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Charles Anderson Wickliffe (8 June 1788-31 October 1869) was a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-KY 9) from 4 March 1823 to 3 March 1833 (succeeding Thomas Montgomery and preceding James Love), Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky from 31 August 1836 to 27 August 1839 (succeeding James Turner Morehead and preceding Manlius Valerius Thomson), Governor of Kentucky from 27 August 1839 to 2 September 1840 (succeeding James Clark and preceding Robert P. Letcher), Postmaster General from 13 September 1841 to 4 March 1845 (succeeding Francis Granger and preceding Cave Johnson), and a member of the US House of Representatives (U-KY 5) from 4 March 1861 to 3 March 1863 (succeeding John Y. Brown and preceding Robert Mallory).

Biography[]

Charles Anderson Wickliffe was born in Springfield, Kentucky in 1788, and he became a lawyer in Bardstown in 1809. He served in the State House in 1812, and he vigorously supported the War of 1812. Wickliffe went on to serve in the US House of Representatives from 1823 to 1833 as a Democratic-Republican and Whig, and he served as Lieutenant Governor from 1836 to 1839 and acting Governor from 1839 to 1840. He went on to serve as Postmaster General under President John Tyler, and he survived a stabbing by an insane man in 1844 and, in 1845, was sent by President James K. Polk to report on British and French intents with regard to the annexation of Texas. In 1861, he returned to the US Congress as a Unionist, serving from 1861 to 1863. While he supported the Union, Wickliffe was prevented from winning the 1863 gubernatorial election by the occupying Union Army, and he was later blinded in a carriage accident and died in 1869.

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