USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02303 2797
THE
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
Y.2
FROM ITS EARLIEST DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT DATE. EMBRAC- ING ITS PREHISTORIC AND ABORIGINAL PERIODS: ITS PIONEER LIFE AND EXPERIENCES : ITS POLITICAL. SOCIAL, AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS .; ITS EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT; ITS MILITARY EVENTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS, AND BIOGRAPHIC MENTION OF ITS HISTORIC CHARACTERS.
BY
Z. F. SMITH,
EX-SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF KENTUCKY.
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THE PRENTICE PRESS (COURIER-JOURNAL LUB PRINTING COMPANY) Louisville, Ky .. 1895.
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1
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/historyofkentuck02smit
1686614
424
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
reputation. He took a leading part in all the great questions of local char- acter that agitated Kentucky from 1793 to 1806, and whose settlement still exerts a controlling influence upon the character of her people and institu- tions. The constitution of 1798-9, for fifty years preserved unaltered, was as much the work of his hands as of any other statesman. The question of negro slavery, as settled in that constitution, upon a moderate ground, the ground which Kentucky ever occupied: the systematizing, to some extent, the civil and criminal codes; the simplification of the land law ; the law of descents; the penitentiary system; the abolition of the punishment of death, except for willful murder and treason-all these, and many other important subjects of a kindred nature, fell under his molding labors at the forming period of the Commonwealth, and remained till 1850 as they were adjusted half a century before. In those vital questions that involved the destiny of the whole West, and threatened the plan, if not the continuance, of the Union itself, no man took an earlier or more decided stand. It is capable of proof that the free navigation of the Mississippi river, and subse- quently the purchase of Louisiana, were literally forced upon the General Government by demonstrations from the West, mainly from Kentucky. in which the mind and the hand of this statesman were conspicuous.
As a statesman, however, he is best known as one of the leading men of the old Democratic party, which came into power with Mr. Jefferson, as president, under whose administration he was made attorney-general of the United States. He was an ardent friend, personal and political, of Mr. Jefferson ; he coincided with him upon the great principles of the old de- mocracy ; he concerted with him and Mr. Madison, and others of kindred views, the movements which brought the Democratic party into power; he supported the interests of that party with eminent ability, in the Legislature of Kentucky, and in the Senate of the United States, and died much be- loved, honored, and trusted by it. After his death, it was intimated that the Kentucky resolutions of 1798-9, which he offered, and which were the first great movement against the alien and sedition laws, and the general prin- riples of the party that passed them, were in fact the production of Mr. Jefferson himself, and not of John Breckinridge. The family of Mr. Breck- inridge have constantly asserted that their father was the sole and true author of these resolutions.
In stature, John Breckinridge was above the middle size of men; tall, «lender, and muscular; a man of great power and noble appearance. He had very clear gray eyes, and brown hair, inclining to a slight shade of red. He was extremely grave and silent in his ordinary intercourse; a man singularly courteous and gentle, and very tenderly loved by those who knew him. His descendants are numerous, both of his own and other names.
1 The first instance of a pension under the government of Kentucky oc- curred this year, and of a most remarkable character, illustrative of the
: Butler, p. 308.
425
CONSPIRACY AGAIN DARKENS THE HORIZON.
vicissitudes of the times. Clarinda Arlington, on application to the General Assembly for assistance, was allowed an annuity for three years. It was alleged that she had been a prisoner with the Cherokee Indians, and was compelled by a chief to marry him after the Indian fashion. By this mar- riage she bore him three children, when she escaped from the savages and took refuge in Kentucky.
By the vicissitudes of fortune in the life of that remarkable genius, Gen- eral Wilkinson, who bore, but a few years ago, such a conspicuous part in the intrigues looking to the severance of Kentucky from the Union, and her attachment by liberal commercial relations with the Spanish province of Louisiana, we find him now a general in the regular army of the United States; and first in military command to receive from the French agent the transfer and control of this territorial empire, on its purchase from Napoleon. In 1806, when the Spanish forces were menacingly advanced to the east side of the Sabine river, General Wilkinson was ordered to repel and drive them back upon the Mexican frontier.
