article for January 16, 2019
Article of the day for January 16, 2019 is Political career of John C. Breckinridge . The political career of John C. Breckinridge included service in the governments of Kentucky, the United States, and the Confederate States of America. Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was inaugurated in 1857 as James Buchanan's vice president, and remains the youngest person to ever hold the office. In 1860 he ran as the presidential candidate of a dissident group of Southern Democrats and won the electoral votes of most of the Southern states, but he finished a distant second among four candidates, losing the election to the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Most Southern states seceded, but Kentucky stayed in the Union. Previously elected to a U.S. Senate term that began in 1861, Breckenridge fled the state, joined the Confederate States Army, and was expelled from the Senate. Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of War in February 1865.
