Beriah Magoffin, governor during 1859-62, was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, on April 18, 1815, to Beriah and Jane (McAfee) Magoffin. After graduating from Centre College at Danville in 1835, he studied law at Transylvania University. He started practicing law in Mississippi but returned to Harrodsburg in 1839. In 1840 he married Anna Nelson Shelby, a granddaughter of Isaac Shelby; ten of their children survived infancy.

Magoffin was appointed Harrodsburg's police judge in 1840. A Democrat, he was elected to the state Senate in 1850 and was a delegate to four national party conventions, but in 1851 he refused a nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives. Magoffin was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 1855, but lost the race to a Know-Nothing candidate. In 1859 he defeated Joshua Bell in the gubernatorial election by 76,187 to 67,283 and served from August 30, 1859, to August 18, 1862. Magoffin accepted slavery and states' rights; he believed in the right of secession but hoped to prevent it by collective action of the slave states in reaching an agreement with the North.

At the onset of the Civil War, Magoffin rejected both Union and Confederate requests for troops and after the legislature voted a neutrality resolution, he proclaimed the policy on May 20, 1861. Unionists distrusted him, and after they gained more than a two-thirds majority in both houses of the General Assembly in the summer of 1861, his vetoes were routinely overridden. In August 1862 Magoffin indicated that he would resign if replaced by a "conservative, just man," but Lt. Gov. Linn Boyd had died in 1859, and Magoffin would not accept Speaker of the Senate John F. Fisk, the next in succession. Fisk resigned as Speaker, and was replaced by James F. Robinson ; Magoffin then resigned. Robinson assumed the governorship and Fisk was reelected as Speaker. Magoffin returned to his legal practice and farming at Harrodsburg. Postwar real estate speculation in the Chicago area made him wealthy. Elected to the Kentucky House in 1867, he urged Kentuckians to accept the results of the Civil War, to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, and to grant civil rights to blacks. Magoffin died at home on February 28, 1885, and was buried at Harrodsburg.

Magoffin's administration was dominated by the secession crisis, the Civil War, and the Unionists' distrust. They blocked his effort to hold a state convention to determine what position Kentucky should take, and his numerous vetoes were ineffective after the legislative elections of 1861. Despite his southern sympathies, Magoffin denounced the "self-constituted" Russellville convention of November 1861, which created a provisional government that was admitted into the Confederacy in December. The governor and the legislators could agree only upon the most innocuous of matters; ultimately, resignation was the best option.

Michael T. Dues, "Governor Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky," FCHQ 40 (Jan. 1966): 22-29.

LOWELL H. HARRISON
Entry Author

In the print edition this entry appears on pages 603 - 604