The Senate Shows Breckinridge the Door

The U.S. Senate expelled former Vice President and southern Democratic nominee for president John C. Breckinridge in early December 1861. He had been a Senator from the commonwealth only since March 4 of the same year, following the expiration of his single term as President Buchanan's VP.

From the Journal of the Senate 2nd Session, 37th Congress:

Wednesday, December 4, 1861

Mr. Chandler submitted the following resolution for consideration:

"Resolved, That John C. Breckinridge be, and he hereby is, expelled from the Senate."

The Senate proceeded, by unanimous consent, to consider the resolution; and the same having been amended, on the motion of Mr. Trumbull, to read as follows:

"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 John C. Breckinridge, the traitor, be, and he hereby is, expelled from the Senate."

Breckinridge wasn't around for his expulsion. Fearing arrest, he had already skedaddled behind Confederate lines. "I exchange with proud satisfaction a term of six years in the United States Senate for the musket of a soldier,” he wrote.

He became an important general in the service of the CSA, seeing action at Shiloh, Stones River, New Market and Cold Harbor, among other places. In the last months of the war, he was the final Confederate Secretary of War. After the war he spent a few years in exile, but returned the Kentucky after President Johnson's unconditional Christmas Day amnesty in 1868, resuming his legal work and becoming a railroad executive. He died in 1875 at a relatively young 54.

More on Breckinridge's decision to go south is at Disunion, the New York Times blog about the Civil War, 150 years after it happened.

November 10, 2007:Arthur Bremer on Parole

"How strange is this: An assassin released on parole?" wrote Patrick J. Lyons in a New York Times blog yesterday.

"Extremely strange, actually. Of all the protagonists in America’s horrible string of high-profile political assassinations and attempts in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, Arthur H. Bremer, who tried to kill Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama, appears to be the first and only one to become a free man again. He was released on parole today in Maryland.

"Mr. Bremer is free after serving 35 years of his 53-year sentence for the 1972 shooting, which left Mr. Wallace a paraplegic. Mr. Wallace lived another 25 years, and Mr. Bremer has evidently been a model prisoner, holding down a prison job and avoiding even a single black mark on his record, officials said.

"Mr. Bremer said at the time of his trial that his motive was to become a celebrity, and many observers have noted the pernicious, if unintended, effect that intense media attention has had, glamorizing assassins and inspiring copycats. John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded Ronald Reagan in 1981, said he did it to prove his love for the actress Jodie Foster, who appeared in the film Taxi Driver, about a would-be assassin who looked to Mr. Bremer as a role model."

The full posting is here, comparing Bremer's case to other recent assassins and would-be assassins.

September 18, 1812:Herschel Vespasian Johnson's Birthday

In the four-way race that was the presidential election of 1860, there were four candidates for vice president as well, including Herschel Vespasian Johnson (pictured), former governor of Georgia. He ran with Stephen Douglas as a "Northern" Democrat, but the ticket only won one state, Missouri, and took three of New Jersey's electoral votes, for a total of 12 electoral votes, a meager showing indeed. The ticket did, however, come in second behind the Republicans in the popular vote nationwide -- such as the nation was at that point.

After the election, Johnson served the Confederacy as a Senator. After the war, he was returned to the US Senate by voters in Georgia, but that body would not seat him, and he ended his days as a judge in Georgia, dying in 1880.

And who were the other vice presidential candidates in that momentous election? Republican Hannibal Hamlin, of course, won the veep prize, but has became as much of an historic footnote as any of the losers, which is a common fate of vice presidents. Running with John C. Breckinridge -- the incumbent vice president -- on the "Southern" Democratic ticket was Joseph Lane of Oregon. They got 72 electoral votes. Running with John Bell on the nonce Constitutional Union ticket was Edward Everett of Massachusetts, who got 39 electoral votes. He is not remembered for this vice presidential bid. Instead, Everett is remembered as the speaker who came before Lincoln at Gettysburg.