Governor of Kentucky - History of The Office

History of The Office

Political parties had developed in the United States before Kentucky became a state. Because most early Kentuckians were Virginians, they naturally allied with the Democratic-Republicans, the party of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; the latter was a cousin of George Madison, the state's sixth governor. Political victories were few and far between for Federalists in Kentucky, and none of Kentucky's governors were members of the Federalist Party. Military service was the most important consideration for voters in Kentucky's early gubernatorial elections. John Breathitt, elected Kentucky's eleventh governor in 1832, was the first Kentucky governor not to have served in the military.

The Federalist Party had died out nationally by 1820, but new party divisions were soon to form in Kentucky. The Panic of 1819 left many Kentuckians deeply in debt and without a means of repaying their creditors. Two factions grew up around the issue of debt relief. Those who favored laws favorable to debtors were dubbed the "Relief Party" and those who favored laws protecting creditors were called the "Anti-Relief Party". While not formal political parties—members of both factions still considered themselves Democratic-Republicans—these factions defined the political dialogue of the 1820s in Kentucky. The debt relief issue began under Gabriel Slaughter, who identified with the Anti-Relief Party, but Slaughter's two immediate successors, John Adair and Joseph Desha, were members of the Relief Party. The struggle between the two parties culminated in the Old Court – New Court controversy, an attempt by the pro-relief legislature to abolish the Court of Appeals because the court overturned some debt relief measures as unconstitutional. The controversy ended with the restoration of the Old Court over Desha's veto in late 1826.

Although many Old Court supporters—typically the state's wealthy aristocracy—gravitated to the National Republican Party (later to be called Whigs) that formed in the 1820s, it is inaccurate to assume the Anti-Relief Party as a whole became National Republicans and the Relief Party became Democrats. The primary factor in determining which party Kentuckians aligned with was their faith in Whig Party founder and native son, Henry Clay. From the election of Thomas Metcalfe in 1828 to the expiration of John L. Helm's term in 1851, only one Democrat held the office of governor: John Breathitt, who died a year and a half into his term and was succeeded in office by his lieutenant governor, James Turner Morehead, a National Republican.

Following the collapse of the Whig Party in the early 1850s, many former Whigs joined the Know Nothing, or American, Party, and Charles S. Morehead was elected governor from that party in 1855. Sectarian tensions gripped the state in the lead-up to the Civil War, and while the majority of Kentuckians favored the preservation of the Union above all else, a self-constituted group of Confederate sympathizers met at Russellville and formed a Confederate government for the state. While this provisional government never displaced the elected government in Frankfort, two men served as Confederate governors of Kentucky.

From the close of the Civil War until 1895, Kentuckians elected a series of Bourbon Democrats with Confederate sympathies as governor, including two men—James B. McCreary and Simon Bolivar Buckner—who had served in the Confederate States Army. The Democratic dominance was broken by William O'Connell Bradley, who was elected the state's first Republican governor in 1895. Bradley's election marked the beginning of thirty years of true, two-party competition for the governorship in the state. Between 1895 and 1931, five Republicans and six Democrats held the office of governor. Since 1931, however, the Republicans have been unable to preserve this level of parity, and in that period only three of the nineteen elected governors have been from the Republican party. Ernie Fletcher, elected in 2003, was the most recent Republican to hold the office.