USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 33
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71 Niles' Register, Vol. 13, PP. 371, 372.
72 Ibid., Vol. 20, p. 301.
73 Ibid., Vol. 25, PP. 372, 373.
74 Jan. 1I, 1842.
75 Autobiography of Amos Kendall, 263.
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and captured the town with the governor. A few Kentuckians including Capt. John A. Logan, were killed in the fighting. The town was soon abandoned, the governor turned loose, and the expedition abandoned.76 The next year enthusiasm was booming high again in Kentucky. Popu- lar meetings were held at different places over the state to arouse volun- teering and to give vent to the people's anger at the Spanish regime. At Frankfort a meeting was held on August 26 at which a demand for Cuban independence was made and a resolution passed promising to "use all lawful and honorable means to assist the struggling patriots and hasten the triumph of Cuban liberty." 77 A Kentucky regiment of almost 700 men was recruited; but only about fifty under Col. William L. Crittenden and Capt. Victor Kerr actually reached Cuba. Again the expedition was unsuccessful. Most of the Lopez forces were captured and shot. Among these were a considerable number of Kentuckians, in- cluding Crittenden, who made the celebrated remark just before his death: "A Kentuckian kneels to none except his God and always dies facing the enemy." 78
The hospitality of the state was extended on several occasions to distinguished men who came on visits. The people delighted to show a warm friendship for such visitors that characterized generally close acquaintanceships more than the colder formalities that were commonly associated with public functions. General Lafayette, in his tour of the United States during 1824-1825, visited Kentucky and received a noisy as well as warm reception. Although the state received him first upon her soil as a shipwrecked victim from an unfortunate steamer on the Ohio, she soon caused him to forget in the whirl of her reception his mishap. Louisville had the honor of receiving him first and made good use of her opportunities. From here he set out across the state by way of Shelbyville "a large and flourishing village, situated in the midst of a most fertile and diversified country," to Frankfort. The capital was decorated and all aglow with arches and American flags. According to the description in the Argus of Western America, "As the procession entered the limits of South Frankfort, a national salute was fired from a piece of ordnance stationed on the heights above the capitol upon the Lexington road. The long and brilliant procession winding down the hill and through the streets of South Frankfort, the sound of the bugles, the thrill notes of the fifes, the rattling of the drums and the reports of the cannon which echoing from a hundred hills resembled peals of thunder, rendered this the most imposing and interesting spec- tacle ever exhibited in the capital of Kentucky." 79 The governor of the state made an address of welcome, to which Lafayette made an appropriate reply. A dinner was then served in the public square at- tended by 800 people. Lafayette's secretary said of the Frankfort visit, "The entertainment given on this occasion by the inhabitants of the town, to which were joined those of the neighboring counties, were very bril- liant, and strongly impressed with that ardent and patriotic character which distinguishes all the states of the Union, but which, among the
76 A. C. Quisenberry, Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba (Louisville, 1906), Filson Club Publication, Number 21, pp. 32-65; also see "Col. M. C. Taylor's Diary in Lopez Car- denas Expedition, 1850" in The Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 19, No. 57 (September, 1921), pp. 79-89.
77 Kentucky Yeoman, Ang. 29, 1851.
78 Quisenberry, Lopez Expedition, 69; Fish, American Diplomacy, 298, 299; James F. Rhodes, History of the United States (New York, 1902), I, 216-220; Collins, His- tory of Kentucky, I, 62. Taking Crittenden's words as a theme, Mrs. Morgan L. Betts (Mrs. Mary E. Wilson Betts) wrote the poem "A Kentuckian Kneels to None but God." This poem may be found Ibid., 584. See also Library of Southern Litera- ture, XVI, 6106. William L. Crittenden was a nephew of John J. Crittenden. 70 May 18, 1825.
