USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86
174
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
for the presidency vanish into thin air in 1844, that in a few short years, though he would have passed to his fathers, the aim of his life would have been accomplished and freedom proclaimed for all men? How little men know in the midst of their struggles for a princi- ple, how wide-spread the effect of their ef- forts may become.
In October, 1839, Rev. John B. Mahan, a citizen of Ohio, was indicted in Mason county, Kentucky, for kidnapping slaves. Governor Vance of Ohio delivered him to the Kentucky authorities, on the requisition of Governor Clark, for trial in this state. At his trial, it was proven that fifteen slaves had passed through his hands, by what was known in those days as the "underground railway." but he was acquitted on the ground that the al- leged offense was committed in Ohio, and that the courts of Kentucky had no jurisdiction of offenses committed in other states.
In the same year. the legislature exempted from taxation for public schools the property of free 'negroes, and adopted resolutions com- plimentary to the state of Illinois for the adop- tion by the legislature of that state of resolu- tions "condemning interference in the domes- tic institutions of the slave-holding states, either by congress or the state legislatures, as contrary to the compact by which those states became members of the Union, highly repre- hensible, unpatriotic and injurious to the peace and stability of the Union." In this same year the Ohio legislature passed an act, by a vote of twenty-three to eleven in the senate and fifty-three to fifteen in the house, providing punishment for the abduction or aiding in the abduction or escape of slaves by a fine not ex- ceeding $500, or imprisonment not exceeding sixty days, the culprit to be also liable to the aggrieved person for all damages, and a court of that state enforced this law in 1839 by con- victing and punishing Rev. John B. Mahan, the same man who had escaped conviction in a
Kentucky court for a like offense for lack of jurisdiction.
In 1843, Wharton Jones, of Kentucky, ob- tained a judgement before Judge McLean and a jury in the United States circuit court at Cincinnati, against John Van Zant of Warren county, Ohio, for $1.200 damages for having abducted his slaves. Another and like action, tried a few days later under the same penal statute, resulted in a fine of $500 being as- sessed against Van Zant who was defended in each of these cases by Salmon P. Chase, then a young lawyer, but who was destined to play a great part in the future history of the coun- try, finally dying as chief justice of the su- preme court of the United States with un- satisfied ambition as his heart was set on the presidency as had been that of Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Blaine and other prominent men, who were destined never to reach that exalted position.
One of Kentucky's sons who was to play a leading part in the agitation attendant upon the slavery question was Cassius M. Clay of Bourbon, a distant relative of Henry Clay. He was a fearless man, inperious, determined and able. In after years, he was known as "The Old Lion of Whitehall" the name of his estate. August 1. 1843, while making an abo- lition speech at Russell's Cave in Fayette county, Mr. Clay was attacked by a man named Samuel M. Brown, who fired a pistol at him, the bullet striking him just beneath the fifth rib, where it was deflected by contact with a bowie-knife worn by the speaker whose life was thus saved. Mr. Clay returned Brown's attack, cutting him severely with his bowie-knife inflicting injuries from which it was thought he would die, but he finally re- covered.
June 4, 1845. Cassius M. Clay began at Lex- ington the publication of the True American, a newspaper in which he ably advocated the abolition of slavery. On August 14th of that
175
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
year, at a meeting of citizens held at the court house in Lexington, Benjamin W. Dudley, Thomas H. Waters and John W. Hunt, were appointed as a committee "to wait upon Cas- sius M. Clay, editor of the True American, and to request him to discontinue its publica- tion, as its further continuance, in our judge- ment, is dangerous to the peace of our com- munity and to the safety of our homes and families." The meeting then adjourned to meet again on the following day and receive the report of its committee.
