page_title: John Breckinridge (U.S. Attorney General)
section_title: Louisiana Purchase
hierarchical_section_title: John Breckinridge (U.S. Attorney General) / U.S. Senator / Louisiana Purchase
context_page_description: John Breckinridge was a lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of Virginia. He served in the state legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky before being elected to the U.S. Senate and appointed United States Attorney General during the second term of President Thomas Jefferson. He is the progenitor of Kentucky's Breckinridge political family and the namesake of Breckinridge County, Kentucky.
  Breckinridge's father was a local politician, and his mother was a member of the Preston political family. Breckinridge attended the William and Mary College intermittently between 1780 and 1784; his attendance was interrupted by the Revolutionary War and his election to the Virginia House of Delegates. One of the youngest members of that body, his political activities acquainted him with many prominent politicians. In 1785, he married "Polly" Cabell, a member of the Cabell political family. Despite making a comfortable living through a combination of legal and agricultural endeavors, letters from relatives in Kentucky convinced him to move to the western frontier. He established "Cabell's Dale", his plantation, near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1793.
context_section_description: Breckinridge advocated internal improvements and formed a coalition of legislators from South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky to support a system of roads connecting the Southern coastal states with the western frontier, but the routes they proposed proved impossible to construct with the technology available at the time. Spanish revocation of Kentucky's right of deposit at New Orleans – in violation of Pinckney's Treaty – further frustrated and angered frontier residents. Although many desired war with Spain, Jefferson believed a diplomatic resolution was possible and urged restraint. Federalists, seeking to divide the Democratic-Republicans and curry favor with the West, abandoned their usual advocacy of peace. Pennsylvania Federalist James Ross introduced a measure allocating $5 million and raising 50,000 militiamen to seize the Louisiana Territory from Spain. Cognizant of Jefferson's desire for more time, Breckinridge offered a substitute resolution on February 23, 1803, allocating 80,000 troops and unlimited funds for the potential invasion of New Orleans, but he left their use at the discretion of the president. Breckinridge's resolution was adopted after a heated debate.
  Before an invasion became necessary, U.S. ambassadors learned that Spain had ceded Louisiana to France via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, and France offered to sell the territory to the U.S. Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe, U.S. ministers to France, agreed to the purchase, even though they had not been given the authority to do so. Jefferson was pleased with the purchase, but feared he had no constitutional authority to effect it. In an August 12, 1803 letter to Breckinridge, Jefferson discussed his constitutional misgivings about the Louisiana Purchase and proposed that Breckinridge introduce a simple constitutional amendment in the Senate: "Louisiana, as ceded by France to the U.S., is made a part of the U.S." Breckinridge ignored the proposed amendment and immediately formed a coalition of western senators to approve the purchase.
  After the purchase was approved, Jefferson drafted a system of governing the newly acquired territory. Fearing that the Federalists would oppose any system he had devised, he delivered his draft to Breckinridge and asked him to introduce it in the Senate as his own. To maintain the ruse, Breckinridge moved that a committee be formed to recommend a plan for governing Louisiana Territory. Working through the committee, he brought Jefferson's plan to the Senate floor with its essentials intact. Because the plan provided for the taxation of Louisiana residents without giving them representation in Congress, Federalists and some Democratic-Republicans opposed it. Nevertheless, it passed by a vote of 26–6.
caption: The Louisiana Purchase, superimposed on a map of the modern United States
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