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 Republicancandidate, 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.