Background
Charles Anderson Wickliffe was the youngest of the nine children of Charles and Lydia (Hardin) Wickliffe, both natives of Virginia. He was born on June 8, 1788 near Springfield, Washington County, Ky.
(Excerpt from The Revised Statutes of Kentucky: Approved a...)
Excerpt from The Revised Statutes of Kentucky: Approved and Adopted by the General Assembly, 1851 and 1852; In Force From July 1, 1852 The undersigned were selected to revise and to reduce into system the civil and criminal statute law of Kentucky. A portion of the work was submitted to the legislature at its last session, and having been adopted, the lst day of July, 1852, was fixed as the prospective period at which it should operate. The object contemplated by the legislature in the postponement was, that the revision might be completed, and the remainder of the work submitted for the consideration and adoption of the present legislature. We have fulfilled the duty assigned us, and now have the honor of presenting to the representatives of the people, for their consideration, the result of our labors, and invite their patient and careful examination. The legislation of the past had caused a great accumulation of statutes, but it is believed that the present re vision condenses in a single volume all the material provisions of our complex statutory law. We will at any time, if it be deemed necessary, attend at the capitol during the session, to afford to the committees of your body to whom you may refer the examination of the work, such explanations as they may require in regard to the details it embraces. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Charles Anderson Wickliffe was the youngest of the nine children of Charles and Lydia (Hardin) Wickliffe, both natives of Virginia. He was born on June 8, 1788 near Springfield, Washington County, Ky.
He received his elementary education in Springfield, Washington County, Ky. During 1805 he attended Wilson's Academy at Bardstown and then for a year received private instruction under James Blythe, acting president of Transylvania University. Returning to Bardstown, he studied law in the office of his cousin, M. D. Hardin.
In 1809 was admitted to the bar. He soon became one of the group of Bardstown lawyers which included Ben Hardin, Felix Grundy, John Rowan, and W. P. Duval. This group was as famous for its revelries as for its forensic talent, and Wickliffe early established a reputation as a bacchanalian and a gambler for high stakes. He was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from Nelson County in 1812 and 1813. He enlisted as a private in M. H. Wickliffe's company of Kentucky mounted volunteers, from which station he was shortly promoted to be aide to General Caldwell. In 1816 he succeeded his cousin, Ben Hardin, as commonwealth attorney for Nelson County, and in 1820 and 1821 was again a member of the lower house of the Kentucky legislature. In 1823 he was sent to the federal House of Representatives. Here in 1825 he cast his vote for Jackson for president, an action that required a great deal of explaining later, and was perhaps responsible for his lack of committee assignments during the early portion of his congressional service. By successive elections he remained in the House until 1833, and in 1829 became chairman of the committee on public lands. In 1831 he was an unsuccessful candidate for United States senator from Kentucky. Returning to Kentucky in 1833, he was for the third time sent to the legislature by his faithful constituents in Nelson County. Here he served for three years, being speaker of the House in 1835. In 1836 he was elected lieutenant-governor of Kentucky on the Whig ticket and on the death of Gov. James Clark in September 1839 Wickliffe succeeded to the office of governor, in which he continued until the following September. With his appointment by President Tyler as postmaster-general in October 1841 Wickliffe again shifted back to national politics. In this position, which he held until March 6, 1845, he occupied himself with duties of a routine nature, although he is credited with securing a slight reduction in postal rates. On the issue of the annexation of Texas he was converted to Democracy and so was eligible to receive an appointment from Polk in 1845 as an agent to ferret out and oppose the designs of France and England in Texas. Returning once more to state politics, in 1849 he was elected as a Democrat to the constitutional convention, in which he was chairman of the committee on the court of appeals, and was vigorous in his opposition to suffrage restrictions. The next year he was appointed by the legislature on committee to revise the statutes of Kentucky. He opposed the movement for the secession of Kentucky in 1861, and was a member both of the Washington Peace Conference and of the Border State Conference. In 1861 he was elected to Congress as a Union Whig and at the close of his term was a candidate of the Peace Democrats for governor, but was defeated. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in 1864. His death occurred while he was on a visit to his daughter near Ilchester, Harford County, Md. ; and he was buried at Bardstown.
(Excerpt from The Revised Statutes of Kentucky: Approved a...)
In his last term in Congress he was thrown from his carriage and was a cripple for the remainder of his life, and for several years before his death he was also blind.
In 1814 he married Margaret Cripps. He had three sons and five daughters, one of the former being Robert C. Wickliffe.