Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. I, Part 69

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452

USA > Kentucky > Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. I > Part 69

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One of the principal characteristics of this period, nevertheless, was the appearance, for the first time in public life, of many young men of marked ability and brilliant promise.

But, in the mean time, grave events had been occurring in the congress of the United States, and threatening and portentous prominence was again manifesting itself in the question of slavery. The question was by no means a new one. At the formation of the Union the subject had been discussed and earnestly treated of in the conventions assembled to frame the constitution of the United States. A majority of the original thirteen states emerged from the Revolution with the institution engrafted upon their social organizations. It seems to have been supposed by the fathers of the republic, that slavery would gradually become ex- tinct. While they carefully protected it, by reserving to the state governments the regulation of the institution in the respective states, they evidently did not anticipate that it would soon become a matter of absorbing interest. In the eastern and northern states, the climate and soil were uncongenial, and it gradually faded out. In the states more peculiarly adapted to the cultiva- tion of cotton and tobacco, the African race increased rapidly and became a property of great value. As time progressed, it became a source not only of material advantage to the states which rez tained it, but a source of political power.

But it is, nevertheless, true that in the first years of the gov- ernment of the United States, had commenced a struggle destined to rend it in pieces, amid carnage, desolation, and blood. The citizens of the slaveholding states heard with ill repressed in- dignation the stigma cast upon the institution of slavery, and viewed with restless jealousy the attempt made by the aboli- tionists to destroy it. The cause of difference between them was indeed irreconcilable. The slaveholder believed the institution

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to be not only best for the social and agricultural development of the country, but a blessing to the slave, right in principle, cor- rect in morals, and sanctioned by Divine command and appro- bation. The abolitionists, on the contrary, believed, or pretended to believe, slavery an unmitigated curse to the slave, a dishonor to a free people, blighting in its effects upon the dominant race, "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell." Profess- ing to believe so, they warred against it with all the earnestness and wild enthusiasm of fanatic and religious fervor. Their num- bers, it is true, were limited; but, dividing them from the slave- holders, was a vast mass who-having no practical connection with the institution-held every form and shade of sentiment concerning it. Some were totally indifferent, knowing little and caring less about it. Some believing it an evil, yet recognized the evil as so intimately interwoven with benefits that time alone could solve the difficulty, and were willing to await the solution. Many believed the institution advantageous and desirable in cer- tain localities, and were content to restrain it only by parallels of latitude. Others again, unwilling to see, at least in their day, the effects of violent convulsion and radical political change, wished to restrict its further growth and permit it to die from sheer want of expansive force. Many sought to evade decisive position, by taking refuge in the delusive and specious sophistry of popular sovereignty, as exercised by territorial legislation. The history of the contest is the history of every antagonism, where the one party is constantly aggressive and the other strictly defensive. All shades of opinion not absolutely favorable to slavery, gradually molded themselves into a decisive opposition to the institution.

In 1860, the encroaching party had assumed gigantic and for- midable dimensions; while the south stood desperately and de- terminedly at bay, and-when territorial governments were about to be formed for Kansas and Nebraska-demanded that the ter- ritorial restriction by legislative enactment should be repealed. and that slavery should be allowed to go where climate, soil, and the wishes of the people, or the interests of the emigrants, should carry it. Violence, bloodshed and rapine marked the contest on the soil of the new territories; excitement, anger and bitter re- crimination, the discussions in Congress. The conservative men of the north finally yielding to the demand of the south, united with her representatives, and repealed the obnoxious restrictions. The repeal was the signal for an outbreak of popular excitement and denunciation in the north, such as her statesmen had never pre- viously encountered. It became so formidable, that Mr. Doug- las and his immediate supporters were forced to attempt to con- ciliate northern sentiment by taking refuge in the delusive dogma of non-intervention and popular-sneeringly called squatter-sov- ereignty. It does not come within the purpose of this sketch to discuss the question. Suffice it to say, that squatter sovereignty neither conciliated the exasperated north nor was accepted by the

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south. It was scoffed at in the former as a quibble, and de- nounced in the south as a trick and a snare.

