James Fisher Robinson

James Fisher Robinson (October 4, 1800 – October 31, 1882) was the 22nd Governor of Kentucky, serving the remainder of the unfinished term of Governor Beriah Magoffin. Magoffin, a Confederate sympathizer, became increasingly ineffective after the elections of 1861 yielded a supermajority to pro-Union forces in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly. Magoffin agreed to resign the governorship, provided he could select his successor. He selected Robinson. Politically, Robinson opposed both secession and abolition. Though he had Union sympathies, he was considered a moderate, opposing both fugitive slave laws and the enlistment of black soldiers. As a state senator, he supported the Crittenden Compromise and opposed the Civil War. As governor, he drew criticism from the administration of President Abraham Lincoln for opposing the Emancipation Proclamation. Early life Robinson was born to Jonathan and Jane Black Robinson in Scott County, Kentucky on October 4, 1800. His early studies were done under a private tutor, then under Presbyterian minister Robert Marshall. He was of English and Scottish descent. He attended Forest Hill Academy and Transylvania University, graduating in 1818. His brother, John McCracken Robinson graduated in the same class and moved to Illinois, where he eventually served two terms as a U.S. Senator. James Robinson studied law under William T. Barry, and was admitted to the bar, beginning his practice in Georgetown, Kentucky. On December 29, 1821, Robinson married Susan Mansell of Georgetown, the first of his three wives. Mansell and Robinson had two children, a son and a daughter, before Mansell died in 1835. Robinson married Willina S. Herndon of Scott County on March 21, 1839. The couple had eight children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Herndon died in 1861.