1 The brilliant and ambitious Aaron Burr, whose term of vice-president had just expired, had mainly forfeited his political prestige and the sympa- thy of the people, by an ill-advised attack upon the administration, and by the death of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, at his hands. During the sum- mer of 1805, he visited Kentucky, and after some stay in Frankfort in an apparently retired manner, he proceeded on his way through all the principal points in the Western country, from St. Louis to New Orleans. In the en- suing August, Colonel Burr returned to Lexington, on his way eastward again.
In 1806, the ubiquitous conspirator, whose mysterious changes of place seemed like the agitations of some evil spirit, ill at peace with itself, again appeared in the Western country. His headquarters seem to have been the ill-fated and beautiful home of Mr. Blannerhassett, on the island bearing his name, in the Ohio river. Rumors of desperate schemes and mad enter- prises increased rapidly one upon another. Boats were known to be building in the States of Kentucky and Ohio in considerable numbers; provisions were contracted for: and numbers of the young and ardent, with some of graver character, were engaged in some military expedition, whose character could not be precisely ascertained. Many asserted that the expedition was against Mexico, and was undertaken with the connivance, if not with the concurrence, of the president of the United States. 2 Artifices to produce this impression were afterward known to have been employed, to inveigle those whose principles could not otherwise be overpowered. The difficulties of the United States with Spain confirmed the above representations. These various kinds of proof were communicated by Joseph H. Daveiss, the dis- tinguished attorney for the United States. to the president, early in January of this year.
s Butler, p. 309.
2 Jefferson's Correspondence.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
It seems that it was not until the communications of Burr, through Sam- uel Swartwout, to Wilkinson, in his camp at Natchitoches, and forwarded to President Jefferson, that the latter had exact intelligence of the plan or the parties. This letter was dated at Philadelphia, on the 29th of July, 1806; but was not delivered, owing to Wilkinson's rapid change of movements from St. Louis to Natchitoches, where the messenger followed him, until the 8th of October. Still the letter was couched in such mystified and obscure language, as to bear no precise interpretation, without the verbal explana- tions of the bearer, to which Wilkinson was referred. . It announced the enterprise in these dark terms: "I (Aaron Burr) have obtained funds, and have actually commenced the enterprise. Detachments from different points, under different pretences, will rendezvous in Ohio, Ist November-every- thing, internal and external, favors views : Protection of England is secured; Truston is going to Jamaica, to arrange with the admiral on that station; it will meet on the Miss .- England .- Navy of the U. S. are ready to join, and final orders are given to my friends and followers ; it will be a host of choice spirits. Wilkinson shall be second to Burr only ; Wilkinson shall dictate the rank and promotion of his officers-Burr will proceed westward Ist August, never to return." In another part of the letter he writes: .. Already are orders to the contractors given, to forward six months' provisions to points Wilkinson may name; this shall not be used until the last moment, and then under proper injunctions; the project is brought to the point so long desired. Burr guarantees the result with his life and honor, with the lives, the honor, the fortunes of hundreds, the bestblood of our country. Burr's plan of oper- ations is, to move down rapidly from the falls on the 15th of November, with the first five hundred or one thousand men, in light boats, now con- structing for that purpose, to be at Natchez between the 5th and 15th of December ; there to meet Wilkinson; there to determine whether it will be expedient in the first instance to seize on Baton Rouge!"1
This letter contains the most explicit details from Burr himself, in writing, destitute, as it no doubt purposely was left, of clear meaning, independent of other circumstances. To General Eaton. however, in the winter of 1805-6, Aaron Burr signified that he was organizing a military expedition, to be moved against the Spanish provinces on the South-western frontiers of the United States. 2 This was represented to be under the authority of the General Government. In additional conversations, he laid open his project of revolutionizing the territory west of the Alleghany, and establishing an independent empire there; New Orleans to be the capital, and he himself to be the chief; organizing a military force on the waters of the Mississippi, and carrying conquest to Mexico.
