USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 41
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* * *" 2 Referring to the abuses it was charged that "Our state was filled with life-officers irresponsible to the people, and virtually irrespon- sible to any tribunal, lording it over the interests of Kentucky. We could even see offices bought and sold in every county, and little pampered cliques about court-houses doing up politics for our people." 3 The demo- crats held that the new constitution worked not only to the benefit of the people, but in many of its reforms directly to their own party interests. They expected to gain much from the change of the period of voting three days long to a one day vote. The whigs were unquestionably the party of greater wealth and influence, and they had used these assets under the old system in sending lagging voters to the polls during the second and third days, if they were necessary to winning the election. The democrats, with lesser means were unable to take full advantage of this opportunity. But conditions were now different; all must cast their votes within the limits of one day.4
The whigs were thrown into consternation by the logic of the cir-
1 Kentucky Yeoman, May 16, 1851. Also see Ibid., passim.
2 Kentucky Yeoman, Jan. 16, 1851.
3 Ibid.
4 See Ibid., August, passim, 1851.
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cumstances. It was too true, and not to be denied successfully, that the whig leadership had vigorously opposed the movement for a constitution, both before the convention had been called and even after the instrument had been formulated and submitted to the people for ratification. Whig leaders now set about winning back many of the rank and file of their party who had been carried away by the enthusiasm for the constitution, by trying to show how the whigs had aided in securing many reforms in the convention while the constitution was being made.5 Their major strategy was, however, to say as little as possible about the new con- stitution, and to carry the discussion into the preservation of the Union, in which they hoped to use the compromise with great effect. They posed as the sole friends of the Union and responsible wholly for the compro- mise, which had so successfully quieted the nation. In certain places they referred to themselves as the "Union Party." The democrats were de- clared to be enemies of the Union, and dangerous to its preservation.6 The democrats had ready answers to these charges. They honored Clay, the great whig, for his work in securing the compromise ; but they called attention with telling effect to the vote in Congress by which that legis- lation had been passed. Every Kentucky democrat stood for this legis- lation, and many more Northern democrats voted for it than Northern whigs. Apart from Clay's leadership, they declared it was largely a democratic accomplishment. The position of the whigs was less sound on the question of slavery than that of the democrats, and the candidacy of Cassius M. Clay on the emancipation ticket gave them some concern.
The election, which took place on August 6th, resulted in a democratic victory for the governorship, but went little beyond. Powell was given a majority of 850 votes over Dixon, and, thus, became the first democratic governor since the days of John Breathitt, a time when parties bore the names of Jackson and Clay more often than democratic and whig.7 The democrats had undoubtedly rode into power on their reputation for con- stitutional reform. Signs of decay in the whig vitality and solidarity, es- pecially nationally, was also beginning to appear; and this played a minor part in the whig defeat in Kentucky. Clay had declared in 1848 that he feared "the Whig party is dissolved." "I am compelled most painfully," he said, "to believe that the Whig party has been overthrown by a mere personal party, just as much having that character as the Jackson party possessed it twenty years ago." 8 Clay was soon to pass beyond and leave the whigs of Kentucky shorn of a mighty power and influence. Perhaps, the most significant feature of the democratic victory of 1851 was the rise of a new star in the Kentucky firmament. This was John C. Breckinridge, destined by his genius and magnetic personality to win an affectionate following hardly surpassed by Clay's. With a record of service in the Mexican war, he first entered Kentucky politics in 1849, when he represented Fayette County in the Legislature. His rise was now rapid. In this election of 1851, he was returned from the famous rock-ribbed Ashland district, whig to the core and long represented by Henry Clay, by an extraordinary victory over Gen. Leslie Combs. He cut down a whig majority of over 1500 to defeat and piled up a demo- cratic majority of 500. Such was his real political introduction to Kentuckians.9
These were unmistakable signs that the days of whig supremacy in Kentucky were numbered. But its going was not yet at hand; the whigs were still the majority party fundamentally. They had elected a major-
5 Kentucky Yeoman, March 28, 1851.
6 See Ibid., Feb .- Aug., 1851.
? The exact vote was: Powell, 54,613; Dixon, 53,763; Cassius M. Clay, 3,621. Kentucky Yeoman, Sept. 5, 1851; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 62.
