USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 34
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As a magnet for the more elite social gatherings the various mineral springs were developed early and were kept going in varying splendor down until the Civil war. The nineteenth century had scarcely begun before the Olympian Springs were attracting visitors. Prior to 1805 a central hotel building had been constructed here, a number of cottages set up, and a dining hall provided to accommodate 100 guests. Ample room and accommodations were promised for all who, "prompted by disease or pleasure," wished to come.93 Greenville, or Harrodsburg Springs, was also developed early and had a long life as a summer re- sort.94 Among the other resorts that attained fame in their day were White Sulphur Springs, established by Col. Richard M. Johnson ; Blue Lick Springs, and Drennon Springs.95 A gay and gorgeous whirl of society grew up at these resorts, composed of belles and beaux from throughout the South, with a strong admixture of politicians and pros- perous business men. Some of the leaders of the nation sought rest here from their arduous duties and held conferences and made plans for the future. At some of these resorts as many as 500 people might be present at one time, and perhaps 1,000 for the whole season. The hot climate of the South drove many each summer to the Kentucky re- sorts, and tied tighter the social bonds of the state with the rest of the South. As was said by one: "It was the grand summer rallying of Southern belles and beaux; it was the realm of romance and flirta- tion." 96 In 1823 the rates at Harrodsburg Springs were, for adults, $16 in specie per month; for children and servants, one-half the regular price ; and for horses, $6 per month.97 In 1822 Olympian Springs prom- ised its guests the best food the country could produce and particularly called their attention to the "fine VENISON" served to its patrons. It also announced that it had supplied its "BAR with choice liquors," and that for those wishing to hunt, "as fine a PACK as ever went in a chase" would be at their service.98
92 James Lane Allen, "County Court Day in Kentucky" in Harper's Magazine, Vol. 79 (August, 1889), pp. 383-397.
93 Kentucky Gazette, April 9, 1805. Also see life there Ibid., Sept. 17.
94 See advertisements in Reporter, June 3, 1809, Kentucky Gazette, July, 1822
95 See Kentucky Gazette, Oct. 3, 1839, etc., and other Kentucky papers for ad- vertisements and accounts.
96 Sally E. M. Hardy, "Old Kentucky Watering Places" in American Historical Register, II (1895), 1385-1400. See also Letters on the Conditions of Kentucky in 1825, P. 55.
97 Kentucky Gazette, Aug. 14, 1823.
98 Ibid., July, 1822. For other facts concerning Kentucky watering-places see Flint, History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, I, 354.
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Amusements as afforded by the theatre and travelling shows and menageries made their appearance during this general period and grew to considerable proportions before the Civil war. An elephant, as already noted, had been shown to Kentuckians in the early years of the nine- teenth century ; other "wonderful works of nature," such as lions and leopards, soon made their appearance, and by 1830 the Egyptian mummy." this interesting "remnant of antiquity," was being shown to an amazed people in Frankfort. According to the announcement, "Those who would make up an acquaintance with the subject of one of the Kings of Egypt, who built the Pyramids, should pay a visit to this rem- nant of antiquity." 99 The theatres not only produced their outside
EPISCOPAL CHURCH, FIRST IN KENTUCKY Over One Hundred Years Old
attractions, but also their home productions. In 1823 a Lexingtonian wrote for a local theatre a play entitled "Daniel Boone, or the First Set- tlers of Kentucky." 100
The intellectual and moral renaissance which characterized the na- tional consciousness from 1830 to 1860 was well reflected in Kentucky. Such activities as newspapers, free public education, temperance and prohibition laws, slavery opposition, and religious development, have either been treated already or yet remain to be taken up.
