James Bennett McCreary (July 8, 1838 – October 8, 1918) was an American lawyer and politician from Kentucky. He was a member of the Democratic Party; identified with its reform wing.Pathways to Prohibition Radicals, Moderates, and Social Movement Outcomes By Ann-Marie E. Szymanski, Publisher: Duke University Press
He represented the state in both houses of the U.S. Congress and served as its 27th and 37th governor. Shortly after graduating from law school, he was commissioned as the only major in the 11th Kentucky Cavalry, serving under Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan during the American Civil War. He returned to his legal practice after the war. In 1869, he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives where he served until 1875; he was twice chosen Speaker of the House. At their 1875 nominating convention, state Democrats chose McCreary as their nominee for governor, and he won an easy victory over Republican John Marshall Harlan. With the state still feeling the effects of the Panic of 1873, most of McCreary's actions as governor were aimed at easing the plight of the state's poor farmers.
In 1884, McCreary was elected to the first of six consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a legislator, he was an advocate of free silver and a champion of the state's agricultural interests. After two failed bids for election to the Senate, McCreary secured the support of Governor J. C. W. Beckham, and in 1902, the General Assembly elected him to the Senate. He served one largely undistinguished term, and Beckham then successfully challenged him for his Senate seat in 1908. The divide between McCreary and Beckham was short-lived, however, and Beckham supported McCreary's election to a second term as governor in 1911.
Campaigning on a platform of progressive reforms, McCreary defeated Republican Edward C. O'Rear in the general election. During this second term, he became the first inhabitant of the state's second (and current) governor's mansion; he is also the only governor to have inhabited both the old and new mansions. During his second term, he presided over the passage of various labor lawsTitle: Labor Legislation of 1912 : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 111, P.76-80Title: Labor Legislation of 1914 : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 166, P.33-73 and succeeded in convincing the legislature to make women eligible to vote in school board elections, to mandate direct primary elections, to create a state public utilities commission, and to allow the state's counties to hold local option elections to decide whether or not to adopt prohibition. He also realized substantial increases in education spending and won passage of reforms such as a mandatory school attendance law, but was unable to secure passage of laws restricting lobbying in the legislative chambers and providing for a workers' compensation program. McCreary was one of five commissioners charged with overseeing construction of the new governor's mansion and exerted considerable influence on the construction plans. His term expired in 1915, and he died three years later. McCreary County was formed during McCreary's second term in office and was named in his honor.
Early life James Bennett McCreary was born in Richmond, Kentucky, on July 8, 1838."McCreary, James Bennett". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress He was the son of Edmund R. and Sabrina (Bennett) McCreary.Harrison in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, p. 597 He obtained his early education in the region's common schools, then matriculated to Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1857.Burckel in Kentucky's Governors, p. 105 Immediately thereafter, he enrolled at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, to study law.McAfee, p. 118 In 1859, he earned a Bachelor of Laws from Cumberland and was valedictorian of his class of forty-seven students; he was admitted to the bar and commenced practice at Richmond.McAfee, p. 119
Shortly after the Battle of Richmond on August 29, 1862, David Waller Chenault, a Confederate sympathizer from Madison County, came to Richmond to raise a Confederate regiment. On September 10, 1862, Chenault was commissioned as a colonel and given command of the regiment, dubbed the 11th Kentucky Cavalry. McCreary joined the regiment and was commissioned as a major, the only one in the unit. The 11th Kentucky Cavalry was pressed into immediate service, conducting reconnaissance and fighting bushwhackers. Just three months after its muster, they helped the Confederate Army secure a victory at the Battle of Hartsville. In 1863, the unit joined John Hunt Morgan for his raid into Ohio. Colonel Chenault was killed as the Confederates tried to capture the Green River Bridge at the July 4, 1863, Battle of Tebbs Bend. McCreary assumed command of the unit after Chenault's death. Following the battle, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel on the recommendation of John C. Breckinridge.Johnson, pp. 793–794
Most of the 11th Kentucky Cavalry was captured by Union forces at the Battle of Buffington Island on July 17, 1863. Approximately two hundred men, commanded by McCreary, mounted a charge and escaped their captors, but they were surrounded the next day and surrendered. McCreary was taken to Ninth Street Prison in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was later transferred to Fort Delaware and eventually to Morris Island, South Carolina, where he remained a prisoner through July and most of August 1863. In late August, he was released as part of a prisoner exchange and taken to Richmond, Virginia. He was granted a thirty-day furlough before being put in command of a battalion of Kentucky and South Carolina troops. He commanded this unit, primarily on scouting missions, until the end of the war.Johnson, p. 794
Following the war, McCreary resumed his legal practice.Powell, p. 62 On June 12, 1867, McCreary married Catherine "Kate" Hughes (April 15, 1844 – October 22, 1908), the only daughter of Julia Ann Smith and Thomas Hughes, a wealthy Fayette County farmer. The couple had one son.