8 Colton, Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, 567.
9 Kentucky Yeoman, Aug. 8, 1851; Collins, History of Kentucky, II, 203.
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ity in both houses of the Legislature in 1851, and in December of the same year they elected Archibald Dixon to the United States Senate, to fill the seat vacated by Clay, over the democratic candidate, James Guthrie, by a vote of 71 to 58. In the presidential election, the next year, Kentucky gave her electoral vote to Scott, the whig candidate, a few more than 3,000 popular majority over Pierce, the democratic nominee. The main point of interest in the campaign was the compromise of 1850. Scott was pledged to support it, although many of his followers in the North would have been glad to see it overthrown, while Pierce and the democrats were even more heartily in accord with the settlement. As Kentuckians had to make no choice between principles, the inertia of whiggery carried the state for Scott.
The decay of the whig party was evident in the state, long before the blow was given to it which destroyed it nationally. The Congressional election in 1853 showed the parties equal in the representatives they elected, each sending to Washington five. But the main significance was not in this apparent equality of the two parties, but rather in the fact that John C. Breckinridge had again carried the greatest strong-hold of whiggery, the Ashland district; and he had done it against the strongest candidate the whigs could produce, ex-Governor Letcher. Breckinridge assumed a strong Southern attitude on the question of slavery, and ac- cused Letcher of having abolition leanings. He forced the issue and won by an enlarged majority. According to the Kentucky Yeoman, "The election of Major Breckinridge, demonstrates the fact for which we have long contended, that the great heart of Kentucky is democratic-is sound to the core, and if we had lost all of our other candidates for Congress in the State, we could have yet felt sure of great cause of rejoicing, and it would have been acknowledged on all sides as the triumph of Democracy in Kentucky." 10 Apart from Fayette County, now redeemed to democracy, Franklin County was considered the strongest whig region in the state. But the democrats were planning its conquest. "A complete triumph must and will be theirs-," it was declared, "the times have altered-whiggery is on the wane-a few years ago one could scarce find, except on election days, a corporal's guard of democrats, but now they need not be hunted for, they are met on every turn-on every hill-in every hollow, by-path and high road of the country, with confident brows and glowing hearts ever ready to do service in the good cause *
The final downfall of the whigs in state and nation was brought about by the so-called Kansas-Nebraska Bill, introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Dodge of Iowa in December, 1853. Taking advan- tage of certain apparent inconsistencies in the Compromise of 1850, Stephen A. Douglas championed this bill to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The bill as reported out from Douglas' commit- tee provided for the rights of the territories to determine whether or not they would have slavery-the famous "Popular Sovereignty," or "Squat- ter Sovereignty," as it was contemptuously called. But if the Missouri Compromise still held, it would be impossible for slave-owners to migrate to these territories with their slaves, and so at the instigation and in- sistence of Archibald Dixon, the new Kentucky senator, the Missouri Compromise was specifically repealed in a separate clause of the bill. With consummate leadership Douglas, the "Little Giant," forced the bill through the Senate and materially aided it in its journey through the House and saw it become a law with the President's signature on May 30, 1854. Thus was the work of the Compromise of 1850 forever un- done; the country was thrown into extreme excitement and turmoil, and
10 Aug. 12, 1853.
11 Kentucky Yeoman, Aug. 12, 1853.
* * " 11
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the whig party was doomed. This party had now outlived its useful- ness. Its national organization went to pieces in the face of the onset of abolitionist and free-soiler. A party with a single object of com- bating the diabolical spread of slavery made possible by the Kansas- Nebraska Act was demanded. This the whig party could not be. South- ern whigs thought very differently on the question of slavery from North- ern whigs, and so party chaos reigned for a time, until the elements could be grouped into a new party. Many of the erstwhile whigs, having no other place to go, joined a secret organization, much like the Native Americans and popularly known as the Know Nothing Party, since its members, when questioned about the party would say: "I don't know." This party had a spectacular growth, largely because it offered
a refuge for people who were tired of sectional hatred and wanted to think more of their united country; it included those who hated slavery with all their souls; and it included many who defended slavery-all were bound together temporarily by hatred of foreigners and opposition to the Catholics. The political elements in chaos finally settled themselves in the South in the democratic party; in the North in the republican party, founded in 1854; and in the border states in a rather indeterminate way by some joining the democrats, an almost infinitesimally small number going with the republican party, and others laboring on under various appellations until they settled into the consti- tutional union party, which arose to play its part in the Presidential election of 1860.
