March 15, 2011
I have had four days so far in the Library of Congress, and have already found quite a lot of useful information. I have been averaging at least six volumes of correspondence per day, so I have a reasonable chance of getting to the Civil War on this trip (my goal is to get through 1862 — which would leave me with 60 volumes for next time). So far I have worked through the Breckinridge letters from 1854 to 1856.
R. J. Breckinridge’s nephew, John C. Breckinridge, was elected Vice President of the United States in 1856. The election of 1856 was notorious for its violence. Candidates and stump speakers were frequently attacked (physically) by “ruffians” (as RJB called them). Of course, what made Kentucky especially interesting was that RJB was a well-known leader of the “American Party” (sometimes called the Know-Nothings), while JCB was the Vice Presidential candidate for “the Democracy” (as the Democrats billed themselves at that time). At one point JCB wrote to his uncle, asking him if he would please do something to prevent the violence of the Know-Nothings, suggesting that he might have to bring a gang of Democratic thugs to their home town of Lexington to prevent trouble.
This is RJB’s reply:
“That such a necessity as you suppose to be possible should arise, is infinitely to be deplored; and that such a state of excitement should exist, that any considerate man would judge liable to terminate in outrages not be endured, is what every wise and good man must condemn. Supposing all you say to be true, there is, I fear, one point in which you are wholly mistaken; namely, any adequate influence on my part to make things any better. I shall, however, be in Lexington on Friday next – and will most gladly do whatever may be possible, to promote peace, and to ensure the fair exercise of every man’s rights. The course I have long taken in public affairs has been one, in a great degree peculiar to myself – and eminently calculated to render any influence, with any body, impossible, except so far as men would hear & respect reason; whch, it has seemed to me, was the very thing which, in general, they were the very least inclined to do. Every body seems bent on success, no matter by what means: and half the nation ready to destroy the nation itself – unless their own passions are gratified. Riot, bloodshed, sedition, revolution, flow as inevitably from such a state of the public mind, and as other effect follows any other cause. That men of real importance in a coutnry, should persist in such ignorble seditions, is the last form of degration a people reaches: and, as yet, has not been maifested amongst us. Nor need it be, if such men retain a true sense of their own position, a true conception of their real relation to society, no matter what phase society may put on. Believe me, one word of yours fitly uttered from your true position, is more effectual, than any form of public violence it is possible for your head – no matter what counter violence it might be intended to resist. Of course, I would not have you act a part, either unmanly or _. But if violence on your part, is indispensable, the only becoming and the only effectual form of it, is to hold to a personal responsibility the chief authorities, whose connnivance or neglect is the cause of the outrages you will not endure: just as I would, if I had been a public man, have held governor Power & Col Preston, personally responsible for the atrocious abuse concetrated in the Resolutions of the Democratic Convention of this state, a year or two since: a proceeding on the part of that convention which explains much of the violence now so shockingly exhibited over the land – and for which, I doubt not, all parties are responsible, each in its degree. If the ruffians of all parties, may call the leaders of parties and the eminent men of the land, to take personal part in their broils (in their defence, as they may choose to call it), that is a new, and the last step, before society has lost every element of self-control. I cannot agree, that you can, under any conceivable circumstances, have a proper call to mingle in such issues, or to fight them out on any such basis. The element of which such seditions are recruited, is as perfectly distinct, as the element of which presidents are chosen; and no illusion can justify a gentleman, much less one whose mission is _ a most exalted one, either to commit homicide in such a broil, or to fall by the hand of some ruffian in such a cause. Since the world began, no such man as you fell in such a broil, upon such a question as either of those stated in your letter, or as either of them can properly lead to. In short, there are two matters wholly distinct, in the case: one regarding the deplorable state of public excitement; the other regarding the form & extent of the interferance, in the way of force, allowable in those who though of a party – are not of its ruffians.
“I write in more haste than I could desire, in order to get my letter into the mail: and have only time to add that all I have said is on supposition that matters may come to a more serious issue in Lexington, than I can persuade myself they will. I trust in God, we shall see nothing worse, than it has been our misfortune to see often before; and bad as that may be, it seems incident to popular institutions, and must be endured, for the benefits they confer.”
RJB’s reply is interesting — both because of what it reveals about the principles RJB espoused, and also because of what it reveals about the times: namely, that political campaigns in the mid-19th century were brutal and bloody affairs. Some people were willing to kill for their beliefs (and at least a few were ready to die for them).
[And in spite of RJB’s suggestion that this seems to be a recent phenomenon, he himself had experienced the same sort of violence — albeit of a slightly different form — when he ran for the state legislature in the 1820s! When the partisans of RJB and his opponent began attacking each other, and bloodshed seemed imminent, RJB and his opponent bound their arms together and marched out into the fray shouting for order! Does that help you understand what he is saying to his nephew?]
Oh, and by the way — he voted for his nephew for Vice President. (As far as I can ascertain, the only time in his life that he ever voted Democrat!) And it wasn’t simply because JCB was his nephew. In the election of 1856, there were three candidates: James Buchanan (Democrat), John C. Fremont (Republican), and Millard Fillmore (Know-Nothing). Since the Know-Nothings had fallen apart, and the abolitionists had formed the “Black Republicans,” RJB feared that both the (abolitionist) Republicans and the (southern) Democrats were driving the nation toward disunion. While the Know-Nothings were the only party that he trusted, he knew that they had no chance to win (Fillmore took 21.6% of the popular vote — and only carried Maryland). Therefore, while he distrusted the Democratic party, he trusted his nephew to remain true to the Union — and so voted for Buck and Breck (as the Democratic ticket was nicknamed). It probably didn’t hurt that both men were Old School Presbyterians as well…
The irony of all this is that Uncle Robert was losing touch with his beloved nephew — as he would learn most painfully in 1861 when John C. Breckinridge became the arch-traitor of the Union — being the highest ranking U.S. official (former Vice President and sitting Senator from the supposedly Union state of Kentucky) to join the Confederacy! Two of his own sons, Robert and William, would also become Confederate officers — while two others, Joseph and Charles, would serve with the Union.