To the committee's note, informing him of the action of the meeting, Mr. Clay, from a bed of sickness of more than a month's stand- ing, wrote a defiant and characteristic reply. No man ever drove Cassius M. Clay to do that which he did not wish to do. At the ad- journed meeting this reply was read, where- upon a call was issued "for a general meeting of the people of the city and county to be held on Monday, August 18th, at the court house, to take into consideration the most effectual steps to secure their interests from the ef- forts of abolition fanatics and incendiaries." At this, which was presided over by Waller M. Bullock, with Benjamin Gratz as secre- tary, and attended by a large concourse of people from Fayette and the adjoining coun- ties, another communication was received from Mr. Clay and read to those assembled. Thomas F. Marshall, one of Kentucky's great orators, delivered an address setting forth the incendiary character of Mr. Clay's paper, at the conclusion of which he submitted six reso- lutions which were adopted. It was the sixth of these resolutions which was the important one, since it proposed and produced results. Under its provisions a committee of sixty prominent citizens was appointed and author- ized to proceed to the office of the True Amer- ican, take possession of the press and print- ing material, pack up the same, place it at the railroad office for transportation to Cincinnati and report forthwith to the meeting."
Reaching the door of the office of the of- fending newspaper, the key to the door was given by the city marshal to the chairman of the citizens' committee. The mayor of the city was also present and gave notice to the members of the committee that they "were acting in opposition to law, but that the city authorities could offer no forcible resistance to them." The names of the committeemen were called and each of them was admitted to the office. "On motion of Major William Mc- Kee, it was resolved that the committee held itself responsible for anything which might be lost or destroyed whilst they were performing the duty assigned to them." Printers were appointed to take down the press and put up the type, the secretary making an inventory of the property as it was packed up. The desk containing Mr. Clay's private papers was, by unanimous resolution, sent to his home, and he was notified by letter, that the press, type and other paraphernalia of the True Ameri- can had been carefully put up and shipped by railroad and river steamer to Cincinnati, to the care of Messrs. January & Taylor, and that all charges and expenses had been paid.
It will be observed that Mr. Clay received notice of the departure of his property, "by letter." That was the safest method of con- veying information to Mr. Clay when his feel- ings were ruffled. The committee of sixty was on September 18th following, arraigned before Judge Trotter of the Lexington city court, on a riot charge, the jury promptly re- turning a verdict of "not guilty."
Among the sixty prominent men serving on this committee was George W. Johnson, of Scott county, who was to become the provis- ional governor of Kentucky under the Con- federate regime, twenty years later, and to fall on Shiloh's desperate field fighting bravely by the side of his Kentucky comrades. James B. Clay was another member of the committee. He was the son of Henry Clay, the real "Great Commoner," and afterwards a Democratic
176
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
member of congress from the historic Ash- land district. Another was William R. Mc- Kee, who, a few years later, was to fall at the head of the regiment of Kentuckians whom he commanded at the battle of Buena Vista, during the War with Mexico.
In 1845, Miss Delia A. Webster of Ver- mont was arrested and confined in the jail at Lexington charged with abducting slaves and aiding in their escape across the Ohio river. The proof against her was absolute, and her conviction and sentence to the penitentiary for a term of two years followed. But she was a woman and the jury, with characteristic Ken- tucky recognition of the sex, unanimously signed a petition addressed to Governer Ows- ley praying that he pardon her. After she had spent a short time in quiet meditation in the prison, a pardon was granted, and Miss Web- ster returned to her home, doubtless impressed with the danger attendant upon interference with the affairs of other people. Her com- panion and accomplice, Rev. Calvin Fairbanks, was less fortunate, and received a sentence of fifteen years in the penitentiary. These peo- ple were doubtless very honest, good people, who thought they were rendering service to God and humanity. As a matter of fact, they were merely fanatics and were really injuring rather than aiding, the cause in which they had enlisted.
In October, 1845, Rev. Alexander M. Cowan, agent of the Kentucky Colonization Society, collected $5,000 with which to aid in purchasing a district forty miles square in Africa, to be called "Kentucky in Liberia," as a home for colored colonists from Kentucky. The first freed slaves for the proposed colony left Louisville January 7, 1846. This Liber- ian experiment has not proven a success, nor yet wholly a failure. At a comparatively re- cent date the government of the United States was listening to appeals for assistance from residents and officials of the Negro Republic. The negro supplies a problem wherever he
may be, and the wisest statesmanship has not yet answered the question of what shall be done with him. In the absence of a final so- lution, the experiment of letting him alone is suggested to the selfish politicians who have exploited him for their own ends.