These projects were enlarged upon in the oral conferences between Mr. Swartwout and General Wilkinson, so as to represent that Colonel Burr, with the support of a powerful association extending from New York to New
I Wilkinson's Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 216.
2 Burr's Trial, p. 474.
427
AARON BURR INDICTED.
Orleans, was levying an armed body of seven thousand men from the State of New York and the Western States and Territories, with a view to carry an expedition to the Mexican territories.
Anterior to these developments, Burr, as has been intimated, had re- turned to Kentucky in August, 1806. Here he effected the negotiation of bills of exchange, to the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars, through the Kentucky Insurance Company; these notes were afterward known to have been paid for tavern expenses at Washington city, by some of the asso- ciates of Burr, after the explosion of the scheme.
Colonel Daveiss, after having made exertions to penetrate the mystery of Burr's plans, even by going to St. Louis, where Wilkinson was governor, to scrutinize the movements of the general, obtaining no instructions from the executive, on the meeting of the district court of the United States, in November, 1806, made oath " that he was informed, and did verily believe. that Aaron Burr for several months past had been, and now is, engaged in preparing and setting on foot, and in providing and preparing the means for, a military expedition and enterprise within this district, for the purpose of descending the Ohio and Mississippi therewith, and making war upon the subjects of the king of Spain." After having read this affidavit, the attorney added, "I have information, on which I can rely, that all the West- ern territories are the next object of the scheme; and, finally, all the region of the Ohio is calculated as falling into the vortex of the newly-proposed revolution."
The motion for process against Burr was, however, overruled, as unpre- cedented and illegal; yet the daring intriguer, hearing of the intended pros- ecution, had the politic audacity to present himself before the court, and demand an investigation of his conduct; for which, as he said, he was always ready, and therefore had attended. The attorney replied to this counterfeit of innocence, that he only wanted his witnesses to be ready for trial, which, after conversing with the marshal, he said might be on Wednesday, the rith of November. This day was then appointed for the meeting of a grand jury, and officers were dispatched with subpoenas to different parts of Ken- tucky, as well as of Indiana.
On the assembly of the court, upon the stated day, amid the most intense excitement, produced by the serious magnitude of the charge and the former dignity of the accused, it was found that a material witness. Davis Floyd, was absent, attending a meeting of the Indiana Legislature, of which he was a member. Upon this, the court discharged the grand jury. Immedi- ately afterward, Burr, accompanied by his counsel, Henry Clay and John Allen, came into court, and on learning the dismission of the jury. gravely asked the reason, and expressed his regret at the step. On being informed of the cause which had led to this result, he desired that the cause of the postponement should be entered of record, and also the reason of the non- attendance of Floyd. This was done, with the consent of Colonel Daveiss.
428
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
The arch conspirator then addressed the people through the court, by say- ing that 1 the good people of Kentucky might, and he hoped they would, dismiss their fears for the present; that in fact there was no ground for them, whatever efforts had been made to excite them; that he had understood some had been made to apprehend that he was pursuing means inimical to their peace; but they were misinformed, as they would find, if the attorney should ever get ready and open his investigation, that in the meantime they would be in no manner of danger from him; that he had to act on the defensive only; that he should expect another attack, and hold himself ready for it.
During these proceedings, the conduct of this adroit and most insinu- ating man is represented to have been grave, polite, and dignified. It required something of Roman sternness to withstand the blandishments of the winning and fascinating address of this extraordinary character. Those who saw him presiding in the Senate of the United States, and most particu- larly during the embarrassing trial of Judge Chase, may estimate the grace- ful dignity, the polished decision, and the silent firmness which so strikingly characterized this modern Cataline.
John Rowan, then acting as secretary of state for Kentucky, and a mem- ber of Congress-elect, was asked to engage in his second defense, in con- junction with Mr. Clay. Mr. Rowan objected to it on account of his late congressional election, which bound him, as he thought, not to engage in a controversy possibly involving fidelity to the General Government. Mr. Clay, who had now also been elected a member of Congress, on reflection, concurred in this opinion, and asked the advice of Mr. Rowan. The latter candidly concurred with Mr. Clay in the impropriety of retiring from his professional engagement at the existing stage, and suggested the expediency of requiring from Colonel Burr a declaration, upon his honor, that he was engaged in no schemes hostile to the peace or union of the country.