Religious feeling in some of the denominations still expressed itself in the spectacular camp-meeting. A traveler described one he attended near Harrodsburg: "Our camp meetings in New York bear no com-
99 Argus, Sept. 22, 1830.
100 Kentucky Gazette, Dec. 25, 1823.
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parison to it in point of numbers. The day was favorable; the minister stood on a scaffolding erected for the occasion, in the center of a hand- some woods, free from brush or logs; the hearers to the number, as I judged, of at least 10,000, stood in concentric circles around the orator. The number of horses and carriages was absolutely incredible; and I do not enlarge when I say that they literally covered twenty acres of ground." 101 Another contemporary observed that "Religious excite- ments are common and carried to the highest point of emotion. Re- ligion, in some form, seems to be generally respected, and there is scarcely a village or populous settlement in the state that has not one or more favorite preachers. *
* * But notwithstanding the marked enthus: asm of the character of this people, notwithstanding they are much addicted to bitter political disputation, notwithstanding all the collisions from opposite parties and clans, as a state the people have uniformly distinguished themselves for religious order, quiet and tolerant." 102
As a general practice, the denominations of the state did not leave their purely religious field, restricted as orthodoxy had made it, to en- gage in the more secular problems of the day. Although slavery still cast its shadows across their paths, they took a less conspicuous part in that burning question than their earlier attitude had warranted, until the approaching dissolution of the Union forced it upon them again. Now and then a denomination took note of political or economic problemis that seemed to fall within its ken as a religious organization. Usurious rates of interest were no less, according to the Presbyterian Synod, and it exhorted Presbyterians to exact no more than six per cent, which the laws of the state allowed.103 There was also a rather persistent, if not wide, opposition against carrying mails on Sunday. In 1830 petitions were sent in to Congress against a continuance of this practice. Accord- ing to a memorial, "Your memorialists plead that respect which is due to Bible duties, in all Christian communities, as a sufficient argument to induce the Government to abstain from Sabbath violations." It was argued that Sunday mails would "tend to impair the moral influence of that day," and it was urged, with rather unfortunate imputations to the petitioners' motives, "that conscientious Christians are precluded from an equal participation in the emoluments of office." 104 Opposition im- mediately sprang up against this attempt to interfere with the regularly ordered life of the nation. Petitions were sent in asking Congress not to interfere with the carrying of mails on Sunday, arguing the incon- venience it would cause, and warning it of the unfortunate precedent it would establish of the state interfering in religious questions. It was also added: "And, if we may judge by the number and respectability of those who have filled the offices of the Department, from the highest to the lowest, many of them professors of religion, we must believe that the number who would be excluded from office by their conscientious scruples would be astonishingly small." 105 The Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians continued to be the predominating religious denomina- tions in the state, with Episcopalians and Roman Catholics not without their influence and numbers. 106
The temperate movement, which had flared up in certain parts of
101 Brown, Gazetteer, 114.
102 Flint, History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, I, 369.
103 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 47. The discussion of interest rates was be- fore the people for many years. In 1856 the Legislature resolved, "That the banks of the State by usurious dealings in bills to an unprecedented and alarming extent, have preverted the great powers and privileges conferred upon them by their charters, and disappointed the just expectations of the people of Kentucky." Acts of Kentucky, 1855, I, 139.
104 American State Papers, Post Office, 235, 261.
105 Ibid., 261.
106 For religious statistics in 1832 see American Almanac, 1832, 251.
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the nation at different times since the War of 1812 and which was marked by a wider and more persistent agitation about 1826, made its appearance in considerable force in Kentucky in the early '30s.107 The movement first expressed itself in the organization of small local societies as auxiliaries of church congregations. Robert J. Breckinridge early en- listed in the movement and was a power in its spread over the state. He was in constant demand as a speaker for the societies. In 1831 he delivered an address before the Woodford Church Temperance Society, which was published in pamphlet form and was distributed widely over the state.108 Besides the numerous local societies, there existed the Ken- tucky Temperance Society, which had about 250 members in 1831. It was suggested that branch societies be formed "in the neighborhood of each church and religious society." 109 These societies stood for a total abstinence from the use of ardent spirits and wines in a state that had already established a far-flung reputation for its fine whiskies. Moral suasion was the general method resorted to at first, but not a great deal of success was had, and so the political weapons were soon threatened and later taken up. The temperance society founded at Augusta an- nounced that it would "use all prudent means against the use of ardent spirits and wines, except for medicine or wine for sacramental occasions, and refuses to support candidates for office who use ardent spirits for electioneering purposes, or are themselves addicted to their intemperate use." 110 A wave of enthusiasm swept over the state in 1842 when two reformed drunkards carried on a campaign of speech-making for total abstinence. Whole communities signed the pledge, and saloon- keepers at some places were converted and closed their shops.111 With the approach of the Civil war, when old parties were going to pieces and people were groping for new party allegiances, the temperance party suddenly arose into considerable political prominence, to be noted hereafter.
