USA > Kentucky > Trigg County > Counties of Christian and Trigg, Kentucky : historical and biographical > Part 11
USA > Kentucky > Christian County > Counties of Christian and Trigg, Kentucky : historical and biographical > Part 11
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George W. Barbour engaged in the practice of law late in life. He had been a merchant and failed in business, and afterward took up the law; he is represented as a good lawyer, and successful both as a defender and a prosecutor, vehement and earnest in his address to a jury. He married a Miss Todd, and had several children, but none of them are now living in the county.
This comprises a sketch of the early bar of Christian County-of those old lawyers and judges who have passed to that final court, whose ver- dicts are never set aside, and from whose decisions there is no appeal-so far as we have been able to learn its history. We have sketched no mem- bers of the court and bar who are yet living, but have given our attention to those who are dead. There are a number of men, bright and shining lights, who have in the past been members of the Hopkinsville bar, but have left for other fields of labor, in which they have made their mark. Notably among these are Hon. Benjamin H. Bristow, ex-Secretary of the United States Treasury, Col. James F. Buckner, formerly Collector of
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Internal Revenue, Fifth District of Kentucky, Hon. Henry J. Stites, Judge of the Common Pleas Court at Louisville, Richard Shackelford, of New Orleans, Livingston Lindsey, ex-Chief Justice of Texas, now a resi- dent of La Grange, Texas, Asher G. Caruth, Commonwealth's Attorney at Louisville, and perhaps many others whose names do not now occur. To Col. Buckner and Judge Stites we are indebted for many facts pertaining to some of those whose names appear in this chapter, and to them we tender thanks for their courtesy. To write the history of the bar from the organization of the county to the present time and sketch all its mem- bers, living as well as dead, would occupy more space than can be given to the subject in a work of this character. It was necessary to draw a line somewhere, and we draw it between the living and the dead. A val- uable and interesting work for some literary genius to undertake, would be a history of the Christian County bar, from its beginning, with char- acter sketches of all its members.
The present bar of Hopkinsville has lost nothing of the high character that distinguished it in the earlier history of the county. But the limits of this chapter, as we have stated, will allow of no more than this brief al- lusion. Sketches of its present members, however, will be found in the biographical department of this volume, and anything here would be but repetition.
Political History .- For a decade or two after the birth of the county there was but little party strife to disturb the equanimity of the people. The old Federal party, which had bitterly opposed President Jefferson and his official acts, had become extinct through the exciting events of the war of 1812. The war measures of President Madison were generally and even earnestly supported by the people throughout the country, and nowhere more zealously than in Kentucky, as evidenced by the great number of her best men sent into the army. But the close of the war found the country in a deplorable condition financially, and from the de- pressing circumstances incident thereto, arose the first political storms seriously felt in Christian County. A newspaper recently said of us, in derision, perhaps, that " Kentuckians are too fond of talking politics to kill off anybody who can talk on the other side-they would rather keep him to argue with. Give a Kentuckian a plug of tobacco and a political antagonist, and he will spend a comfortable day wherever he is." But during the ten years from 1816 to 1826, it required a little more than a plug of tobacco to maintain peace and harmony in Kentucky, and no cor- rect political history of the county can be written without some notice of the excitement of that stormy period, when " relief" and "anti-relief," and " old court " and "new court " werethe watchwords, and the " battle- cry " from one end of the State to the other. No greater political excite-
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ment, or party strife and hatred, unless we except the turbulent times of 1861-65, ever disturbed a community or harassed a people. Men de- bated the questions at issue, quarreled over them, fought for them, and not unfrequently lives were sacrificed to the fury of the times.
