Breckinridge, John Cabell

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Breckinridge, John Cabell (1821–75) US vice president (1857–61). He was a major in the Mexican War and a congressman (1851), before being elected vice president under James Buchanan. Defeated as a pro-slavery presidential candidate in 1860 by Abraham Lincoln, he became a Confederate general and secretary of war in Jefferson Davis' cabinet (1865).

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