But while the doctrine of squatter sovereignty was powerless to heal the dissensions in the nation, it was potent enough to rive in sunder the Democratic party. In the conventions of 1860, the Democracy divided-one portion nominating Mr. Douglas as their candidate for the presidency, the other nominating John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. The Whigs nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and the Republicans, or declared enemies of the institution of slavery, nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, but a native of Kentucky. The schism in the Democratic party, and the refusal of the Whigs to cooperate with either portion of it, resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency, by a plurality vote. Immediately, South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by Georgia and all the gulf states ; ultimately by Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and Missouri. Then Ken- tucky found herself face to face with the mighty question, which had been so long threateningly evolving itself, and now inexorably pressed for a solution.

He must be struck with judicial blindness who, in arriving at conclusions drawn from a careful retrospect of the action of the people of Kentucky during this crisis, will deny that a vast ma- jority of the people of the state were devoted to the cause of the Union, and deeply impressed with the necessity of its preserva- tion if possible. In truth, the sentiment of devotion to the Union was more nearly akin to the religious faith which is born in childhood, which never falters during the excitements of the longest life, and which at last enables the cradle to triumph over the grave. The mass of them did not reason about it. The Union was apotheosized ; it was thought of, spoken of, and cher- ished with filial reverence. The suggestion of its dissolution was esteemed akin to blasphemy .; to advocate or to speculate about it was to be infamous.

Nor was there wanting to those who did pause to reason on the subject, abundant and imperative arguments in favor of its per- petuation. Kentucky lay topographically in the center of the grouping of states. So long as she was a member of these united sovereignties, she occupied a position of safety unparalleled in the location of peoples. On every side of her-north, south, east, west-stretched great and powerful, friendly and fraternal com- munities. Whatever in the mutations of time might occur, she was safe from the tread of invasion, bucklered in an impenetra- ble armor of protection against hostile assault. The world in arms might dash itself against the coasts of the United States ; its legions would be shattered long before they penetrated to Ken- tucky. She seemed to have taken a bond against fate, assuring her of immunity from the horrors which, at some time of the world's history, had scourged and desolated every known habita- tion of men.

Again : Kentucky had, more extensively than any of the older

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states, contributed to the population of the newer and younger states. The tastes of her people and their descendants were em- inently, and almost exclusively, agricultural. In the gratifica- tion of these tastes, and in the prosecution of pursuits kindred to such tastes, for nearly a third of a century, her young and enter- prising men had been accustomed to seek for themselves-after leaving the paternal roof-tree-homes located in the fertile prairies of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, and along the rich alluvial deposits of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. The tendrils of family alliance and strong domestic affection stretched vigorously out, and grasped alike the communities of . the new free and slave states of the basin of the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The ramification of family ties was so extensive that state lines were practically ignored. The Ohio river was at best but a great internal canal, dividing Kentucky from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Thousands of people found in the states of Ohio and Indiana those occupations which pro- vided daily sustenance, but returned at nightfall to sleep in Kentucky.

These facts and these surroundings ought all to be carefully considered and calmly weighed, before admitting the justice of the denunciations of the north, so frequently pronounced against Kentucky as traitorous, or the taunts of the fiery southrons, that she was cowardly, avaricious, and more prone to protect her wealth than to defend her honor. The time came when, upon many a stricken field, in many a desperate and headlong charge, in full many a heady fight, the imputation of cowardice was an- swered-as it has not often been answered.