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Kentuckians, is more manifest, and expressed with all the energy of a young people, enthusiastic in the cause of liberty." 80
Leaving Frankfort, he continued his journey on to Lexington through "the pretty little town of Versailles, where we remained some hours, to attend a public dinner, given by the citizens of the town and the sur- rounding country." He entered Lexington amidst enthusiastic throngs and the reverberation of the booming artillery "The entertainments at Lexington were extremely brilliant ; but of the proofs of public felicity, that which most attracted the general's attention, was the development and rapid progress of instruction among all classes of people. In fact is it not an admirable and astonishing circumstance, to find in a country, which not forty years ago was covered with immense forests, inhabited by savages, a handsome town of six thousand inhabitants, and contain- ing two establishments for public instruction, which, by the number of their pupils, and the variety and nature of the branches taught, may rival the most celebrated colleges and universities in the principal towns of Europe?" 81 He visited Transylvania University, where President Holley, "received the general at the door of the establishment, and ad- dressed him in an eloquent speech." Further exercises were carried out with three students addressing Lafayette in Latin, English, and French, "whose compositions, as eloquently written as well delivered, merited the plaudits of the auditors." Lafayette replied to each in the language in kind. He also visited Lafayette Academy, a school for young ladies, where 150 pupils "received him with the harmonious sound of a patriotic song composed by Mrs. Holley, and accompanied on the piano by Miss Hammond." He was then complimented by several young ladies, some in prose and others in verse, of their own composition. "The discourse of Miss M'Intosh and the beautiful ode of Miss Nephew, produced a great effect on the audience, and drew tears from eyes little accustomed to such emotions." Before leaving Lexington Lafayette visited the widow of General Scott to pay his respects to the wife of the man whom he had known and admired during the Revolution. He also visited Ash- land, and in the absence of Mr. Clay, "Mrs. Clay and her children per- formed all the honours of the house with the most amiable cordiality."
After spending two days in Lexington, Lafayette left for Cincinnati through a region, which according to his secretary gave the party "the advantage of seeing the prodigies of art effected by liberty, in a country which civilization has scarcely snatched from savage nature." In his message to the Legislature in November, 1825, Governor Desha referred to Lafayette's visit thus: "The appearance among us of the venerable soldier, the principal object of whose life, as evinced by the uniform tenor of his actions, has been the 'establishment of rational freedom in both hemispheres, was well calculated to diffuse joy throughout the com- munity. His presence revived in the old recollections of that eventful period when his accession to our cause brought new hopes of success ; while in the young it increased the admiration with which he has ever been regarded, Kentucky, it is hoped, has not fallen short of her sis- ters in demonstrations of respect to their common benefactor. She has bestowed on him the sincerest tributes of her esteem and affection, and her best wishes attend him to his native country." 82
Other men of note, less interesting to Kentuckians than Lafayette, but still men not often seen in the West, also visited the state and at- tracted much attention. Daniel Webster, who had contemplated a trip in 1833, but was deterred by the cholera, made a visit in 1837, and John Quincy Adams touched the state's borders in 1843 at Covington
80 A. Lavasseur, Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825; or, Journal of a Voyage to the United States (Philadelphia, 1829), translated by John D. Godman, II, 166. 81 Lavasseur, Lafayette in America, II, 168.
82 Niles' Register, Vol. 29, p. 224.
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and Newport. Both were received with great cordiality and hearty applause.83 Webster had come out especially to show himself to the whigs of the West, who were clamoring to see him. He was accom- panied by William Pitt Fessenden, later to become almost as prominent for a time as Webster himself. The journey was made down the Ohio to Maysville and thence to Lexington and on through Frankfort to Louisville. Fessenden wrote an intimate and interesting account of the trip. "Mr. Webster meets," he said, "with so warm a reception all along the shore that what with guns, dinners, speeches and the like, one is continually excited. Those Kentucky boys especially are the right sort. We arrived here in exactly the right season to see the last of the spring races. Four horses were entered. I lost eight 'hailstorms' on Maria Louisa. * * * The Kentuckians, as you are probably aware, value themselves greatly on their breed of horses, and enter into the spirit of such an occasion, and it was not disagreeable to see such men as Clay, Crittenden, Robinson and others of that stamp ap- parently as much excited, talking as loudly, betting as freely, drinking as deeply, and swearing as excessively as the jockeys themselves. * * * A 'hailstorm' is a brandy julep; a 'snow-storm' is a weaker one. The way they drink those things in Kentucky is a caution to sinners." He of necessity had to refer to the ladies, for which the state was already as famous as it was for its horses, but his first im- pressions were that they were no more to be admired than the New England girls. While at Lexington he said: "Give me New England ladies as yet." But he was fast changing his mind. At Frankfort he became infatuated with some, and at Louisville he saw one whom he gave "all the attention she would receive. Have since learned that she was noted for her powers of fasciantion, arising more from her delightful manners than from her personal beauty; was told that she was a terrible mankiller and whistled her lovers off without ceremony." Webster and his party had nothing but praise for the Kentucky hos- pitality shown them.84
