Whig Party, a name that first appeared in the Lexington Intelligencer on April 25, 1834. On July 4, 1834, Governor Morehead hosted the party's first convention in Frankfort. Kentuckians flocked to the "new" party en masse, and the legislative elections of August 1834 saw the party garner majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Flexing their political muscles, the majority party ousted Guthrie from his post as president of the Senate and by a vote of 90–40, and sent John J. Crittenden instead of Guthrie to the U.S. Senate in 1835.

In his first address to the legislature, Morehead recommended a plan of expanded internal improvements, including improvements along the state's rivers. The legislature responded by creating a state board of internal improvements, and named Morehead the ex-officio president of the board. In this role, he authorized many surveys of Kentucky's rivers and formulated several plans for improvements, but most of them were blocked by the Panic of 1837. One improvement that did proceed was construction of the Lexington and Ohio Railroad, which was completed in 1835. Though education was not a high priority for Governor Morehead, the Kentucky Common School Society and the Kentucky Association of Professional Teachers were formed during his term.