On the night of August 5, 1848, thirteen slaves escaped in a body from Mason county, crossing the river into Ohio. At about the same time forty-two slaves from Fayette and Bourbon counties attempted to escape. In an effort to capture them, which was made in Bracken county, resistance was shown and one of them shot and dangerously wounded one of the white pursuers named Charles H. Fowler. The negroes scattered, but all were finally captured. It is interesting to note that one of these negroes was the slave of Cassius M. Clay, who failed to practice what he preached in his newspaper. The leader of this party was a white man named Patrick Doyle, who had bargained to take each of them to a place of safety for $Io each. He was arrested, taken to Lexington, tried and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for enticing away slaves.
On February 3, 1849, the Kentucky house of representatives, by a unanimous vote, adopted a resolution declaring "that we, the representatives of the people of Kentucky, are opposed to the abolition of slavery in any form or shape whatever, except as now pro- vided for in the constitution and laws of the State." This resolution, however, was not adopted by the senate.
On February 12, 1849, an enthusiastic emancipation meeting was held in Maysville and on the following day, a similar meeting was held in Louisville. These meetings were the beginning of an earnest and exciting con- test for the election of delegates to a conven- tion to revise the constitution of the state and the gradual emancipation of the slaves formed for months the leading topic of public, private and newspaper discussion. On February 23,
177
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
1849, the law of 1833 was amended by the ever ready for a discussion or an encounter, as legislature and thereafter the purchase and bringing into the state of slaves purchased elsewhere was no longer prohibited.
In April, 1849, a State Emancipation con- vention, in session at Frankfort, recommended that the following points be insisted upon in the new constitution, and that candidates fa- vorable to them or similar provisions. be named in each district entitled to elect dele- gates to the Convention of Revision, viz .: (1) The absolute prohibition of the importa- tion of any more slaves into Kentucky; (2) The complete power to enforce and perfect, whenever the people desire it, a system of gradual and prospective emancipation of the slaves.
On May II, 1849, Elder Alexander Camp- bell, of Bethany, Virginia, founder of the Church of the Disciples, in his paper The Millennial Harbinger, addressed a tract to the people of Kentucky, favoring emancipation.
July 15, 1849, Cassius M. Clay, who, as has been seen, had not manumitted his own slaves, while making an address in favor of the aboli- tion of slavery at Foxtown, in Madison county, was attacked by Cyrus Turner whom he killed with a bowie-knife, being, himself, dangerously wounded. Mr. Clay, however slow he may have been in putting into effect the doctrines which he preached when they affected his own personality, was a brave man and stood ever ready to defend his theories and his person against all adversaries no mat- ter whence they came. It was an interesting feature of his long and active career as a pri- vate citizen ; agitator for the abolition of slav- ery ; Major General of Volunteers in the War between the States, and minister to Russia- that in 1880, he actively and eloquently can- vassed the state of Kentucky in the interest of the Democratic party and its candidate for the presidency, Gen. W. S. Hancock.
General Clay was a fine old gentleman of the olden school-irascible, pugnacions, and Vol. I-12.
best suited his adversary. He won fairly the title by which he was best known in the declin- ing years of his life. He was "The Old Lion of Whitehall" in fact as well as name; and there are none to follow after, as the great question which engaged every sentiment of his heart and nerved his mighty arm in conflict, has been settled forever and no longer needs a champion. He was a man. No other epitaph so well suits him.
Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge, a militant Presbyterian minister, able, eloquent and fear- less, as a Breckinridge should be, and has always been, was a candidate on the Emanci- pation ticket in Fayette county for a seat in the constitutional convention. He made an active canvass but failed of election by a few votes. Dr. Breckinridge believed that the highest economy and noblest humanity de- manded the emancipation of the slaves; not suddenly and by violence, but gradually and guardedly : with some opportunity for educa- tion and business training and husbanding of wages to prepare them . for advantageous colonization in the new Republic of Liberia, the home of what it was hoped would be com- plete freedom for the African. Emancipation candidates were offered in nearly every legis- lative district of the state, but, though the ag- gregate vote for them was large, with a single exception, they were all defeated.