The character of Kentuckians, indeed, seemed to stand out in the minds of all who visited the state. Kentuckians were Westerners, as distinguished from Easterners, but all Westerners were not like the Kentuckians. In the early '30s Timothy Flint gave this general sum- ming up of the character of the Kentuckians: "The people of this state have a character as strongly marked by nationality as those of any state of the Union. It is a character extremely difficult to describe, although all the shades of it are strongly marked to the eye of a person who has been long acquainted with them. They are not only unique in their manners, but in their origin. They are scions from a noble stock-the descendants from affluent and respectable planters from Vir- ginia and North Carolina. They are in that condition in life which is perhaps best calculated to develop high-mindedness and self respect. They have a distinct and striking moral physiognomy, an enthusiasm, a vivacity and ardor of character, courage, frankness and generosity, that have been developed with the peculiar circumstances under which they have been placed. They have a delightful frankness of hospitality which renders a sojourn among them exceedingly pleasant to a stranger. Their language, the very amusing dialect of the common people, their opinions and modes of thinking, from various circumstances, have been very excessively communicated and impressed upon the general char- acter of the people of the West. Their bravery has been evinced in field and forest from Louisiana to Canada. Their enthusiasm of char- acter is very observable in the ardor with which all classes of people
83 Niles' Register, Vol. 44. p. 364; Vol. 65, pp. 219, 220.
84 Francis Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden (Bos- ton, 1907), I. 13-16.
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express themselves in reference to their favorite views and opinions. All their feelings tend to extremes. It is not altogether in burlesque that they are described as boastful and accustomed to assume to them- selves the best horse, dog, gun, wife, statesmen and country. Their fearless ardor and frankness and self confidence become to their young men in other parts of the West, in competition for place and precedence, as a 'good star. When a Kentuckian presents himself in another state as a candidate for an office, other circumstances being equal, the Ken- tuckian carries it. Whenever the Kentuckian travels, he earnestly and affectionately remembers his native hills and plains. His thoughts as incessantly turn toward home as those of the Swiss. He invokes the genius of his country, in trouble, danger and solitude. It is to him the home of plenty, beauty, greatness and everything that he desires or respects. This nationality never deserts him. No country will bear a comparison with his country ; no people with his own people. Eng- lish are said to go into a battle with songs about roast beef in their mouths. When the Kentuckian encounters dangers of battle, or of any kind, when he is even on board a foundering ship, his last exclamation is, 'Hurrah for old Kentucky.'" S5
Frontier conditions had gone, but their effects on Kentucky char- acter remained. Directly after the War of 1812 an observer said, of Lexington society in particular: "The log cabins had disappeared, and in their places stood costly brick mansions, well painted and enclosed by fine yards, bespeaking the taste and wealth of their possessors. The leathern pantaloons, the hunting shirts and leggins have been discarded, for the dress and manners of the inhabitants had entirely changed. * * The inhabitants are as polished, and, I regret to add, as lux- itrious as those of Boston, New York or Baltimore, and their assemblies and parties are conducted with as much ease and grace as in the oldest towns in the Union." 86 James Lane Allen spoke of the transition, es- pecially in an economic sense, thus: "But from the opening of the nineteenth century things grew easier. The people, rescued from the necessity of trying to be safe, began to indulge the luxury of wishing to be happy. Life ceased to be a warfare and became an industry ; the hand left off defending and commenced acquiring ; the moulding of bullets was succeeded by the coming of dollars." 87 The typical Kentucky character had a strong commingling of pioneer days in its make-up; and indeed in some souls it was so deeply impressed as to make it almost impossible for them to forget "the good old times." It was noted in the early '30s that the "aged settlers look back to the period of this first settlement as a golden age. To them the earth seems to have been cursed with natural and moral degeneracy, deformity and sterility, in consequence of having been settled." 88
But the rough mould in which Kentucky character began left beauty and finesse impressed upon it. "The patriarchial pioneers of these backwoods men were people of a peculiar and remarkable order, trained by circumstances to a character which united force, hardihood and energy in an astonishing degree. Opinion has generally invested them with a predominance of rough traits and rough habits, approximating the character of the Indians. They were in fact as much distinguished by an ample basis of gentlemanly character and chivalrous notions of