The overwhelming cry of the people was relief from debt, and the Legislature at a single session chartered forty independent banks, with an aggregate capital of nearly ten million of dollars. They were per- mitted by law to redeem their notes with the paper of the Bank of Ken- tucky, then in good credit, instead of specie. The result of such a wholesale scheme was to flood the State with the paper of these "wild- cat" banks, and it required little prophetic wisdom to foresee the conse- quences that would inevitably follow. As a sample of its value, and the estimation in which this money was held, we copy from the Kentucky Republican (published at Hopkinsville) of September 15, 1821, a couplet or two-a little satirical-said to have been found on the reverse side of a fifty-cent note of one of the new Kentucky banks. The lines are cred- ited to a Knoxville (Tennessee) paper, and are as follows:
" An infant I, of spurious birth, Am by a parent usher'd forth, To travel through this world of care, From hand to hand, the world knows where. But Jasper, Paris. and Will Fox, A trio who deserve the stocks, Have come in company here with me, To greet their kin in Tennessee. And should my presence make you blush, You set the example ; hush, friend, hush !"
And the following lines, discovered on the back of a two-dollar bill of the Hopkinsville Bank, appear in the same paper :
" My parentage I well may boast, Although I had no mother ; Of friends I had a numerous host, And Felix is my brother ! By legislative's cunning hand I first got absolution ; And now I travel through the land, Against the Constitution."
Large loans of this almost worthless money were rashly made and rashly expended, speculation ran riot, and the people became more hope- lessly involved in debt than ever before. Soon the pressure became simply terrible. At the legislative session of 1819-20, an act was passed giving the power to replevy debts twelve months, instead of three, and a subsequent act extended the time to two years. If this was a relief to the debtors, it naturally enraged the creditors, who were thus deprived of
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collecting claims due them. The State was upon the verge of bank- ruptcy, and financial anarchy prevailed. This crisis led to the formation of the "relief," and "anti-relief " parties, and arrayed creditors and debtors against each other. In the relief party were the mass of debtors, and among the leaders were some of the most brilliant lawyers of the time, such as John Rowan, William T. Barry, and Solomon P. Sharp- the latter well known in Christian County, and Rezin Davidge, one of the first resident lawyers of Hopkinsville. The party was strongly countenanced by Gen. Adair, then Governor, and its ranks were swelled by a large majority of the voting population. With the anti-relief party were nearly all the mercantile class, a majority of the bench and bar of the State, and also a majority of the better class of farmers. George Robertson, afterward Chief Justice of Kentucky, Robert Wickliffe and Chilton Allan were leaders in the anti-relief party, and between the two parties "an angry conflict commenced in the newspapers, upon the stump, in the taverns and highways," which gradually invaded the most private and domestic circles.
The power of the Legislature to pass such relief acts was disputed, and when a case came up in the Circuit Court, it was decided unconsti- tutional by the decision of the Judge in favor of the anti-relief party. Then it was that the storm grew dark, and threatened to burst in its fury. But in the midst of the trouble, all eyes turned to the decision of the Supreme Court, then composed of John Boyle, Chief Justice, and William Owsley and Benjamin Mills, Associate Judges. The question came before them in the case of Lapsley vs. Brashear, and in their opinion they sustained the decision of the Circuit Court, declaring the act of the Legislature in violation of the Constitution of the United States, in that clause which prohibited the States from passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts. This decision of the Supreme Court but fanned the flame, and the conflict of parties was renewed with greater fury than before. The judiciary then held their offices during good behavior, and nothing less than two-thirds of both houses of the Legislature could re- move them. The canvass of 1824 was entered upon with the hope and the determination to obtain this majority. Never, perhaps, in the annals of Kentucky politics, did partisan strife run higher. Gen. Joseph Desha was the relief candidate for Governor, and was elected by an overwhelm- ing majority, with a large majority in both houses of the Legislature. The three Judges, Boyle, Owsley and Mills, who had dared to oppose the will of the majority, were summoned before the legislative bar, and there assigned reasons at length for their decision. They were replied to by Rowan, Bibb and Barry, and a vote at length taken, but the constitutional two-thirds could not be obtained.
