Robert Charles Wickliffe, Governor of Louisiana

Notes:

From Wikipedia (accessed 1 Nov 2020):

Robert Charles Wickliffe […] was Lieutenant Governor and the 15th Governor of Louisiana from 1856 to 1860.

He was born in Bardstown, Kentucky at Wickland to Governor (and later U.S. Postmaster General), Charles A. Wickliffe. His maternal grandfather was the famed Colonel Crips, an Indian fighter in Kentucky. Wickliffe attended several schools including St. Joseph's College in Bardstown and Augusta College. He graduated from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky in 1840 and resided in Washington, DC during his father's tenure as Postmaster General in the Tyler Administration. He studied law under United States Attorney General Hugh Lagare and was admitted to the Kentucky bar.

In 1843, Wickliffe married Anna Dawson, the daughter of Louisiana Congressman John Bennett Dawson and niece of Louisiana Governor Isaac Johnson. In 1846, the Wickliffes moved to St. Francisville, Louisiana so Robert could recover from pneumonia at his wife's family's plantation, Wyoming.

Wickliffe ran for the Louisiana State Senate in 1851 as a Democrat and won. Reelected in 1853, he is appointed Chairman of the Commission on Public Education, and became President Pro Tempore of the Louisiana Senate when W. W. Farmer became Lieutenant Governor. When Farmer died in office in 1854, Wickliffe, as President Pro Temp, became Lieutenant Governor.

In 1855, Wickliffe was nominated as the Democratic candidate for Governor of Louisiana. He went on to defeat Charles Derbigny, son of former Governor Pierre Derbigny, who was running on the Know Nothing ticket. In winning, Wickliffe drew 3,000 more votes than Derbigny and carried 31 of 48 parishes.

In his inaugural address in Baton Rouge, Governor Wickliffe advocated a united Democratic South to protect state's rights and he championed the expansion of American power to the Caribbean, Mexico, Cuba and Central America in order to protect slavery in the United States. His administration continued the trend of railroad building, but critics claimed he ignored public education. The Panic of 1857 caused unrest and depression throughout the country and Louisiana was hard hit. Governor Wickliffe blamed a loosely managed Board of Currency in Louisiana. As a consequence, he ordered banks to make weekly statements to the Board of Currency. The unrest changed to violence in New Orleans, which was under Know Nothing control, and Wickliffe was forced to dispatch the militia to ensure the validity of the 1858 elections.

After his term as Governor ended, Wickliffe returned to planting and the practice of law in St. Francisville. In the Presidential election of 1860, Wickliffe joined Senator Pierre Soulé in backing Stephen A. Douglas. The other Louisiana Senator, John Slidell, backed former Vice President John C. Breckinridge from Kentucky. Wickliffe was selected to be a delegate for Douglas at the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1861, Wickliffe did not actively support secession and during the Civil War he tried to act as an intermediary between the Confederacy and the Union. After the war was over, in 1865, Wickliffe was elected to the United States House of Representatives representing Louisiana's 3rd congressional district. He was not seated as Louisiana was deemed "not reconstructed."

Wickliffe married his second wife, Anna Davis Anderson in 1870. He was elected a delegate to the Democratic National Convention supporting Samuel J. Tilden in 1876 and in 1884 was delegate supporting Grover Cleveland. In 1892, he reentered electoral politics when he was nominated for Lieutenant Governor by the Louisiana Lottery faction of the Democratic Party. Wickliffe lost to anti-lottery Democrats led by Murphy James Foster. Wickliffe died while visiting relatives in Kentucky on April 18, 1895.

Robert married Anna Ruffin Dawson in 1843. Anna (daughter of John Bennett Dawson, U. S. Representative from Louisiana) was born in 1824; died on 18 May 1853; was buried in Bardstown City Cemetery, Bardstown, Nelson, Kentucky. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Annie Davis Anderson in 1870. Annie was born in 1837; died in 1876; was buried in Bardstown City Cemetery, Bardstown, Nelson, Kentucky. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Robert Charles Wickliffe, U. S. Representative from Louisiana was born on 1 May 1874 in Bardstown, Nelson, Kentucky; died on 11 Jun 1912 in Washington, D.C.; was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Jefferson, Kentucky.

Notes:

From the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (citation details below):

WICKLIFFE, CHARLES ANDERSON, (grandfather of Robert Charles Wickliffe and John Crepps Wickliffe Beckham), a Representative from Kentucky; born near Springfield, Washington County, Ky., June 8, 1788; completed preparatory studies; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1809 and commenced practice in Bardstown; served in the War of 1812; was aide to General Winlock; member of the State house of representatives in 1812 and 1813; again entered the Army as aide to General Caldwell; again a member of the State house of representatives in 1822, 1823, and 1833-1835, and served as speaker in 1834; elected as a Jackson Republican to the Eighteenth Congress; reelected as a Jacksonian to the Nineteenth through the Twenty-second Congresses (March 4, 1823-March 3, 1833); chairman, Committee on Public Lands (Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses); was not a candidate for renomination; one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1830 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck, United States judge for the district of Missouri; Lieutenant Governor in 1836; became Governor upon the death of Governor Clark and served from October 5, 1839, to September 1840; Postmaster General from October 13, 1841, to March 6, 1845; sent on a secret mission by President Polk to the Republic of Texas in 1845; member of the State constitutional convention in 1849; member of the peace conference held at Washington, D.C., in 1861 in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-seventh Congress (March 4, 1861-March 3, 1863); did not seek renomination; unsuccessful candidate for Governor in 1863; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1864; died near Ilchester, Md., October 31, 1869; interment in Bardstown Cemetery, Bardstown, Ky.

Charles married Margaret Crepps. Margaret was born on 7 Sep 1788; died on 10 Dec 1863; was buried in Bardstown City Cemetery, Bardstown, Nelson, Kentucky. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Said to have been a daughter of the noted "Indian fighter" Colonel Christian Crepps (d. 1788).

Charles married Lydia Hardin in 1767. Lydia (daughter of Martin Hardin) died after 1823. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

James Nourse and His Descendants (citation details below) calls her Lydia while saying that her first name may instead have been Sarah, but the repeated references to her in Ewing v. Handley (citation details below) make it clear that her name was Lydia.