With the whig party gone nationally, the Kentucky whigs were greatly perturbed. Just where did they stand and whither should they go? Tom Corwin, a native-born Kentuckian, but now of Ohio, wrote Crittenden on May 10, 1854: "I know nothing about politics as they now exist. I do not even understand the present position of those with whom I had for twenty years been intimately associated in public life. Do you? Do you really know your own status in regard to some dogmas recently put forward as tests of political orthodoxy?" 12 The Kentucky Yeoman on June 2, 1854, sized up the situation thus: "The pronunciamento has gone forth-the Whig party is extinct-its mate- rials in the North are to be made the nucleus of a great overshadowing abolition party, while the conservative whigs of the South may go over to the new democratic party, to the administration, or to the devil, as soon as they like." In Kentucky, as in other parts of the nation, the great majority of the whigs, with no national party machinery left and with a strong aversion to joining the democrats, grasped the idea of the Know Nothing Party and swarmed into it. It gave them the joys of a fool's paradise for a time, where they could forget the gaping sec- tional wounds and contemplate things with which they were only re- motely connected and which constituted not the slightest problems for them. They ignored slavery and the menacing questions it produced, to run into heated discussions on the dangers of foreigners and Cath- olics. The former few Kentuckians had ever seen; the latter were among the best and most substantial citizens of the state. Mutterings of Know Nothing activities first arose in the summer of 1854, and in August it was rumored that an organization was about to be set up in Frankfort.13 In the election of local officers this year, the tendency was general to ignore for the most part party lines and designations. Men were voted for on their merits.14 But in Louisville and a few other cities the Know Nothing organization came out and succeeded in carrying its candidates into office.15
12 Coleman, Life of Crittenden, II, 104.
18 Kentucky Yeoman, Aug. 4, 1854.
14 See Kentucky Yeoman, Aug. 11, 1854.
15 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 72.
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Preparations were early made by the Know Nothings, or, as they were often called, Americans, to perfect their organization for the guber- natorial election of 1855. A Know Nothing convention was reported to be in session in Louisville in early November of 1854, and in certain city elections at different times Know Nothing candidates succeeded in being elected to office. On February 22, 1855, the Know Nothing Party held a convention in Louisville, where candidates were nominated for the various state offices. William V. Loving was named for governor, but he later resigned on account of ill health, and a new convention in June nominated Charles S. Morehead. It was now general knowledge that the Know Nothings, or Americans, were strongly organized and that they were in fact the whig party disguised. The democrats attacked this sudden and secret transformation with great vigor, using the many lines of ridicule and sarcasm that could so easily be employed. The Kentucky Gazette said: "Feeling that their old principles are grow- ing more and more unpopular with the masses of the people, they have cut loose from all independence in the declaration of principles, and have given their political consciences into the keeping and tender mercies of outside tricksters and political magicians." Another observer re- corded the death of the whig party and its causes thus: "Abolitionism and Know-Nothingism have taken it to their foul embrace and hugged it unto death. With their hideous kisses they have stifled its breath until it is as dead as death itself, and can never be resuscitated." 16
The democrats nominated Beverly L. Clarke for governor, and started a campaign of ridicule against the exotic and colorless prin- ciples of their opponents. The state convention praised the Kansas- Nebraska Act and reaffirmed its faith in the principles of the national democracy. Various county meetings, held prior to this convention to nominate delegates and strengthen the party organization, took occa- sion to launch forceful attacks against the dangerous secret plottings of the Know Nothings. The Franklin County meeting declared "That we are opposed to all political parties, factions or associations whose prin- ciples, purposes, means and ends are secret, and that, in our opinion, pure principles, honest purposes and patriotic ends in a land of freedom need no veil, no secret meeting-no conspirital obligations to ensure their triumph." 17 The democrats posed as the greatest force in the commonwealth for the Union, and called upon the old whigs to embrace the chance of aiding the Union by identifying themselves with the demo- cratic party. They argued that the principles of the Know Nothing Party were foreign to the questions at issue before the nation, and that it was a senseless attempt to solve a menacing situation by wholly ignor- ing it. They reminded them of the fearless Clay, who had been an ornament not only to the old whig party but to the state and nation as well. Could they remember the great Clay and continue in the Know Nothing Party? The leadership of this new movement was declared to be without fixed principles or convictions: "Many of them have belonged to all the political parties ever known in Kentucky." 18 It was also charged that every abolitionist in the state was aligned with the Know Nothings and were having a vast amount of influence in its councils. Could whigs of principle and real convictions support such an organization? 19 The Kentucky Yeoman said: "Modern issues, which for the past quarter of a century have divided the democratic and whig parties, have been abandoned, and novel and absurd questions