Though it has no direct connection with the subject of this chapter, yet it is not out of place, in view of after events, to state here that on January 14, 1850, the general assem- bly of Kentucky requested the governor to cause a block of Kentucky marble to be placed in the monument to General Washington, at Washington, D. C., with this inscription :
"Under the auspices of Heaven, and the precepts of Washington, Kentucky will be the last to give up the Union."
This block of marble, with the inscription, forms a part of the stately monument to
178
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
George Washington which stands upon the banks of the Potomac, as a testimonial of the esteem in which the Father of his Country was held by the people to whom he gave free- dom from the tyranny of kings.
The new constitution having become effec- tive without the embodiment of the theories of the Emancipationists, the general assembly on February 21, 1851, declared that "slaves hereafter emancipated must leave the state, and any free negro returning to or coming within the state and remaining over thirty days is to be arrested, charged with a felony and, on conviction, punished by confinement in the penitentiary not longer than one year." This stringent enactment was a logical result of the strenuous agitation in the northern states for the abolition of slavery, and a fore- runner of the deadly conflict which ten years later was to find the sections arrayed against each other in a war which attracted the atten- tion of the civilized world and wrote into the history of the United States the bloodiest chapter in the annals of all time.
At the ensuing .August election, the first held under the provisions of the new constitu- tion, Cassius M. Clay, the Emancipation can- didate for governor, received 3,621 votes, about three per cent of the total vote cast. In the presidential election in the succeeding No- vember, John P. Hale of New Hampshire, the Abolition candidate for president, received 265 votes in the state, the total vote cast being 101,139. It will be observed that the vote for Hale for president was far below that cast for Clay for governor at the preceding August election. There were evidently many Eman- cipationists who were opposed to the imme- diate freeing of the slaves, as demanded by the fanatics who did so much towards bring- ing on the war which speedily followed. While the people of Kentucky, at that time. opposed the agitation of the vital question of slavery, it is gratifying to recognize that there is, in all the state, today, no right-minded per-
son who would have slavery rehabilitated. As is stated elsewhere in this work, it was the master and not the slave, who was really made free by the Emancipation Proclamation. The rehabilitated south, despite the ravages of war and the horrors of Reconstruction, is richer and happier today than ever before in its history, the sons of the men of 1861-5, hav- ing as bravely as their forebears, fought an industrial battle against fearful odds and won in every conflict.
Berea College, located in Madison county, was established in 1855, by Rev. John G. Fee, Rev. James S. Davis, John G. Hanson, and others who were instructors in the institution, aided by Cassius M. Clay and others opposed to slavery. This college, founded largely upon contributions made by people in the northern states, though some of the funds were raised in Kentucky, was mainly intended for the education of free negroes of both sexes. It was obnoxious to the people of Kentucky be- cause it also received white students. This admixture of white and colored students was contrary to the opinions of a vast majority of the people, who viewed it as a long step to- wards a social equality of the races, deprecat- ed in the north quite as much as in the south. Years after the foundation of this college, the general assembly of Kentucky enacted a law prohibiting the coeducation of the two races. The authorities at Berea appealed to the courts, seeking to have the law declared un- constitutional. The cause finally reached the supreme court of the United States for decis- ion and the Kentucky enactment was sus- tained. The two races are no longer asso- ciated; there being separate institutions now for white and colored students, and the un- popularity of the institution is now a thing of the past.
Berea has done a great work for the poor children of the mountains of Kentucky, many of whom have come to it for that scholarly training elsewhere denied them by reason of
179
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
their poverty. Now that its only objection- able feature has been eliminated, there seems no reason why it should not advance in its good work of shedding light into the dark places of the mountains where only education is needed to make the sturdy Anglo-Saxons of Kentucky's Highlands, the equals of any peo- ple in any land.
On May 8, 1855, fifty-two emancipated slaves from Kentucky sailed from Boston for Liberia.
