By Todd Hatton / Berry Craig
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-995815.mp3
Murray, KY – In this installment of the Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, former US Vice president John C. Breckinridge resigned his Senate seat in October of 1861. He then accepted a brigadier general's commission in the Confederate Army. Today we'll find out that his departure kicked up quite a bit of dust.
On this date in 1861, Senator Zachariah Chandler, a Michigan Republican, was ready with a resolution that would formally expel John C. Breckinridge from the US Senate for treason.
The Kentuckian resigned his seat two months before. Afterwards, he became a Confederate general and encouraged the creation of a rump Confederate government for the Bluegrass State.
Chandler introduced his resolution on December 4th. According to the official U.S. Senate website, Illinois Republican Senator Lyman Trumbull sought confirmation from Kentucky Senator Lazarus Powell, a Democrat from Henderson, that Breckinridge was indeed a Rebel general.
The website says that when Powell admitted Trumbull's information was accurate, Trumbull requested his resolution be amended to read:
Whereas John C. Breckinridge, a member of this body from the State of Kentucky, has joined the enemies of his country, and is now in arms against the Government he had sworn to support:
Therefore, Resolved, That the said John C. Breckinridge, the traitor, be, and he is hereby, expelled from the Senate.
Senators voted 36-0 to oust Breckinridge. Several Democrats, including Powell, abstained.
The website explains:
"In the earlier Civil War expulsion cases, friends of the South argued that the senators should not be penalized for the secessionist decisions of their state governments, but only for their own individual misconduct. As long as southerners did not take up arms against the United States government, their supporters maintained, they did not deserve the censure of their colleagues.
"In the case of...Breckinridge...southern sympathizers were caught upon the horns of their own argument."
Garrett Davis of Paris, Kentucky, an old-line Whig, was named to succeeded Breckinridge. "Mr. DAVIS will honor his State and country," The New York Times predicted on Dec. 11. "It is truly said of him that he has labored with wonderful perseverance and fearlessness to arm the loyal men of Kentucky, and place them in a condition and position to defend themselves, and he fully represents the sentiments of his native commonwealth, that secession is no remedy for evils, but rather an aggravation, and that the surest guarantee for the protection of the rights of the South is to be found in the Union and under the Constitution."
In addition, The Times suggested that Powell might need to be replaced by Louisville & Nashville Railroad president James Guthrie, "or [by] some other unflinchingly loyal Louisvillian."
Thought not a secessionist, Powell was fiercely pro-slavery and sharply critical of President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans. "[Powell]...may deserve arraignment before the bar of the Senate," The Times said. Later, Garrett Davis would lead a failed attempt to have Powell expelled.
WKMS produces Kentucky Civil War Dispatches from West Kentucky Community and Technical College history professor Berry Craig. The Murray State alumnus is the author of Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War, Hidden History of Kentucky Soldiers, True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon, and Burgoo, and Hidden History of Western Kentucky. For WKMS News, I'm Todd Hatton.