85 Flint, History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, I, 368, 369.
86 Samuel R. Brown, The Western Gazetteer or Emigrant's Directory (Auburn, N. Y., 1817), 91-94.
87 James Lane Allen, "Kentucky Fairs" in Harper's Magazine, Vol. 79 (Septem- ber, 1889), 555.
88 Flint, History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, II, 351. The present writer has heard the same sentiments expressed by old inhabitants of the present time.
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honor and justice as for strength, firmness and bravery." The para- doxical and antithetical character of the Kentuckians was vividly set forth by Jacob Burnet as he had known and observed it in the early '40s. As a person traveled through the country, he said, he might note the mistress of the farm-house whiling her time in the rocking chair, and when he should reach the town he would find her helpmate "talk- ing politics at the tavern door." He described the typical small town as looking old and decrepit, houses there were with chimneys that looked "more ancient than the Pyramids," and the hotel "red and brick, and brazen, is the symbol of impudence and brutality-of that Heathen Democracy whose life-blood is whiskey, and whose breath is oaths.
"Let us join the group round the old gentleman who, with his chair in the street, his feet on the window-sill, his left hand in his ruffled shirt-bosom, and his cud in his cheek, is laying down the law, pointed off with spurts of tobacco juice. These men, common as they look, are not common men; lazy as they appear, leaning against the shoulder- polished door-posts, they are full of energy and ability. Such men as these won the battle of Buena Vista, and will rule the world if they choose to. Here is one, hard-featured and stern, with full veins, with a complexion like half-tanned ox-hide, who would, like Harry Daniel, of Mount Sterling, murder the brother of his wife and see her go crazy, and yet walk his way with an easy conscience. or, at any rate, the pretense of one. Next to him sits a man who could wage war with the human race for a lifetime and enjoy it-a man of the Middle Ages, with all the vices of feudalism and all those of our money-seeking age combined. He has made his fortune by hunting up invalid titles, pur- chasing and prosecuting the legal claim, and turning the innocent holder to the dogs. And yet at home no one is kinder, more thoughtful, almost self-sacrificing. Send him to Mexico, and humanity is capable of no crime from which he would turn, or at which he would shudder. Take him to Boston, and his manner will be as pleasing as his conversation will be original. Search his pockets, and you will find a plan for de- frauding a neighbor of his farm, a most affectionate letter to an absent daughter, a bowie-knife, and 'Paradise Lost.'
"Beyond him, notice that face. How clear the eye, how confident the mouth, how strong and firm the chin! If he speaks, you will hear a voice like the Eolian harp, pouring forth words of such sweetness that the bees might cling upon his lips. If he moves, it is the Indian motion, quiet and strong as sunlight. In his mind the Higher Democ- racy is forming itself a home, and amid the low contests of politics he will be unconsciously acting as the messenger of the great Friend of man. Another comes by with a quick, springy step, as if with ankle-joints of India rubber; he stops, joins in the discussion; words pour from his tongue more rapidly than the ear can drink them in; he looks 'round, his eye all seriousness and his mouth all smiles; men catch his idea, though they cannot his syllables, and their nods shows that he has hit some nail on the head. That man, slight as a girl, might be safely trusted to lead any corps in any battle, and yet in his life he never struck a blow. Go for ten miles 'round, inquire in any household, and you will hear of him as the kind adviser, the steadiest friend, the unos- tentatious helper ; many a son has he saved from the gambling-table, the race-course, or the deadly duel, begun with rifles and finished with knives -and he, too, is a child of the soil.
