Civil War and Later Life
Although he owned a number of slaves, and his marriage to Virginia Shelby had left him with a good many more, Breckinridge had been a supporter of gradual emancipation and colonization of blacks since his early political career. As the sectional crisis worsened, this led him into several high-profile debates, notably with fellow Kentuckian Robert Wickliffe, the uncle of Robert C. Wickliffe. His support of Abraham Lincoln for president in the election of 1860 pitted him against his own nephew, Vice President John C. Breckinridge.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Breckinridge quickly became an ardent supporter of the Union, not for its position against slavery, but for the sake of preserving the Union. He used his position as editor of the Danville Quarterly Review to advocate his position. He called for harsh measures against secession, and in time, accepted President Lincoln's immediate emancipation of slaves. He was chosen as the temporary chair of the 1864 Republican National Convention that re-nominated Lincoln for president, and his pro-Union speech was hailed by freshman Representative James G. Blaine as one of the most inspiring given at the event.
Breckinridge's family split on the issue, with two of his sons – Joseph and Charles – fighting for the Union cause, and two – Willie and Robert Jr. – fighting for the Confederacy. While three of his sons-in-law also fought for the Union, daughter Sophonisba's husband, Theophilus Steele, rode with John Hunt Morgan, and it is likely that Robert Breckinridge's intervention kept him from being executed by Edwin M. Stanton. Following the war, Willie Breckinridge's wife Issa refused to let her father-in-law see two of his grandchildren for a period of two years.
On November 5, 1868, Breckinridge married his third wife, Margaret Faulkner White. A year later, he resigned his professorship at Danville Seminary. He died on December 27, 1871 after an extensive illness, and was buried in Lexington Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Robert Jefferson Breckinridge
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or life:
“To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)