The reply of Mr. Burr, dated December Ist, to Mr. Clay, was: 2" I have no design, nor have I taken any measure, to promote the dissolution of the Union, or a separation of any one or more States from the residue. I have neither published a line on this subject, nor has any one, through my agency or with my knowledge. I have no design to intermeddle with the Government, or to disturb the tranquillity of the United States, nor of its territories, or any part of them. I have neither issued, nor signed. nor promised a commission to any person, for any purpose. I do not own a musket, nor bayonet, nor any single article of military stores, nor does any person for me, by my authority or my knowledge. My views have been explained to and approved by several of the principal officers of Govern- ment, and, I believe, are well understood by the administration and seen by it with complacency. They are such as every man of honor and every good citizen must approve. Considering the high station you now fill in our na- tional councils, I have thought these explanations proper, as well to coun-
1 Marshall, Vol. II., p. 397.
2 Prentice's Biography of Henry Clay, p. 33.
!
4
429
BURR'S ACQUITTAL.
teract the chimerical tales which malevolent persons have industriously circulated as to satisfy you that you have not espoused the cause of a man in any way unfriendly to the laws, the Government, or the interests of his country." .
These assurances sheltered Mr. Clay from all animadversion on his pro- fessional defense of Burr. On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Rowan had an interview with Colonel Burr, when, the latter attempting to remove some objections which were understood to be felt by the former to engaging in his defense, Mr. Rowan arrested the strain of remark by observing that he had been taught from early childhood not to reason on subjects which his feel- ings in the first instance condemned.
On the 2d of December, another grand jury was assembled, by order of the district judge, at the instance of the attorney for the United States. In- dictments were laid before it against John Adair and Aaron Burr, for instituting unlawful expeditions against the dominions of the king of Spain; but the jury, having carefully examined and scrutinized all the testimony which had come before them, said " there had been none which in the small- est degree criminated either of the above persons; nor can we, from all the inquiries and investigations on the subject, discover that anything improper or injurious to the interest of the Government of the United States, or con- trary to the laws thereof, is designed or contemplated by either of them."
This decision of the grand jury was received by a burst of applause from the spectators, so intense was the popular sympathy for Burr. Thus did the wily arts of this consummate intriguer mislead not only confiding friends, but the judicial tribunals of the country, and convert what should have been the instruments of detection into trumpets of praise and vehicles of confi- dence.
A public ball was given in honor of Burr's triumph, which provoked another in honor of the Union and Colonel Daveiss, for the consolation of the intrepid officer.
1 While this judicial farce was acting at Frankfort, and that unavoidably, too, after submitting the indictments to the jury, the president's proclama- tion had been issued and was on the road, to arouse the people of the West- ern country from the stupor produced by the Machiavelian arts of the consummate deceiver. On the 27th of November, the proclamation was published, and on the 18th of December was known at Frankfort. On the 16th, the persevering Daveiss. foiled as he had been in all his legal efforts to arrest this conspiracy, still not despairing in his patriotic course, wrote the governor from Louisville, communicating the passage at that place of Blannerhassett, with eight flat-boats and three keel-boats, having some boxes of arms and ammunition on board, and some men. On the confidential communication of this letter, the Legislature resolved that the governor be requested to use, with all possible expedition, the means within his power
I Butler, p. 317.
430 .
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
to execute the duties required by the proclamation of the president of the United States, bearing date of November 27th. An application of the pres- idential agent to the Legislature of Kentucky procured an extraordinary act to prevent unlawful enterprises. Under this law, measures were immedi- ately taken to order out portions of the militia; but before they assembled at their posts, all the boats of Colonel Burr not intercepted by the authori- ties of the State of Ohio effected their passage to the mouth of Cumberland. There the bold adventurers, disconcerted by the late but unexpected vigor of the State governments, assembled with Colonel Burr to brood over their blasted hopes of aggrandizement on the disruption of their country.