With the coming of the Civil war, the life of the state was thrown into war conditions, and it emerged greatly changed from ante-bellum times, with new concerns and a different outlook.
107 See McMaster, History of the People of the United States, IV, 527-532; Fish, The Development of American Nationality, 288, 289.
108 One of these pamphlets is preserved in Breckinridge MSS. (1831).
109 Argus, March 2, 1831. A society was formed at Perryville (said to be the first in the state) in 1831 with 507 persons signed on its rolls. Autobiography of J. J. Polk, 80, 81.
110 This was an early example of the threat to take the question into politics- 1831. Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 36.
111 Ibid., I, 47.
CHAPTER LVIII
SLAVERY
The development of the state along every line was either directly or indirectly affected by slavery. Its shadows fell across every path of progress ; it obtruded itself, either secretly or openly, into almost every question of the day. Travelers in the state noted with regret its pres- ence. "A Pedestrian" in 1818 observed that a great many of the settlers "came from Virginia, and, unfortunately for our common country, they brought with them their slaves. What a source of regret is it, that Kentucky did not prohibit, within her jurisdiction, the bondage of those friendless beings !" 1 Substantial opposition to slavery was first based on economic considerations. Henry Clay declared in 1829 that slavery had placed "us in the rear of our neighbors, who are exempt from slavery, in the state of agriculture, the progress of manufactures, the advance of improvements, and the general prosperity of society." 2 It not only prevented many settlers from coming to Kentucky, but it actually drove away many Kentuckians to the free states north of the Ohio.3 A Kentuckian in 1833 made a sweeping indictment of the institution, charging it with widespread evil effects. He asserted that the slaves "have done grievous harm already, by hindering our growth, keeping us far behind our sister states, impoverishing our soil, corrupting our morals and manners. * * * We believe that slavery in our state is unprof- itable and ruinous, to say nothing of other objections; and as a question of political economy we assert that it imposes upon us a heavy and ever increasing tax which must be taken off or sooner or later beggary and decay must be our portion. It is madness to try to wink these things out of sight; it is folly to pretend to deny them. All experience and observation, all history and the present condition of Virginia and Mary- land speak with a trumpet voice. * * * The latter has already be- * gun to take measures to regenerate its sinking fortune.
Though blessed with a fruitful soil, with many natural advantages, they see and acknowledge that their lands have every year been growing poorer, that they are slowly but certainly sinking in political importance." 4
Slavery here had its usual effects on social classes, but with less marked emphasis. The "poor whites" were not quite so hopeless or so numerous as in the states further south. But the inevitable result of slavery in creating an aristocracy, marked by a spirit of superiority as well as the possession of greater wealth, was quite evident. A visitor in 1816 noted that "the rich hold labor in contempt, and frequently make the possession of slaves a criterion of merit ; that is, most farmers would make a marked distinction between two young gentlemen, one possessing slaves, the other not, but equal in point of property, personal accomplish-
1 Estwick Evans, "A Pedestrians Tour of Four Thousand Miles Through the Western States and Territories during the Winter and Spring of 1818" in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, VIII, 94-364.
2 Colton, Life and Times of Henry Clay, I, 190.
3 See Sir Charles Lyell, A Second Visit to the United States of North America (New York, 1849), II, 210. Chillicothe, Ohio, was settled largely by emancipationists from Bourbon County, Kentucky.
4 Louisville Herald, May 16, 1833, quoted in I. E. McDongle, Slavery in Kentucky, 1792-1865. (Reprinted from Journal of Negro History, III, No. 3, July, 1918), 67.