In the presidential election of 1856, John C. Fremont, Republican candidate for president, received in Kentucky 314 votes out of 133,214 votes cast. What changes time has wrought in the half century since that election.
October, 1859, the Louisville Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, in ses- sion at Hopkinsville, after an exciting debate, voted to expunge from the general rules of the church the rule forbidding "the buying and selling of men, women and children with an intention of enslaving them." It was upon the question of slavery that the division of the Methodist church in the United States was brought about, with the resultant northern and southern jurisdictions. At this day, when there is none to raise his voice in favor of human slavery, it is a matter for wonder that this division should continue to exist.
On January 2, 1860, when the dark clouds of impending strife were already in the polit- ical skies, a public meeting in Madison county, peremptorily required the Rev. John G. Fee, the Rev. James G. Davis, John G. Hanson and others to leave that county on account of their anti-slavery teachings and principles. It is to be noted that Cassius M. Clay was not ordered to quit Madison county, though he was one of the ablest and most vehement of the opponents of slavery in the state. Had he been so ordered, he would not have gone, and there would have been much work for the un- dertaker and the coroner had any one at- tempted to enforce such an order. The action
of the Madison county meeting was approved at a similar public meeting held in Mason county on January 21st, when the Rev. James S. Davis was peremptorily admonished to leave Kentucky within seven days. A like meeting held in Bracken county, resolved that the Rev. John G. Fee and John G. Hanson, lately expelled from Madison county and then about to locate in Bracken county, were "en- emies to the state and dangerous to the secur- ity of our lives and property." These men were solemnly admonished to leave the county and state by the ensuing February 4th, and a committee of fifty prominent citizens was ap- pointed to see that the order was obeyed. About a month later, there was great excite- ment in Madison county on account of the re- turn to Berea of John G. Hanson. A move- ment to compel him to leave the state was re- sisted by his friends and several men were wounded in the affair. A mill belonging to Hanson was destroyed.
It is not a pleasant duty to recall these facts, but they are a part of the distressful history of the state and there seems no good reason why they should be eliminated from these pages. Fanaticism in certain northern states, had become so powerful and threatening that the people of the south- ern states saw the hideous spectre of servile insurrection threatening the lives of the women and children, and it was the dread of this, rather than the loss of their property rights, that prompted such action as has been herein noted. That such a fate was really impending none will doubt who recall the attempt of John Brown of Kansas, to in- augurate an insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.
President Lincoln in his inaugural address, March 4, 1861, said "I declare that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do
180
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
SO." Little did he know as he spoke those words, of the storm soon to break upon the country and to cause him to reverse his ut- terance and sign the Emancipation Proclama- tion which in reality made free the slave- owner along with his slave.
On September 12, 1862, when the war had been in progress for more than a year, Union men in Bracken county, expelled John G. Fee from the state for preaching abolitionism. They ferried him across the Ohio river and threatened to hang him should he return to Kentucky.
While these Union men were following this drastic course, the Confederate forces un- der General Bragg, with whom they had no sympathy, occupied the greater part of the state, and but a few days after the holding of the meeting, the Home Guards of Bracken county, fought a spirited contest with the Con- federate forces under command of Gen. Basil W. Duke at Augusta, in which many were killed and wounded. Among those killed on the Confederate side was Courtland Prentice, the gallant young son of George D. Prentice, editor of the Louisville Journal, which paper was a very tower of strength to the cause of the Union in Kentucky. Mr. Prentice had but two sons, and the division of families by the exigencies of war, was illustrated by the service of each of them in the Confederate army, while their honored father fought with ready pen, the battle for the Union.
During 1862 many slaves in Kentucky left their owners and took refuge in the camps of Federal soldiers. On January 1, 1863, Presi- dent Lincoln issued his proclamation freeing the slaves "in the states now in rebellion." This did not apply to Kentucky which was construed as loyal to the Union, though many thousands of her sons were in the Confeder- ate army, and her senators and representatives sat in the congress of the Confederate states. But the proclamation practically destroyed slavery in Kentucky. On March 2, 1863,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.