But it must not be less clearly apparent to the observer, that a decided majority of her people believed honestly in the abstract right of a state to secede, and a vast majority were firmly opposed to the attempt to coerce the people of the state to remain under the control of a federative government which had become unac- ceptable to them. Nearly all classes of public men, nearly all classes of private citizens, held firmly-as a cardinal principle of political faith-the soundness of doctrine of the celebrated Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-9 [see page 401]; which, in sub- stance, declared that each state was the final judge of the remedies it should pursue, when aggrieved by the action either of the fed- eral government or of the allied states. Basing upon that prin- ciple of political faith ; and upon that other principle which had become a political axiom-that no government ought to exist save by consent, freely given, of the governed; they almost unani- mously drew the corollary, that when the people of a state became convinced that the federal union no longer protected and guarded them and their rights, they had-as a state-an unchallengeable right to withdraw from it. To attempt to compel them by physi- cal force to remain in such a government was a crime against which any republican heart and intellect revolted. They, as a people, undoubtedly believed that the action of the southern

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states in seceding was unwise and ill-advised; but the abstract right they did not controvert.

For many preceding years, the militia laws of Kentucky had become practically obsolete, or expired by limitation of enact- ment. With the exception of a few independent companies, there was no military organization in the state. The legisla- ture having assembled, December 6, 1859, Governor Magoffin, in his message to the two houses, calmly and temperately but earnestly called attention to the threatening condition of national affairs, and urged a prompt and efficient reorganization of the mi- litia, and preparation for any emergency which might arise; but emphatically and eloquently expressed his devotion to the Union, and his hope of its preservation .* December 8th, the house con- stituted a committee on federal relations, composed of Messrs. Geo. B. Hodge, Nat. Wolfe, L. D. Husbands, John M. Rice, Curtis F. Burnam, Shelby Coffey, jr., and Jas. G. 'Leach, with power to send for persons and papers, and with instructions to meet and adjourn from day to day, to take into consideration all matters pertaining to federal relations, and to report their opin- ions thereon.t On the 21st, the chairman reported a series of resolutions,t which, after earnest and animated discussion extend- ing through many days, were, substantially, adopted on January 12, 1860.§ These resolutions declared in substance : 1 .- The right of the people of any state to emigrate to the public domain, to carry there their property of any kind and description, and to be protected in that enjoyment so long as the territorial status ex- isted. 2 .- Protested against the common government making, in its legislation, a discrimination against the property of any of the states. 3 .- Claimed that Congress was bound to enact all need- ful legislation for the protection of such property in the territo- ries. 4 .- They believed and hoped the remedies provided by the constitution and the laws in force were at present adequate to such protection. 5, 6, and 7 .- Expressed the devotion of Kentucky to the Union, the hope that it would be maintained, and their de- termination to abide by the opinion of the supreme court of the United States and the principles settled in the Dred Scott decis- ion. 8 .- Endorsed the administration of President Buchanan as wise, patriotic, and faithful.

The house, by a unanimous vote, adopted the 1st, 2d, 3d, 5th, 6th, and .7th resolutions: the 4th by a vote of 54 to 39; and the 8th, by 52 to 39.

It is a remarkable circumstance that the 4th resolution||-which declared that the people of Kentucky believed the protection af- forded by the constitution and the decision of the supreme federal court adequate, and that until the contingency arose manifesting that this protection was inadequate, it was the part of wise, patriotic and conservative states to refrain from demanding of the Federal

* House Journal, 1859-60, p. 40. t Same, p. 68. # Same, pp. 171-2-3. l Same, p. 282.

¿ House Journal, 1859-60, pp. 275 to 285.

I ... 22

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congress legislation for the protection of peculiar or specific property-on its passage was voted for by the entire secession wing of the house (as it was afterwards called), and opposed by the entire Union wing of the house. Almost to a man, the af- firmative voters became Confederate supporters, many serving in the armies of the Confederate States; and, with only two or three exceptions, the negative voters sustained the Federal cause, and became active participators in the measures afterwards inaugurated to secure its success in Kentucky.

On the 8th day of January, 1860, the Democratic convention assembling in Frankfort for the nomination of delegates to the ensuing national convention, adopted this same 4th resolution of the house of representatives as a part of their platform ;* declared the confidence with which the Democratic party would appeal to the ballot-box ; their firm adherence to the doctrine that the public domain was the common property of the people of all the states, and as such open to their emigration; and that, while in their territorial status, all property carried there by emigrants ought to be protected by the general government.

