Representative Charles Anderson Wickliffe

Charles Anderson Wickliffe (June 8, 1788 – October 31, 1869) was an American politician who served as the 11th United States Postmaster General from 1841 to 1845, the 14th governor of Kentucky from 1839 to 1840, and a U.S. Representative from Kentucky at two different periods, including a final term from 1861 to 1863. He also served as Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives and as the tenth lieutenant governor of Kentucky. Though he consistently identified with the Whig Party, he was notably independent in his political views and often differed with Whig founder and fellow Kentuckian Henry Clay. Over a long public career that spanned the War of 1812 through the Civil War, he played prominent roles in state and national politics and in efforts to preserve the Union.

Wickliffe was born on June 8, 1788, in Jefferson County, Kentucky, then a part of Virginia’s western frontier. He received a strong education in public schools and through private tutors, an opportunity that reflected his family’s standing in early Kentucky society. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and established a legal practice, building a reputation that soon led him into public life. On February 18, 1813, he married Margaret Cripps; the couple had three sons and five daughters. Among their children, Robert C. Wickliffe became governor of Louisiana, and their daughter Nancy married David Levy Yulee, who would become a U.S. senator from Florida. The Wickliffe family commissioned architect John Rogers, designer of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Bardstown, to construct their residence, which they named “Wickland.” The home later became known as “the home of three governors,” having been occupied by Wickliffe, his son Governor Robert C. Wickliffe of Louisiana, and his grandson J. C. W. Beckham, a future governor of Kentucky.

Wickliffe’s public career began in the Kentucky House of Representatives, to which he was elected in 1812. A vigorous supporter of the War of 1812, he served for a brief time as aide-de-camp to two American generals, reflecting his early commitment to national defense and the young republic. His legislative talents soon propelled him to the national stage. In 1823, he was elected to the first of five consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving in Congress through the 1830s as a Kentuckian aligned with the Whigs but often charting his own course on major issues. After leaving Congress, he returned to the Kentucky House in 1833, where he rose to the position of Speaker. In 1836, he was elected the tenth lieutenant governor of Kentucky. When Governor James Clark died in office on October 5, 1839, Wickliffe succeeded him and served as governor for the remaining nine months of Clark’s term, from 1839 to 1840, guiding the state through a period of political and economic adjustment.

Following his brief governorship, Wickliffe remained a significant figure in both state and national politics. On February 18, 1841, the Kentucky General Assembly elected James Turner Morehead to the U.S. Senate; Wickliffe received twenty votes in that contest, underscoring his continued prominence among Kentucky legislators. Shortly thereafter, President John Tyler appointed him United States Postmaster General, a post he held from 1841 to 1845. As Postmaster General, he oversaw the nation’s expanding mail system during a time of rapid growth and sectional tension. In 1844, he was stabbed by an assailant who was later found to be insane, an incident that underscored the often volatile nature of public life in that era. In 1845, President James K. Polk sent Wickliffe on a secret mission to assess British and French intentions regarding the annexation of Texas and to evaluate the feasibility of U.S. annexation. His participation in this confidential diplomatic endeavor, undertaken for a Democratic administration, further distanced him from many of his fellow Whigs and highlighted his willingness to act independently of strict party lines.

Wickliffe continued to play an important role in Kentucky’s internal affairs after leaving the Post Office Department. In 1849, he was chosen as a delegate to the state constitutional convention, despite having opposed the calling of such a convention a decade earlier. Political opponents, including Thomas F. Marshall, seized on this to accuse him of inconsistency, a charge he denied. In 1850, he was appointed to a committee charged with revising Kentucky’s code of laws, contributing to the legal framework of the Commonwealth. On January 8, 1861, as the nation stood on the brink of civil war, he chaired the state Democratic convention in Louisville, signaling his continued influence and his evolving alignment with Democratic and Unionist elements in Kentucky politics.

With secession looming, Wickliffe returned to national office. In 1861, he was again elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1861 to 1863 as a Union Whig. He opposed the idea of secession and worked actively to avert civil war, serving as a delegate to both the 1861 Peace Conference in Washington, D.C., and the Border States Convention, which sought compromise to preserve the Union. In April 1861, he attended a secret meeting at the Capitol Hotel in Frankfort where Unionist leaders planned to arm supporters in key areas of Kentucky. On May 18, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln supplied rifles—nicknamed “Lincoln guns”—for this effort. During the war, when Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s forces destroyed railroad trestles near Bardstown, Wickliffe personally hired Joseph Z. Aud to carry the area’s mail by private carriage until the trestles were rebuilt in February 1863, ensuring continued communication despite wartime disruption.

Near the end of his final term in Congress, Wickliffe was thrown from a carriage and permanently crippled, but he remained politically active despite his injury. In 1863, he ran for governor of Kentucky as a Peace Democrat on an anti-Lincoln platform, reflecting his opposition to some of the Lincoln administration’s wartime policies even as he remained fundamentally Unionist. Federal military authorities regarded him as subversive and interfered with the election, which resulted in a landslide victory for Unionist candidate Thomas E. Bramlette. Wickliffe later served as a delegate to the 1864 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he cast his vote for George B. McClellan, the party’s presidential nominee.

In his final years, Wickliffe’s health declined. The injuries from his carriage accident left him crippled, and he eventually went completely blind. Nevertheless, he remained a respected elder statesman in Kentucky and within his extended political family, associated with “Wickland,” the Bardstown residence that had become emblematic of a political dynasty spanning multiple states and generations. While visiting his daughter near Ilchester, Maryland, he fell gravely ill and died there on October 31, 1869. He was buried in Bardstown Cemetery in Bardstown, Kentucky. During World War I, a U.S. naval ship was named in his honor, reflecting the enduring recognition of his long and varied service to Kentucky and the nation.