Early political career McCreary was nominated to serve as a presidential elector for the ticket of Democrat Horatio Seymour in 1868; though he declined to serve, he attended the national convention as a delegate. His political career began in earnest in 1869 when he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives.
In 1871, McCreary was re-elected to the state House without opposition. In the upcoming legislative session, the major question was expected to be the Cincinnati Southern Railway's request for authorization to build a track connecting Cincinnati, Ohio, with either Knoxville or Chattanooga, Tennessee, through Central Kentucky.Tapp and Klotter, p. 54 The action was opposed by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, a bitter rival of the Cincinnati line. Appeals to the General Assembly to oppose the bill on grounds that an out-of-state corporation should not be granted a charter in the state were successful in 1869 and 1870, and an attempt by the federal Congress to grant the charter was defeated by states' rights legislators there.Tapp and Klotter, pp. 55–56 Moreover, newly elected governor Preston Leslie had opposed a bill granting Cincinnati Southern's request when he was in the state Senate in 1869.Tapp and Klotter, p. 57 In the lead-up to the 1871 session, frustrated Central Kentuckians threatened to defect from the Democratic Party in future elections if the bill were not passed in the session. Supporters of Cincinnati Southern won a victory when McCreary, a staunch supporter of the bill to grant the line's request, was elected Speaker of the House. After approval of a series of amendments designed to give Kentucky courts some jurisdiction in cases involving the line and the Kentucky General Assembly some measure of control over the line's activities, the bill passed the House by a vote of 59–38. The vote in the Senate resulted in a 19–19 tie; President Pro Tem John G. Carlisle—a native of Covington, through which the proposed line would pass—cast the deciding vote in favor of approving Cincinnati Southern's request.Tapp and Klotter, p. 58 With the will of the people clearly expressed through the legislature, Governor Leslie did not employ his gubernatorial veto. McCreary was again returned to the House without opposition in 1873 and was again chosen Speaker of the House during his term.
First term as governor In 1875, McCreary was one of four men, all former Confederate soldiers, who sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination—the others being John Stuart Williams, J. Stoddard Johnson, and George B. Hodge. Williams was considered the favorite for the nomination at the outset of the Democratic nominating convention, despite attacks on his character by newspapers in the western part of the state.Tapp and Klotter, p. 132 However, McCreary defeated Williams on the fourth ballot.
The Republicans nominated John Marshall Harlan, who had served in the Union Army.Tapp and Klotter, p. 137 In joint debates across the state, McCreary stressed what many Kentuckians felt were abuses of power by Republican President Ulysses S. Grant during the Reconstruction Era. Harlan countered by faulting the state's Democratic politicians for continuing to dwell on war issues almost a decade after the war's end. He also attacked what he perceived as Democratic financial extravagance and the high number of pardons granted by sitting Democratic governor Preston Leslie. Harlan claimed these as evidence of widespread corruption in the Democratic Party. McCreary received solid support from the state's newspapers, nearly all of which had Democratic sympathies. Despite a late infusion of cash and stump speakers in favor of his opponent, McCreary won the general election by a vote of 130,026 to 94,236.
At the time of McCreary's election, his wife Kate was the youngest first lady in the Commonwealth's history. Due to the near completion of an annex to the state capitol building by the time of McCreary's inauguration, he was able to move the official governor's office out of the governor's mansion, freeing his family from the intrusion of public business into their private quarters. McCreary's receipt of the executive journal and Great Seal of the Commonwealth from outgoing Governor Leslie in the mansion's office is believed to be the last official act performed by a governor there.Clark and Lane, p. 55
In the wake of the Panic of 1873, the electorate was primarily concerned with economic issues.Tapp and Klotter, p. 145 In his first address to the General Assembly, McCreary focused on economic issues to the near exclusion of providing any leadership or direction in the area of government reforms. (In later years, McCreary's unwillingness to take a definite stand on key issues of reform would earn him the nicknames "Bothsides" McCreary and "Oily Jeems".)Klotter, p. 218 In response to McCreary's address, legislators from the rural, agrarian areas of the state proposed lowering the maximum legal interest rate from ten percent to six percent.Tapp and Klotter, p. 146 The proposed legislation drew the ire of bankers and capitalists; it was also widely panned in the press, notably by Louisville Courier-Journal editor Henry Watterson. Ultimately, the Assembly compromised on a legal interest rate of eight percent. Another bill to lower the property tax rate from 45 to 40 cents per 100 dollars of taxable property encountered far less resistance and passed easily. Few bills passed during the session had statewide impact, despite McCreary's insistence that the legislature prefer general bills over bills of local impact.Burckel in Kentucky's Governors, p. 106 This fact, too, was widely criticized by the state's newspapers.