Charles S. Morehead

Governor of Kentucky

Charles Slaughter Morehead (July 7, 1802 – December 21, 1868) was a U.S.Representative from Kentucky, and served as the 20th Governor of Kentucky.

Though a member of the Whig Party for most of his political service, he joined the Know Nothing, or American, Party in 1855, and was the only governor of Kentucky ever elected from that party.

Morehead's political service began in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1828.In 1832, he was appointed state attorney general.He served in this capacity for five years, and later returned to the Kentucky House, where he was chosen Speaker of the House three times.

He was elected to Congress in 1848 and served two terms.After his congressional tenure, he joined the Know Nothing Party and was chosen as the party's candidate for governor in 1855.

The campaign was marred by anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic rhetoric that touched off the "Bloody Monday" riots in Louisville.Morehead was a delegate to the Peace Conference of 1861 and the that attempted to stave off the Civil War.

Although he favored Kentucky's neutrality, Morehead sympathized with the South and was an open critic of the Lincoln administration.He was imprisoned for disloyalty in September 1861, although no formal charges were ever brought against him.

He was released from prison in January 1862, and afterward fled to Canada, Europe, and Mexico.After the war, he returned to the United States and settled on his plantation in Greenville, Mississippi, where he died on December 21, 1868.

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