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ments and moral endowment, who should pay their addresses to his daughter, the suit of the slaveholder would be favorably received, while that of his rival would be disdainfully rejected." 5
The position of the slaves was not marked by excessive severity. The nature of the labor to be performed made their lot fairly easy. No great cotton, rice, or cane fields in malignant climates under a torrid sun wore out the life of a Kentucky slave. Great gangs of slaves were seldom met with; rather a few made up the possession of the average Kentucky slaveholder, and they were used as household servants or field hands, working with their masters often.6 The custom gradually grew up among many masters of letting their slaves go out and hire them- selves wherever opportunity offered. Many of these wandering slaves congregated in Lexington and other towns and became a nuisance, if not a danger, to the community, with their petty larcenies-stealing and concealing. Lexington passed ordinances imposing a fine upon masters who allowed their slaves these liberties, but conditions were little rem- edied.7 Up until the last decade before the Civil war, selling slaves to the far South was little engaged in as an ordinary business. What commerce in slaves actually existed was not generally based on the sole motive of profit or gain. A master in urgent need of money would sell his slaves, so would a master who wished to solve the problem of unruly slaves. But often this latter problem could be settled by the mere threat "to sell him south." Slaves were also sold on the interstate slave trade to satisfy legal and technical requirements. In order to settle an estate slaves often had to be sold, and runaway slaves captured and held for one year unclaimed were required by law to be sold, and often found their way into the slave trade. Of course, there was much more slave traffic within the state than to other states and was much less objec- tionable. Breaking up families was condemned by the best sentiment in the sale of slaves. The concern for family integrity in one instance is illustrated in a letter from James Porter to Robert J. Breckinridge, which follows in part: "I have a boy, Jack, that has married a girl belonging to Alf. Shelby's Estate. And as I propose moving to Missouri in a short time, I propose to you either to buy his wife or to sell you the boy. If you are wanting a boy, you cannot get a better servant, or one that is more valuable. I am now offered and can get at any time one hundred dollars a year hire. If you do not wish to buy, I will give a fair price for his wife, to keep from parting them, for I should dislike very much to do it, as he is a favorite servant and a good boy." 8
Many people in the state were opposed to slavery in varying degrees. Perhaps a majority of them would at any time have welcomed a miracu- lous metamorphosis of the state with slavery and all its effects left out. But slavery was a condition and not a theory in Kentucky, as it was indeed fo: the rest of the South, and it was therefore necessary to deal with it in a practical rather than visionary way. The freeing of the slave did not remove one of the great evils of the system, and it indeed immediately brought about problems of even greater moment.
รต Brown, Gazetteer, 113, 114. N. S. Shaler said "Short of a great difference of race, there is no basis of social distinction that man has invented which is so trenchant as that which separates the slave-owner from the non slave-owner." Kentucky, 225. 6 For statistics see Eighth Census (1860). Also see N. S. Shaler, "Chapters from an Autobiography" in Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 103 (January, 1909), 45-57. In a strong anti-slavery manifesto, John C. Young admitted that "Many circumstances operate here to mitigate the rigors of perpetual servitude; and it is probably the fact that no body of slaves have been better fed, better clothed, and less abused, than the slaves of Kentucky." "An Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a Plan for the Instruction and Emancipation of their Slaves, by a Committee of the Synod of Kentucky" in Stanton, The Church and the Rebellion, 431.