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The minority exulted in the victory of the Judges, but their adver- saries were too much inflamed to be diverted from their purposes by ordi- nary impediments. Although their majority was not sufficient to remove the judges by impeachment or address, yet they could repeal the act by which the Court of Appeals had been organized, and then pass an act to organize it anew, as this would only require a bare majority. A bill to this effect was drawn up, and, after a three days' debate, characterized by the most intense bitterness, it passed both houses. A new Court of Ap- peals was organized, consisting of four Judges, viz., William T. Barry, Chief Justice, and John Trimble, James Haggin and Rezin Davidge, Associate Justices. They took forcible possession of the records of the Court, appointed a Clerk, and thus proclaimed themselves the Court of Appeals. It was from this circumstance that arose the title of "Old Court " and "New Court " parties. The great majority of Circuit Judges continued to obey the mandates of the old Court, as well as a great major- ity of the bar of Kentucky. A few Circuit Judges, however, recognized the new Court, while still a few others obeyed both, declining to decide which was the true Court.
Thus matters stood in 1825, when the canvass opened for the Legisla- ture. In Christian County, Daniel Mayes was put forward by the Old Court party, and Nathan S. Dallam by the New Court. This is repre- sented as the bitterest political campaign the county has ever known in all the eighty seven years of its existence. The questions were ably dis- cussed by Mayes and Dallam from the stump, and partisan feeling was excited to such a pitch that the coolest heads feared a collision between parties. The elections then were held for three days, and the people never thought of going to the polls without their guns, and prepared for any emergency. But a spark would have touched off the magazine, and the fray once begun, there is no telling now what might have been the result. As much as the storm threatened, however, it passed by without bursting upon the county, and when the election was over, the people as with one accord drew a long breath, and congratulated each other upon the scarce- ly hoped for result. No such turbulent times had ever before disturbed the county ; no such bitter political contest has since excited partisan dis- cord among the masses. Mayes, the Old Court candidate, was elected, and after the election was over, the excitement subsided.
Daniel Mayes, the victorious candidate in this celebrated contest, was one of the ablest lawyers of the early bar of Hopkinsville, a peer of John J. Crittenden, Solomon P. Sharp, Benjamin Patton, Rezin Davidge and other giant intellects of that day. He was cold, distant, and somewhat exclusive in his associations, rarely mingling with his neighbors. He would pass from his residence to his office and from his office to his resi-
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dence and never look to the right or to the left, or speak to any one unless first spoken to. But he was a man of undoubted intellect and ability, though not a politician or party schemer. As regarded political intrigue he was as innocent as a child, and we have no record of his further pub- lic service than his election to the legislature in 1825, except as a Judge of the Circuit Court. He went to Frankfort to fill his seat in the Gen- eral Assembly of the State, and never returned to Hopkinsville to reside. When his term as legislator expired he located in Lexington, where he was appointed Judge of the Fayette Circuit Court and Professor of Law in Transylvania University ; he removed to Mississippi in 1838, and died in 1840 in the city of Jackson, of that State.
Mr. Mayes' father lived in Christian County, near Hopkinsville, and was quite an early settler ; he had three sons, all lawyers-Daniel, Mat- thew and Richard. The latter, the youngest, is said to have been the most brilliant of the trio, which is a high compliment to his ability, when is remembered Daniel Mayes and his practice at the Christian bar. Mat- thew Mayes located in Cadiz, grew enormously wealthy, and died there. Richard removed to the " Purchase," where he died a good many years ago.
Young Ewing .- In gone-by years no man took a more active and conspicuous part in the political affairs of the county than the Hon. Young Ewing, one of the backwoods politicians who flourished in the early days of the Commonwealth. He was a true pioneer and hunter, as everybody else was then ; a surveyor, politician and statesman, and in his Protean capacity he usually had his hands full. He came to Christian county just at a time when he was most needed. An unorganized com - munity of people had, by an act of the Legislature, been placed unto themselves, and there was a demand for men competent to do the work of putting the infant municipality upon its feet. Col. Ewing was a man adapted to the emergency, and took as naturally to the official harness as a duck to the water. He was the first Circuit Clerk of the Court, and for a quarter of a century or more he served the people in one position or another, and if he did not do much for the county it did a great deal for him. He had once commanded a regiment against the Indians, and though the campaign was a bloodless one, yet his military record wafted him into office over all opposition, just as such things sometimes happen at the present day. It is told of him, but the story may be taken with some allowance, that always when a candidate, particularly if the cam- paign waxed hot, and his election appeared at all doubtful, the Colonel would be seen at public gatherings hobbling about with a cane or with an arm in a sling, complaining loudly of the hardships of a soldier's life. But no sooner was he assured of his election than away went his cane, to be seen no more until again needed on a similar occasion.