16 Kentucky Yeoman, Jan. 12, 1855.
17 Kentucky Yeoman, Feb. 23, 1855.
18 Kentucky Yeoman, Aug. 2, 1855.
19 See Ibid., July 13 et seq., 1855.
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have been raised, argued and magnified by a new party composed of old partisans." 20
The democrats worked hard to capture the bulk of the old whig party, but their efforts were without avail. Robert J. Breckinridge for the emancipationists and the old whig leaders for their old following welded the Know Nothing organization into a strong machine.21 Another element that worked against the democrats was the temperance move- ment, which had now in the general political chaos taken on political aspects. Heretofore this movement had been confined largely to the churches, and its main activities had been to secure the passage of laws curbing the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors.22 But now, under the many-sided reformer, Robert J. Breckinridge, the movement was being elevated into a political party.23 It became a rival of the secret Know Nothing Party, with its formalities and ritual, with its "Grand Scribes" and "Grand Patriarchs." 24 In October, 1854, a general cam- paign was being conducted for the purpose of definitely organizing the "Sons of Temperance" into a party. A convention was recommended, to be held in Louisville on December 13, 1854, to nominate a candidate for governor. The convention was held according to the schedule, and George W. Williams was nominated for governor. There was, how- ever, much difference of opinion on the advisability of this move. George Robertson counselled against a separate candidate; he would have the temperance party support the Know Nothing.25 As the campaign progressed, the temperance party gradually became identified with the Know Nothings.26 In the election the democrats lost to Morehead by a vote of 69,816 to 65,413.27
The result of this election showed that a majority of Kentuckians were so conservative in their Union sentiment that they were willing to ignore the sectional issues and, by refusing to discuss or consider them, thereby solve them. The democrats, while strongly interested in the preservation of Southern rights and vigorously opposed to interfer- ence with slavery, were, nevertheless, loud in their protestations of loyalty to the Union. This attitude of both parties was well in keeping with the attitude the state took when war came. As the Presidential election of 1856 approached another opportunity was given to the political elements to arrange themselves. The democrats met in Cincinnati and nominated James Buchanan for President ; the rising young republican party named John C. Fremont, while the Know Nothings, or Ameri- cans, and the rump of the old whig organization chose Millard Fillmore. Many Kentuckians found themselves unable at first to decide which party they would support. The republicans would certainly receive the support of none except the out-and-out abolitionists, for that party had already announced itself as inexorably opposed to the extension of slavery by one square inch. The American party was still seeking to avoid the issues of the day by directing its attention to the foreign peril and the Catholics. Its nearest approach to the slavery question was to declare its approval of the Compromise of 1850. The demo- crats continued their strong advocacy of the rights of the South to take their slaves into the national domain wherever they chose.
20 Aug. 2, 1855.
21 Breckinridge MSS. (1855). Throughout the first half of 1855, Breckinridge was in constant demand as a speaker for the Know Nothings. He was sought now more for his bitter attacks against the Catholics than for his anti-slavery tenets.