The Bell and Douglas parties having fused in Kentucky, as- sembled in Louisville, January 8, 1861, and appointed an execu- tive committee, which, in April succeeding, published an address to the people of Kentucky. Referring to Governor Magoffin's reply to the call upon Kentucky to furnish her quota of the 75,000 men demanded by President Lincoln to suppress the south, in which he said, " I say, emphatically, that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States," they say, " We approve the response of the ex- ecutive of the commonwealth," and again, "The government of the Union has appealed to Kentucky to furnish men to suppress the revolutionary combination of the Southern States; she has most wisely and justly refused; " and again, " What the future of Ken- tucky may be we can not with certainty foresee, but if the enter- prise announced in the proclamation of the president shall at any time hereafter assume the aspect of a war for the overrunning and subjugation of the seceding states, through the full assertion therein of the national jurisdiction by a standing military force, we do not hesitate to say that Kentucky should promptly un- sheath the sword in what will have then become the common cause."¡

By an act of the legislature approved March 5, 1860,# the mi- litia of the state was directed to be thoroughly organized, and di- vided into three classes as follows: 1. The active or volunteer militia (the state guards) ; 2. The enrolled militia ; 3. The mi- litia of the reserve. Provision was made for organizing the mi- litia into companies, regiments and brigades. An inspector gen- eral was created, to have especial charge of the active militia or

*Frankfort Yeoman, January 16, 1860. t Ante, pp. 87, 88.

Į Acts 1859-60, vol. i, pp. 142-171.

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state guard. The passage of this law, and the threatening aspect of national affairs, stimulated the organization of volunteer com- panies ; and several regiments were formed in different parts of the state, which applied themselves to acquiring a thorough knowl- edge of the drill and evolutions. This made them, when hostili- ties commenced, among the most efficient troops in the west.

Simon B. Buckner, a native of Kentucky, a graduate of West Point, and a retired officer of the United States army, was ap- pointed inspector general, with the rank of major general. Thomas L. Crittenden, a son of senator John J. Crittenden, be- came a brigadier general of the state guard; and Lloyd Tighl- man (also a West Point graduate) and Roger W. Hanson, colo- nels. These all, with many others filling subordinate positions in the state guard, became prominent in the civil war; and many of them fell in battle.

In the spring of 1860, the legislature of Ohio invited the leg- islatures and government officials of Kentucky and Tennessee to visit Columbus, the capital of Ohio-in the hope that the social commingling of these representative bodies, with contiguous con- stituencies, would conduce to harmony and peace. The invita- tion was accepted, and the occasion brought out profuse expres- sions of devotion to the Union, and sentiments of undoubted loyalty to the federal government. Its only practical effect was for a time to conceal with festal wreaths the ghastly skeleton of fraternal strife. The election of Mr. Lincoln in November, 1860, as has been before said, resulted almost immediately in the seces- sion of South Carolina and the Gulf states.

Governor Magoffin convened the legislature in extraordinary session, on the 17th of January, 1861,* and sent to it a message reciting the grave events which had followed each other in start- ling rapidity ; expressing his emphatic disapproval of any attempt on the part of the federal government to coerce the seceding states back into the Union ; asking the legislature to declare such to be the sentiment of the people of Kentucky ; recommending appro- priation at once for efficiently arming and increasing the state guard; recommending steps to call a convention of the border states ; and suggesting to the legislature the election of delegates to a convention, at an early day, to whom should be referred, for full and final determination, the future federal and inter-state relation of Kentucky.

On the 19th of January, Mr. Hodge, of Campbell county, of- fered a series of resolutions in the house of representatives, t ex- pressive of the grief felt by the people of Kentucky at the dangers which threatened the federal union, their determination not to abandon the hope that it might yet be preserved, their appeal to the states of the south to suspend any and every action tending to further secession, proposing the Crittenden resolutions as a basis of settlement of existing difficulties, and asking the states which

* House Journal, 1861, pp. 5-32. ¡ House Journal, 1866, p. 52-53.

