John C. Breckinridge - Return To The U.S., Death, and Legacy

Return To The U.S., Death, and Legacy

Johnson proclaimed amnesty for all former Confederates on December 25, 1868. Still in Canada, Breckinridge lingered for a few weeks to receive assurance that it still applied to him even though he had not been in the U.S. when it was issued. He and his family left on February 10 and arrived in Lexington on March 9. He returned resumed his law practice and managed an insurance company. In 1869, he became vice-president of the Elizabethtown, Lexington, and Big Sandy Railroad Company. He also lobbied for Cincinnati Southern Railway's construction of a line from connecting Cincinnati to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Officials in Louisville tried to block the move, which would aid a rival of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, but it was approved in 1871 and construction began in 1873.

Breckinridge refused all requests – including one made by President Ulysses S. Grant – to return to politics. Harrison notes that, under the terms of section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress would have been needed to allow him to hold office because he sided with the Confederacy. He never expressed interest in seeking such approval. As a private citizen, he expressed support for the legal rights of newly freed slaves and denounced the actions of the Ku Klux Klan.

By 1873, Breckinridge began to experience health problems stemming from injuries to his lungs and liver sustained during the war. Repeated surgeries failed to alleviate his pain. He died at home in Lexington of complications from cirrhosis, according to Woodworth, or the results of a serious operation, according to Warner, on May 17, 1875 and was interred in Lexington Cemetery. The towns of Breckenridge, Colorado; Breckenridge, Minnesota; Breckenridge, Missouri; and Breckenridge, Texas, were named in honor of the Vice President (despite the different spelling). The Colorado town deliberately changed the spelling of its name when its namesake joined the Confederacy. Fort Breckinridge, Arizona Territory, (1860 to 1865) located at the confluence of the Aravaipa Creek and the San Pedro River was named in honor of the Vice President, though the name was changed after the Civil War to Camp Grant, Arizona. A memorial to Breckinridge was placed on the Fayette County Courthouse lawn (now known as Cheapside Park) in Lexington in 1887. In 2009, the monument was relocated closer to Main Street as part of a reworking of Cheapside Park.

Breckinridge was the first Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in Kentucky.