22 See Kentucky Gazette, March 12, 1840.
23 Breckinridge MSS. (1852, 1853). Numerous letters calling upon him for ad- dresses on temperance may be found here.
24 Ibid., (1854). Much on this party may be found here.
25 Kentucky Yeoman, Dec. 22, 1854.
26 Ibid., May 25, et seq., 1855.
27 Ibid., Sept. 7, 1855; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 75.
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The campaign within the state was almost wholly between the dem- ocrats and the Americans. The republicans built up an organization of little vitality, and held a convention in Madison County, near the mountains, to nominate certain state officers to be elected this year.28 The Americans, although they had elected their candidate for governor in 1855, were held together by no real principles, and they were in great danger of falling apart now. The fanaticism that had broken loose in Louisville in the August election of 1855 and had caused the death of twenty-two people, most of whom were foreigners, and the destruction of much property had injured the Know Nothing Party among the better element of people.29 The temperance party, which was in reality an adjunct of the Know Nothing Party, was falling to pieces as a political organization.30 Nevertheless, the Americans entered the cam- paign with considerable energy and spirit. They issued in March a circular letter announcing their colorless program and calling upon the people to support Fillmore and Andrew Jackson Donaldson, the Vice Presidential nominee. They said in part: "The American banner, in- scribed with these names and with the Constitution and the Union for- ever, is unfurled to the breeze. Gather around it and bear it in triumph to the Capitol of the Union. Arouse once more that fervent zeal and patriotic spirit that animated you on the 6th of August last, when you won the most brilliant victory of the year.31 Kentucky fired the first gun in this great war, and America will listen for the thunder of her artillery in November next. Advance high our glorious banner, and let the watchwords be Fillmore and Donaldson-the Constitution-the Union forever. Put on the whole armor of American principles. You are to wrestle and war against foreign principalities and powers; against the rulers of the darkness of this world; against political and spiritual wiles and wickedness in high places, all combined to destroy your re- religion and break up the republican government bought with the blood of your ancestors, and make you and your posterity the slaves and serfs of the Roman Hierarchy." 32
Many old whigs deserted the American organization, feeling that Fillmore could not be elected, and joined the democrats. The cry had been rather general for Buchanan in the early part of the campaign, but near the day of election the old whig leaders were able to stem the tide considerably, so much so that ex-Governor Letcher wrote Critten- den in July that "The Old Line Whigs in this State with a few excep- tions will go for Fillmore." 33 The democrats and the republicans repre- sented the real parties of action and with a definite program and pur- pose. Between the two, the vast majority of Kentuckians stood for the former. There was a fear that Fremont might win, and this caused many old whigs, by voting the democratic ticket, to assure themselves that Kentucky's vote should not be thrown away on Fillmore, whom most knew could not be elected. But the hatred of a radical course or the forcing of an issue that might not exist if less talking were done was a strong element in the Kentucky character and caused many to agree with W. H. Wadsworth, of Maysville, that "Kentucky can never rejoice that the day of compromise is past. To do so would be false
28 J. R. Robertson, "Sectionalism in Kentucky from 1855 to 1865" in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 1917-1918, Vol. 4, pp. 48-63.
29 Kentucky Yeoman, Aug. 10, 1855; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 75.
30 Immediately after the election of 1855, the Temperance Party had made prep- arations to set up a newspaper at Frankfort called the Temperance Advocate to suc- ceed the Kentucky New Era. See Breckinridge MSS. (1855).
31 The election of Morehead, governor.
32 One of these circular letters may be found in Crittenden MSS., Vol. 18, No. 3706.
33 Crittenden MSS., Vol. 18, No. 3760. Dated July I.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
to her history, her position & her dearest interest." 34 The democrats professed their strong love for the Union, but they would have a union under the constitution and not through "higher laws." . John C. Breckin- ridge, who was the democratic nominee for Vice President, was an im- portant element of strength for the Kentucky democracy. The election resulted in a victory for the democrats in both state and nation. Buchanan carried Kentucky by a majority of 6,118 over Fillmore. Fre- mont received 134 votes.35 This was the first time Kentucky had voted for a democrat since the year 1828, when she cast her vote for Jackson.
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