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had not seceded to take the sense of their people upon them ; for the appointment of commissioners to wait upon the governors of the respective states, and lay the foregoing propositions before them ; and, finally, that if, by May 1, 1861, two-thirds of the states shall not have united in a call upon congress to assemble a convention to provide for amendments to the constitution, then the governor of Kentucky should issue his proclamation for a vote upon the question, "Shall there be a convention of the people ?" If a majority of the votes of the state as fixed by the auditor's report of 1859 should be cast in the affirmative, he should issue his proclamation for an election of delegates to a state conven- tion, to determine and designate the position Kentucky should occupy ; but its action should not be authoritative or binding, until ratified at the polls by a majority of those thus author- ized to vote. Referred to the committee on federal relations.

But this and every other effort for an appeal to the people, was steadily resisted ; the opponents of it and kindred propositions denying the right of the state to secede from the Union, under any circumstances ; and claiming specially that, by the organic law of the state, no convention of the people could be legally called save in the manner provided therein, which of necessity extended the requisite steps over a period of seven years.

The advocates of a convention insisted, on the other hand, that the country was in the midst of a revolution ; that no provision having been made for such a contingency, the great fact of the sovereignty of the people was paramount ; that the spetdiest mode to exercise that sovereignty, was that which common sense and imperative necessity dictated ; that however great the calamities which war between the states would inflict upon Kentucky, yet an intestine, domestic, neighborhood strife was more horrible still ; that, holding above all other allegiance the allegiance due to the state itself-as all the people of Kentucky had hitherto done-the action of the people authoritatively expressed in a con- vention assembled for that specific purpose would, whatever might be the private inclinations, wishes or hopes of the individual, de- termine his conduct, and unite the whole people; that, while many of them gave the South their sympathies, and desired to add their ardent support, yet if the state in its sovereign capacity cast her lot with the federal Union, the duty of every citizen would be made plain, viz .: to acquiesce in that determination, and rest the responsibility of his action-where it clearly ought to rest-with the sovereign.

On the 21st of January, 1861, Geo. W. Ewing, of Logan county, offered in the house of representatives two resolutions, reciting-1. That the general assembly had heard with profound regret of the resolutions of the states of New York, Ohio, Maine, and Massachusetts, tendering to the President men and money to be used in coercing sovereign states of the South into obedience to the federal government ; and, 2. Declaring, and so notifying them, that when those states should send armed forces to the South for

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such purpose, "the people of Kentucky, uniting with their breth- ren of the South, will as one man resist such invasion of the soil of the South, at all hazards and to the last extremity." The first resolution passed unanimously, and the second by a vote of 87 for and only 6 against it .*

Beyond this expression of opinion the legislature declined to go. It provided, Jan. 29, 1861, for the appointment of commission- ers to the peace conference at Washington city, viz .: William O. Butler, James B. Clay, Joshua F. Bell, Charles S. Morehead, Charles A. Wickliffe, and James Guthrie, who took their seats in the conference. The deliberations of that body, as is well known- although generally composed of the ablest men in twenty-one states (not including the cotton states), and sitting from Feb. 4 to Feb. 27-resulted in the accomplishment of nothing.

The Kentucky legislature adjourned April 5th, 1861-having made no appropriation for arming the state and having decided on no course of action. Governor Magoffin by proclamation called it together again on May 6th, 1861, and again urged the necessity of arming the state and taking a decisive stand. The legislature appropriated $750,000 to arm the state ; and provided for borrowing $1,060,000, placed the control of its disbursement in the hands of five commissioners [see ante, p. 91] of whom the governor was one; required that the arms purchased should be equally distributed to the state guard, and to another organization they provided for and called the home guards ; but expressly stip- ulated that the arms should not be used against either the govern- ment of the United States or that of the Confederate States, except to repel invasion. It also enacted that the next legislature should convene on the 1st Monday in September, 1861, and on the 24th of May, 1861, adjourned.

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Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. I, Part 69

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn Publication date: 1874 Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co. Number of Pages: 1452

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452