Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, LL.D., one of Kentucky's most prolific
writers for the public prints, was born at Cabell's Dale, near
Lexington, Kentucky, March 8, 1800. He was the son of John
Breckinridge, President Jefferson's Attorney-General. He studied at
Princeton and Yale, and was graduated from Union College in 1819.
Breckinridge then read law and was admitted to the Lexington,
Kentucky, bar in 1823. He practiced law for eight years, during part
of which time he was a member of the Kentucky legislature. Realizing
that Kentucky would oppose the emancipation of the slaves, in which he
heartily believed, Breckinridge decided to quit the law and politics
for the church. He studied theology and became pastor of the Second
Presbyterian church in Baltimore, which pastorate he held for thirteen
years. In 1845 Dr. Breckinridge was elected president of Jefferson
College (now Washington and Jefferson College), at Washington,
Pennsylvania, but two years later he resigned the presidency of the
college in order to accept the pastorate of the First Presbyterian
church of Lexington, Kentucky. In 1848 Dr. Breckinridge was elected
superintendent of public instruction of Kentucky; and in 1853 he
became professor of theology in the Danville Theological Seminary,
which position he held until his death. He was chairman of the
Baltimore national convention of 1864 which nominated Abraham Lincoln
for the presidency. Dr. Breckinridge's writings include _Travels in
France, Germany_, etc. (Philadelphia, 1839); _Popery in the XIX.
Century in the United States_ (1841); _Memoranda of Foreign Travel_
(Baltimore, 1845); _The Internal Evidence of Christianity_ (1852);
_The Knowledge of God Objectively Considered_ (New York, 1858); and
_The Knowledge of God Subjectively Considered_ (New York, 1859). These
two last named works, of enormous proportions, are Dr. Breckinridge's
greatest theological and literary productions. He also published
_Kentucky School Reports_ (1848-1853). While a resident of Baltimore
he was one of the editors of _The Literary and Religious Magazine_,
and of its successor, _The Spirit of the Nineteenth Century_, in both
of which publications he carried on many bitter and never-ending
discussions with the Roman Catholics concerning theological and
historical questions. He was also editor of _The Danville Quarterly
Review_ for several years. A complete collection of Dr. Breckinridge's
books, debates, articles, and pamphlets, upon slavery, temperance,
Popery, Universalism, Presbyterianism, education, agriculture, and
politics, would form a five-foot shelf of books.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington,
Kentucky, 1882); Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_
(New York, 1887, v. i).