"Now consider that, while the murderer and the victim of assas- sination become known to you through the press, the virtues of the patriotic politician or the village philanthropist make no noise in the world. Believe us. also, that, while the towns and taverns of these Western States, reeking with tobacco and whiskey, are symbols of the evil Democracy of our land, and the bullies and cut-throats, the knaves
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and robbers, are its true children; and though you might, on first look- ing at such a society as you may see in almost any Western town, think anarchy was close at hand, yet are the villages ever improving, the taverns themselves growing more decent, and anarchy is going farther and farther away. * You find, consequently strange mixtures of statute law and Lynch law, of heathen brutality and the most Chris- tian excellence, of disregard for human life and self-forgetting philan- thropy. But amid all the confusion you may find evidence, we believe, that the Higher Democracy, the rule of God, is advancing." It should be remembered that "Kentucky began in anarchy and has risen to law -that she was once the Alsatia of the United States, and is now in comparison quiet and peaceable-that she once hung to the Union but by a thread, and is now bound to it by clamps of iron; and you cannot but have some faith in the workings of Democracy." 89
The convivial nature of Kentuckians, as well as their strong ideas of freedom and belief in their ability to protect it, was shown in an incident related by Lafayette's secretary. On passing out of the state toward Cincinnati he has chanced to meet with a Kentuckian "who was smoking his segar at the door of his house" and who invited him in, offered him whiskey and tobacco, and began to bombard him with ques- tions. Napoleon was mentioned in the course of the conversation, whereupon the Kentuckian commiserated freely with the lot of the famous Corsican and blamed him for giving himself up "to the English government, whose perfidy he has so often experienced." He added that Napoleon could have found a hospitable home in America. On being told that Napoleon might have developed designs against the lib- erties of the American people, he replied : "We should have considered such an attempt as an act of madness, but if, against all probabilities, we had submitted for a moment to his tyrannous ascendency, his suc- cess would have been fatal to him. Look at that rifle [pointing to one in the corner of the room]; with that I never miss a pheasant in our woods at a hundred yards; a tyrant is larger than a pheasant, and there is not a Kentuckian who is not as patriotic and skilful as myself." 90
Among the institutions growing up which had a distinct social sig- nificance, the fair, already mentioned in connection with its economic importance, was perhaps the most spectacular. Not until the period of the '30s and '40s did the social features develop. Now it was much more than a cattle show ; it marked a week or more of festivities, looked forward to by young and old, slave and free, when love-making, elec- tioneering, fighting, racing, and general jollification reigned. Numerous visitors from the South timed their trips to the state for this occasion, both to visit relatives and to make friends. For the slaves, fair days were gala days; acres of them came and were glad in their simple way.91
Another institution of much social importance (for an institution it really was) was County Court Day. This was the day, coming as regularly as the months, when the judges of the county held court and dealt out justice. It was a day that the whole county observed by com-
89 Jacob Burnet, "Notes on the Early Settlement of the Northwestern Territory" in North American Review, Vol. 65 (October, 1847), 335-338, 348. For other points in Kentucky social conditions and character, see Capt. Marryat, A Diary in America with Remarks on Its Institutions (Philadelphia, 1839), II, 20; Harriet Martineau, Society in America (New York, 1837), I, 203. Charles Dickens sang the praises of Louisville's fine hotel, the Galt House: "We slept at the Galt House; a splendid hotel ; and were as handsomely lodged as though we had been in Paris. rather than hundreds of miles beyond the Alleghanies." Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy and American Notes (New York, 1885), 369.
90 Lavasseur, Lafayette in America, II, 171, 172.
91 Allen, Kentucky Fairs, 555-568 (Harper's Magazine, Vol. 79).
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ing to the county seat for the occasion. The aristocrat rode in his coach with servants, the more lowly came in various wheeled vehicles, rode horseback, or trudged along on foot. Activities of all sorts de- veloped ; athletic contests were staged, politics made and unmade, wars declared and peace concluded, and trading in the products of the coun- tryside engaged in. This was especially the day of all days when grudges were aired and quarrels settled. According to James Lane Allen: "The justices sat quietly on the bench inside, and the people fought quietly in the streets outside, and the day of all the month set apart for the conservation of the peace became the approved day for carrying on in- dividual war." He who would settle his quarrels "availed himself lib- erally of election day, it is true, and of regimental muster in the spring and battalion muster in the fall-great gala occasions; but county court day was by all odds the preferred and highly prized season. It was periodical and could be relied upon, being written in the law, noted in the almanac, and registered in the heavens." But these fights were after all not vicious, for they were most commonly ended in hand-shak- ing and sealed in drinking.92
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