Charles S. Morehead

Charles Slaughter Morehead was born near Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky on July 7, 1802.[1] He was the son of Charles and Margaret (Slaughter) Morehead and a first cousin to Kentucky's twelfth governor, James Turner Morehead.[2] His father served in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly.[2]

Morehead was educated in the area's public schools, then matriculated to Transylvania University.[1] He earned a bachelor's degree in 1820, graduating with honors.[3][4] After graduation, he became a tutor at the university and earned a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1822.[2] He relocated to Christian County, Kentucky, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Hopkinsville.[1][3] He also worked as a farmer, and owned plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana.[1]

Morehead married Amanda Leavy on July 10, 1823.[5] She died July 5, 1829 at the age of twenty-five.[2] Following her death, Morehead married Margaret Leavy, his first wife's sister, on September 6, 1831.[5] Together they had four children.[5] Charles and Margaret were very fond of music, theater, dances, and parties.[6]

Morehead was elected as a Whig to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1828 and was re-elected in 1829.[1][5] Following his second term in the legislature, he moved to Frankfort, Kentucky, believing it provided better opportunities for his legal practice.[7] He was appointed as state attorney general in 1832 and served for five years.[8] In 1834, he co-authored A Digest of the Statute Laws of Kentucky with Mason Brown.[5] He represented Franklin County in the state house from 1838 to 1842 and again in 1844; he was chosen Speaker of the House in 1840, 1841, and 1844.[9]

Morehead was elected the Thirtieth and Thirty-first Congresses, serving from March 4, 1847 until March 3, 1851.[1] During the Thirty-first Congress, the Whig caucus considered him as a candidate for Speaker of the House.[10] The voting for speaker began December 3, 1849.[11] The caucus first chose Robert C. Winthrop as their candidate, but after several ballots, Winthrop was still unable to obtain a majority because of sectional rivalries within the caucus.[11] Some Whigs from northern states voted for David Wilmot, a Free Soiler, while five southern Whigs steadfastly voted for Meredith Gentry.[11] The Democrats were similarly unable to muster a majority for their candidate, Howell Cobb.[11]

At their caucus meeting on the night of December 10, the Whigs agreed to continue voting for Winthrop for one more day, and if he was not elected, to switch their support to Morehead, who they believed could hold all of Winthrop's votes and win the votes of the southern Whigs as well as some southern Democrats. They made their intentions known on December 11, and by the end of the day, Morehead reported that he had received commitments of support from twenty southern Democrats. During the day's voting, the five southern Whigs shifted their support from Gentry to Morehead. This shift cost Morehead the support of many northern Whigs who, at the caucus meeting the night of December 11, declared that Morehead's election "would ruin the Whig party in the North",[10] especially if he gained the support of southern Democrats. Rather than further fracture the caucus, Morehead withdrew his name from consideration. Cobb was finally elected on the sixty-third ballot on December 22.[12]

Morehead moved to Louisville in 1859 and formed a law partnership with his nephew, Charles M. Briggs.[8] In February 1861, he attended the Peace Conference of 1861 that tried to resolve the sectional differences between the states.[5] In May 1861, he was chosen as a delegate to the Border State Convention, an ultimately futile attempt to avert the Civil War.[2] Morehead refused to sign the final document produced by the convention because he did not agree with all the statements it contained.[2] He was an advocate of Kentucky's position of neutrality, but was personally sympathetic to the South and was an outspoken critic of the Lincoln administration.[5] He condemned Secretary of State William H. Seward for cutting off trade with the South.[2]

On September 19, 1861, Morehead, Louisville Courier editor Reuben T. Durrett, and a man named Martin W. Barr were arrested for disloyalty.[16] The three were taken to Indianapolis, Indiana, and the next day, Louisville circuit court judge John Catron issued a writ of habeas corpus for Morehead.[16] On September 24, the officer who had arrested Morehead told Catron that Secretary of War Simon Cameron had already ordered Morehead taken to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor.[17] Shortly after this, a grand jury was convened but failed to return any charges against Morehead.[17]

Morehead was later transferred to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.[2] He complained to his captors about the conditions in the prison; specifically, the difficulty of writing letters when confined with nine other men in a room that measured just ten feet by twenty feet.[18] Petitions for Morehead's release were delivered to President Lincoln, but Lincoln told Secretary of State Seward that Morehead and those arrested with them would be released "when James Guthrie and James Speed [friends of Lincoln's in Kentucky] think they should be".[17] Later, Guthrie told Lincoln that Morehead's arrest had "not been beneficial" to their cause in Kentucky.[17] Morehead was paroled on January 6, 1862, on the condition that he swear an oath not to take part in the Confederate insurgence.[2][17] On March 19, 1862, he was unconditionally discharged from his parole.[2]

Morehead returned to his home in Louisville, but feared his refusal to take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution would lead to another arrest.[2] In June 1862, he fled to Canada, then to Europe, and finally to Mexico.[2] Following the war, Morehead returned to the United States and lived on his plantation in Greenville, Mississippi.[1] He died there on December 21, 1868 and was buried on the grounds.[1] On May 31, 1879, he was reburied in the Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky.[2]

• Morehead, Charles Slaughter; Mason Brown (1834). A Digest of the Statute Laws of Kentucky, of a Public and Permanent Nature: From the Commencement of the Government to the Session of the Legislature, Ending on the 24th February, 1834 : with References to Judicial Decisions. A. G. Hodges. Retrieved February 23, 2009.