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The name of Col. Ewing appears in the records of Logan County in 1792 as one of the first three magistrates for that county, and in 1795 as a Representative in the State Legislature. When he came there or where he was from are questions the most diligent investigation has failed to solve. It is to be regretted that so little is known or can be learned of his early life, as anything pertaining to so prominent a character could not but be of interest to the reader. He is believed to have been a native of the Old Dominion, and the elements of statesmanship he developed naturally point to him as a son of the " Mother of Presidents." From the humble office of magistrate he essayed and accomplished dizzy flights to higher positions, which he filled time and again. He was above the majority of his associates in intellect, but somewhat careless and indiffer- ent in the use of the King's English when pouring forth from the stump one of his hot political campaign speeches. He came among the simple pioneers of Christian County, and waked the echoes of the primeval forests with his rude wild eloquence, and rode in triumph into the affections of the voters to that extent that he is not known to have been defeated but once in a political contest.
The following entries appear in the early court records : "The line between Logan and Christian Counties was run by Young Ewing and his deputy, Nicholas Lockett, on the part of Christian, and William Read- ing, Surveyor for Logan County, August 22, 1797." "Young Ewing was allowed £14 12s. for running the dividing line between Logan and Christian Counties." In addition to having been a surveyor and the first Clerk of the county, he was cashier of the first bank established in Hop- kinsville. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention held in Frankfort, August 17, 1799, and which framed the second Constitution of the State. In the year 1800 his name first appears as a member of the Legislature from Christian County. He was elected again in 1801 and re-elected in 1802, and again elected in 1806 and in 1807. In 1808 he was elected to the State Senate, and again in 1812, in 1820 and in 1824, but resigned about a year before his last term expired. In the Presiden- tial campaign of 1824 he was Elector for the Fifth Congressional Dis- trict. So great and so universal was his popularity that he was elected to many of these positions without opposition, and generally when he had an opponent his military record carried him through with flying colors. He was a genial gentleman-a "hail fellow well met," withal, courteous and social ; could take his toddy "with the boys," and " set 'em up " himself occasionally (all of which goes a long way with the " intelligent voter ") and which but added to his popularity. The last race he ever made for public office was about the year 1832, for the State Senate, and he was defeated. This was a wound to his self-complacency from which
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he never recovered. He had failed to keep pace with the age, new issues had sprung up beyond his ability to master, new and younger men op- posed him, and though the " old guard " rallied around him, the new order of things accomplished his defeat.
Kentucky has produced many remarkable men, but none so strongly original, or so interesting as the early, simple and honest statesmen of whom Young Ewing was a true type. They borrowed nothing from the books, and if some of them were so illiterate that it amounted to a gift or talent, their honesty of purpose off-set any lack of education and culture. They legislated wholly for the good of the people and the country, and from them the modern statesman might learn lessons of wisdom.
Col. Ewing long lived one and a half miles from town, on the place now owned by the children of Dr. Shackelford, but for many years was a citizen of Hopkinsville. He was three times married. Of his first wife little is known, except that she bore him one child, a daughter. This daughter married a man named Davison, who was at one time High Sher- iff of Daviess County, and who, it is said, was killed by friends of a pris- oner whom he had arrested. Col. Ewing's second wife was Winifred Warren, and one of the best women, Judge Long says, that ever lived. Hislast wife was a Miss Jennings. This marriage to him was, to say the least, ill-assorted. She was an illiterate, uncouth backwoods damsel, scarcely more than eighteen, while he was verging onto his three score and ten years. Soon after his last marriage he moved South, perhaps to the western part of Tennesse, where he died many years ago. No lineal de- scendant of Col. Ewing is now, so far as known, living in Christian County, and only a few of the older citizens remember him. Those that do, describe him as a social, companionable and hospitable gentleman, one who loved his friends, and was never happier than when surrounded by them, and bestowing upon them the hospitality of his home, or when zeal- ously engaged in a hot political contest.