On the 22d of December, Burr descended the Cumberland river from Nashville, with two boats of accommodation merely. On reaching Bayou Pierre, in the Mississippi Territory, he surrendered himself to the civil au- thority.
After this, he attempted to flee into Florida, but, on being intercepted by the military force, he was conveyed to Richmond, Virginia, on the 26th of March, 1807. Legal difficulties, arising from his absence at the military musters on Blannerhassett's Island, shielded this high offender from the law of treason.
Thus one of the most dramatic episodes of American history, of which Kentucky was mainly the scene of action, passed into historic notoriety as "Burr's Conspiracy." The verdict of public judgment has universally pro- nounced the scheme as treasonable in intent, and in all the intrigues and devices by which its consummation was sought. So far as Colonel Burr may have aimed to disturb the relations of any of the States or Territories, he was certainly amenable to the imputation of treason. Yet, to the admirers of the vulgar greatness which the popular mind is ever ready to concede to military ascendancy, it may be observed that Burr was, at worst, only what Cæsar, and Cromwell, and the Napoleons, might have been, if fortune had smiled less auspiciously on their daring usurpations. Those who are so easily dazzled with the guilty splendor of success. in the one case, may well extend a compassionate feeling to guilty misfortune, in the other, and yet preserve their consistency.
As far as Burr's intentions and plans were aimed at conquest and empire beyond the borders of the United States territory, he was not alone to blame. There was a Western element, most largely represented in Kentucky, that longed for adventure. Though the avenues were closed by the stipulations of general peace, the restless spirit of the occidental Jasons longed for ad- venture, and the more desperate and daring it seemed, the greater were the fascinations to embark in it to these. The heroic age of Kentucky had well nigh spent its force. for the want of opportunity, but the love of adventure and conquest burned as intensely as of old in the hearts of many. The spirit is not all gone yet; but, in these modern days, we entitle it " filibus- tering." Toward the provinces of Spain in the South-west, Burr's enter-
431
JUDGE SEBASTIAN CHARGED WITH BRIBERY.
prise may, in modified language, be termed a filibustering expedition on a grand scale, dishonored because an abortion, and not a birth of empire.
1 The atmosphere of public and political life was this year made rife with the elements of official bad faith, stirred up by the legislative proceedings in regard to the conspiracy of Burr. It was during the session of the Legis- lature in 1806 that, on motion, an inquiry was ordered into the conduct of Judge Sebastian.
The resolution of inquiry was in the following words :
"WHEREAS, This House has been informed and given to understand that Benjamin Sebastian, one of the judges of the Court of Appeals of this Commonwealth, has been, during his continuance in office, a pensioner of the Spanish Government; wherefore,
" Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into the facts, and such other facts relating thereto as may be deemed proper for investiga- tion,"
A committee was accordingly appointed, with full power to send for persons, papers, and records for their information. The disclosures pro- duced by this committee established the fact that Judge Sebastian, while a high judicial officer of Kentucky, had been for over ten years in the receipt of a pension from the court of Spain of two thousand dollars a year. This amount had been received for him by Thomas Bullitt, of Louisville, in 1801 and 1802; and a draft for the pension, on the Spanish governor of New Orleans, had been found by Charles Wilkins, in the papers of John A. Seitz, deceased, of Natchez. In the course of this investigation, Judge Innes was summoned before the committee, and detailed of his own honorable frank- ness, the successive visits of Thomas Power, as the agent of the Baron De Carondelet, the governor of Louisiana, in 1795, and again in 1797, to nego- tiate for commercial privileges, and finally for forcible separation from the rest of the confederacy, with Messrs. Sebastian, Innes, Nicholas, and Mur- ray. On this evidence, the previous statement of the Spanish conspiracy has been mainly founded. The conclusion of the committee was that Judge Sebastian had been guilty as charged, and his conduct in doing so was sub- versive of every duty he owed to the constituted authorities of our country, and highly derogatory to the character of Kentucky. This report was unanimously agreed to by the House. The judge having resigned, no further measures were taken.
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