Commonwealth. Dixon represented the pro-Union position along with John J. Crittenden and Samuel S. Nicholas. Kentucky governor Beriah Magoffin, John C. Breckinridge, and Richard Hawes represented the southern sympathizers. The arbiters met on May 11, 1861. After the pro-Union men defeated a proposal to call a sovereignty convention, the six arbiters recommended a position of neutrality, which the General Assembly adopted. In March 1864, Dixon accompanied Kentucky Governor Thomas E. Bramlette and John Marshall Harlan, the state's attorney general, to an audience with President Lincoln to protest the recruitment of blacks into the ranks of the Union Army. The governor eventually agreed to allow the practice, but only when whites failed to meet their draft quotas. Since recruitment of blacks had been taking place in the Commonwealth for more than two months already, the concession was little more than a face-saving gesture by Bramlette. Following the end of the Civil War, Dixon retired from public life. He died in Henderson on April 23, 1876, and is buried in Fernwood Cemetery. Legacy Archibald Dixon is the namesake of Dixon, Kentucky. Notes Kleber, the more contemporary source, lists Dixon's first wife as Elizabeth Pollit, while Starling gives the name Elizabeth Robertson Cabell, a marriage date of 1832, and lists only five children. Genealogical records, including death certificates of Dixon's children, also give the first wife's name as Elizabeth R. Cabell, with a marriage date of March 13, 1834, in Henderson County, Kentucky. References Further reading External links Archibald Dixon at The Political Graveyard Obituary in The New York Times United States senators from Kentucky 1802 births 1876 deaths People from Caswell County, North Carolina Kentucky lawyers Lieutenant Governors of Kentucky Members of the Kentucky House of Representatives Kentucky state senators People from Henderson County, Kentucky Kentucky Whigs 19th-century American politicians Whig Party United States senators 19th-century American lawyers