Organization of Political Parties .- The political excitement of 1824 -25 was not confined to Christian County and to Kentucky, but extend- ed throughout the country. The Presidential campaign of 1824 was probably the most exciting since the formation of the Republic, with the exception of that of 1800, which resulted in the election of Mr. Jefferson over the elder Adams. The candidates at this election were Henry Clay, Gen. Jackson, John Quincy Adams and William H. Crawford, of Geor- gia. Each of these distinguished gentlemen had his friends, who support- ed their favorite candidate from personal preference and not from party predilection. None of them, however, had a majority of the votes in the Electoral College, and under the constitutional rule, upon the House of Representatives devolved the duty of making choice of President, each
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State, by its delegation in Congress, casting one vote. Gen. Jackson led Mr. Adams in the Electoral College by a small plurality ; Mr. Crawford was the third on the list of candidates, and Mr. Clay, who was the hind- most man, was dropped from the canvass. Mr. Adams was chosen Presi- dent by the casting vote of the State of Kentucky. Mr. Clay was a mem- ber of the National House of Representatives, and its Speaker, and it was at once claimed by many of his political enemies that it was through the great influence of Ohio, which State, as well as his own, Mr. Clay had carried in the Presidential contest, that the delegation from Kentucky was induced to cast the vote of the State for Mr. Adams, an Eastern man, in preference to Gen. Jackson, a Western and Southern man. By that coup d'etat Mr. Clay was instrumental in organizing political parties that survived the generation of people to which he belonged, and ruled in turn' the destinies of the Republic for more than a quarter of a century. In the new cabinet Mr. Clay was placed at the head of the State depart- ment by Mr. Adams, which gave rise to the charge of " bargain and sale " between the President and his Chief Secretary, that threw the country into a blaze of excitement from one end to the other. At this time, when Henry Clay has been dead for more than thirty years, no one will pre- sume or dare to question his patriotism or honesty; but the charge was so persistently made by the partisans of Gen. Jackson, it greatly injured Mr. Clay in the public estimation, and contributed largely to the Gener- al's success in the Presidential race of 1828, and proved the shibboleth of destruction to Mr. Clay's hopes of the Presidency ever after. At the Presidential election of 1828, party lines were closely drawn between Gen. Jackson and Mr. Adams, and the result of a hot and bitter contest was the triumphant election of the hero of New Orleans, both by the electoral and popular vote. At that time parties were known throughout the country as the Jackson and Anti-Jackson parties. With but few changes in their platform of principles, they eventually became the Whig and Democratic parties.
The Whig party, during its existence, was the ruling party in Chris- tian County, and upon all important occasions, when a full party vote was called out, its champions were borne to victory. In 1840 the Liberty party was organized, and a ticket for President and Vice President nom- inated: James G. Birney, a former slaveholder of Kentucky, but then a resident of Michigan, was placed first upon the ticket, and Thomas Morris, of Ohio, placed second. This ticket was condemned and frowned upon in Kentucky, and the small vote polled by it throughout the country was drawn mostly from the Whigs. But notwithstanding the drafts made by the anti-slave party, the temperance party, and other organizations upon the Whigs, they continued to be one of the ruling parties until the repeal
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of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, which led to the organization of the Republican party, and the absorption of the Whig, as well as the Liberty or Abolition party. In 1856 the Republican party received one vote in Christian County, cast for John C. Fremont for President. It was given by David Croft, in Scates Mill Precinct. It is said that his son called out, " Father, what did you vote for Fremont for ?" and that the old man- then very old-replied, " They say he wants to free the niggers, and so do I." Four years later a man named Davis Howell voted for Abraham Lincoln in the same precinct. To-day it is the dominant party in the county.
The Democratic party, which sprang into existence or assumed dis- tinctive form during the administration of Gen. Jackson, is still one of the great political parties of the country. For fifty years it has maintained its organization without change of name, and at present the indications for its success were never more flattering. For some years after the close of the late civil war, it was the dominant party in the county, but since the ballot has been placed in the hands of the negroes it has changed the phase of politics, and the Republicans hold sway, and usually carry off the spoils of office.
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