7 Kentucky Gazette, Jan. 16, 1823.
8 Breckinridge MSS. (1848). Letter dated Danville, June 12, 1848.
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Emancipation did not give education to the freedman, neither did it make him a good citizen. The problem of emancipation to most Ken- tuckians could only be solved by the removal of the negro freed. And this idea was embraced more or less prominently in all the early emanci- pation or abolition societies in the state. In 1815 the Kentucky Abolition Society petitioned Congress to set apart a portion of the public domain somewhere for the colonization upon it of all negroes set free. In its plea it observed that the free negroes "from their poor and degraded situation where they at present reside * *
* are suffering many privations for the want of room and opportunities for the expansion of genius and encouragement to industry." Congress, refusing to pursue a policy partial to any group of people, dismissed the petition.9 But it was nevertheless true that the lot of the free negro was precarious and uncertain in the extreme. He was an anomaly in the scheme of society, an outcast in the eyes of all whites and spurned by the slaves. He had no political privileges, and was in constant danger of being reenslaved through mistake or design. According to Henry Clay, "Of all the de- scriptions of our population, and of either portion of the African race, the free people of color are by far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved and abandoned. *
* They are not slaves, and yet they are not free. The laws, it is true, proclaim them free, but prejudices more powerful than any law deny them the privileges of freemen. They occupy a middle station between the free white population and the slaves of the United States, and the tendency of their habits is to corrupt both." 10
It was, therefore, with eagerness that the American Colonization So- ciety, an organization founded in 1816 principally by Southerners for the purpose of transporting slaves to Africa, was seized as a solution to the problem. The Kentucky Colonization Society was organized in 1823 as an auxiliary to the national society, and was followed four years later by another branch. In 1832 there were thirty-one divisions scat- tered over the state. The opposition that had greeted the early emanci- pation societies of the state was lacking in connection with the coloniza- tion societies. Many of the most conservative and respectable citizens of the state belonged to these societies and worked for their success. For a time the interest of the state in the slavery question was directed toward them as offering the only solution. The Legislature declared in 1827 that no jealousies or opposition ought to exist in Kentucky or in any other slave state toward the colonization society, "on the objects of this society, or the effects of its labors." It also resolved that it viewed "with deep and friendly interest the exertions of the American Col- onization Society in establishing an asylum on the coast of Africa, for the free people of color of the United States." 11 A call was made upon the Federal Government to protect the movement and to appro- priate money in its aid.12 During 1832 numerous petitions were circu- lated through the state for signatures, to be forwarded to Congress, calling upon the United States to help send the free blacks to Africa, suggesting that the surplus revenues from the sale of public lands might be so used, and calling attention to the dangers of the increasing free black poulation. 13
Henry Clay, who had been identified with the gradual emancipa- tionists from almost his first day in the state and who was at one time president of the American Colonization Society, took a great interest
9 American State Papers, Miscellaneous, II, 278, 279.
10 Quoted in Martin, Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky, 49.
11 Acts of Kentucky, 1826, pp. 196, 197. Resolution dated January 16, 1827. Also see Niles' Register, Vol. 32, p. 80.
12 Niles' Register, Vol. 35, P. 387.
13 A sample copy may be found in Breckinridge MSS. (1832).
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in the colonization movement in Kentucky. At the meeting of the state society in 1829 at Frankfort, he said: "If we were to invoke the great- est blessing on earth, which heaven, in its mercy, could now bestow on this nation, it would be the separation of the two most numerous races of its population and their comfortable establishment in distinct and distant countries. *
* * Who, if this promiscuous residence of whites and blacks, of freemen and slaves, is forever to continue, can imagine the servile wars, the carnage and the crimes which will be its probable consequences, without shuddering with horror?" 14
The movement was soon bearing fruit. In 1833, Rev. Richard Bibb liberated thirty-two of his slaves, provided them with $444 and started them on their way to Liberia. In March of the same year 106 negroes left Louisville for the same destination, all but ten being from Kentucky. According to the report, "The emigrants left Louisville in high spirits, having been liberally provided with money and provisioned by the peo- ple of Kentucky. They were to be conveyed to New Orleans, free of expense, in the elegant steamboat, Mediterranean, accompanied by the secretary of the Kentucky Colonization Society." 15 As a method cal- culated to make success more certain from the standpoint both of the blacks after they should arrive in Liberia and also of the Kentuckians in arousing enthusiasm, a "Kentucky in Liberia" was set up. This was a separate tract of land in Liberia where all negroes from Kentucky should be sent, where they might work and build up their destinies together. Each year a few negroes were sent out, but never a very appreciable number. Preparations were being made in 1845 to send 200, but the number who actually went each year was much less. In 1853, 63 were sent in a party; in 1855, 58, and in 1856, 61.16 In 1845 an attempt was made to have the Legislature send all the free negroes in the state to Liberia, the state agreeing to pay their passage thither and afford them provisions.17 Those who actually went to Liberia were made up of free negroes, as well as those liberated for the purpose.
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