USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 1 > Part 38
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After this reading, the author received a vote of thanks from the con- vention without a dissenting voice, showing that his views could hardly have been as obnoxious at the time, as the Country party have been pleased to represent them in such notes and records as we have preserved at their hands.
The motion to refer the resolutions of the last convention, of great lati- tude of discretion, to the committee of the whole was carried, thus showing that the Court party was the dominant power in the convention. On almost every important committee Wilkinson was appointed, and, in every instance, seemed to have been a controlling spirit.
The leaders of the Country party became evidently uneasy at the drift of proceedings, and determined on methods of counteraction by popular petitions. Colonel Crockett left his seat on Saturday, proceeded to Lexing- ton, and at that place and vicinity obtained a remonstrance, signed by over three hundred citizens, against a forced separation. These were also of Wilkinson's constituency. On the 6th of the month, a resolution came up, on the petition of citizens of Mercer and Madison, asking that the conven- tion pray Congress that the body adopt measures at once to obtain the navigation of the Mississippi. The matter was referred to a special com- mittee.
Messrs. Muter, Jouett, Allen, and Wilkinson were appointed a committee to draw up a respectful report to the Virginia Assembly for obtaining the independence of Kentucky, agreeable to the late recommendation of Con- gress.
General Wilkinson, in behalf of the previously-appointed committee, prepared and read the address :
1 " To the United States, in Congress Assembled: The people of Kentucky, represented in convention, as freemen, as citizens, and as part of the Amer- ican republic, beg leave, by this humble petition, to state their rights, and to call for protection in the enjoyment of them.
" When the peace had secured to America that sovereignty and independ- ence for which she had so nobly contended, we could not, like our Atlantic friends, retire to enjoy in ease the blessings of freedom.
1 Wilkinson's Memoirs.
288
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
" Many of us had expended in the struggle for our country's rights that property which would have enabled us to possess a competency with our liberty.
"On the Western waters, the Commonwealth of Virginia possessed a fer- tile but uninhabited wild.
" In this wilderness we sought, after having procured liberty for our posterity, to provide for their support. Inured to hardships by a long war- fare, we ventured into the almost impenetrable forests; without bread or domestic animals, we depended on the casual supplies afforded by the chase; hunger was our familiar attendant, and even our unsavory meals were made upon the wet surface of the earth, with the cloud-deformed canopy for our covering. Though forced to pierce the thicket, it was not in safety we trod; the wily savage thirsted for our blood, lurked in our paths, and seized the unsuspecting hunter. While we lamented the loss of a friend ; a brother, a father, a wife, a child became a victim to the barbarian tomahawk. Instead of consolation. a new and greater misfortune deadened the sense of former afflictions. From the Union we receive no support ; but we impeach not their justice. Ineffectual treaties, often renewed and as often broken by the savage nations, served only to supply them with the means of our destruction. But no human cause could control that Provi- dence which destined this Western country to be the seat of a civilized and happy people. The period of its accomplishment was distant, but it ad- vanced with rapid and incredible strides. We derive strength from our misfortunes and numbers from our losses. The unparalleled fertility of our soil made grateful returns, far disproportioned to the slight labor which our safety would permit us to bestow. Our fields and herds afforded us not only sufficient support for ourselves, but also for the emigrants who an- nually double our numbers, and even a surplus still remains for exporta- tion.
"This surplus would be far greater, did not a narrow policy shut up our navigation and discourage our industry.
" In this situation, we call for your attention. We beg you to trace the Mississippi from the ocean, survey the innumerable rivers which water your Western territory and pay their tribute to its greatness, examine the luxuri- ant soil which those rivers traverse. Then we ask, can the God of wisdom and nature have created that vast country in vain? Was it for nothing that He blessed it with a fertility almost incredible ? Did He not provide those great streams which empty into the Mississippi, and by it communicate with the Atlantic, that other nations and climes might enjoy with us the blessings of our fruitful soil ? View the country, and you will answer for yourselves. But can the presumptuous madness of man imagine a policy inconsistent with the immense designs of the Deity? Americans can not.
"As it is the natural right of the people of this country to navigate the Mississippi, so they have also the right derived from treaties and national
289
ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA.
compacts. Shall we not avail ourselves of those natural and conventional rights, so vital to our future ?
"' By the treaty of peace concluded in the year 1763 between the crowns of Great Britain, France, and Spain, the free navigation of the river Mis- sissippi was ascertained to Great Britain. The right thus ascertained was exercised by the subjects of that crown till the peace of 1783, and con- jointly with them by the citizens of the United States.
"By the treaty in which Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, she also ceded to them the free navigation of the river Mississippi. It was a right naturally and essentially annexed to the possession of this Western country. As such, it was claimed by America, and it was upon that principle that she claimed it: yet the court of Spain, who possess the country at the mouth of the Mississippi, have obstructed your citizens in the enjoyment of that right.
"If policy is the motive which actuates political conduct, you will sup- port us in this right, and thereby enable us to assist in the support of government. If you will be really our fathers, stretch forth your hands to save us. If you will be worthy guardians, defend our rights. We are a member that would exert any muscle for your service. Do not cut us off from your body. By every tie of consanguinity and affection, by the re- membrance of the blood we have mingled in the common cause, by a regard to justice and policy, we conjure you to procure our right.
"Let not your beneficence be circumscribed by the mountains. which divide us, but let us feel that you really are the guardians and asserters of our rights; then you will secure the prayers of a people whose grati- tude would be as warm as the vindication of their rights will be eternal; then our connection shall be perpetuated to the latest times, a monument of your justice and a terror to your enemies."
The address to the Legislature for an act of separation, which was now finally acted on by the convention, next followed:
"To the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia: Gentle- men : The representatives of the good people inhabiting the several counties composing the district of Kentucky, in convention met, beg leave again to address you on the great and important subject of their separation from the parent State and being made a member of the Federal Union.
" Being fully impressed with these ideas, and justified by frequent ex- amples, we conceive it our duty, from the regard we owe to our constituents, and being encouraged by the resolutions of Congress, again to apply to your honorable body, praying that an act may pass at the present session for enabling the good people of the Kentucky district to obtain an inde. pendent government, and be admitted into the confederation as a member of the Federal Union, upon such terms and conditions as to you may appear just and equitable, and that you transinit such act to the president of th., convention, with all convenient dispatch, in order for our consideration and
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290
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
the final completion of the business. Finally, we again solicit the friendly interposition of the parent State with the Congress of the United States for a speedy admission of the district into the Federal Union, and also to urge that honorable body, in the most express terms, to take effectual meas- ures for procuring to the inhabitants of this district the free navigation of the river Mississippi, without which the situation of a large part of the com- munity will be wretched and miserable, and may be the source of future evils.
"Ordered, That the president sign, and the clerk attest, the said address, and that the same be enclosed by the president to the speaker of the House of Delegates."
On motion of Delegate Wilkinson, it was
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to draft an address to the good people of this district, setting forth the principles from which this convention act, representing to them their true situation, urging the neces- sity of union, concord, and mutual concession, and solemnly calling on them to furnish this convention, at its next session, with instructions in what manner to proceed on the important subject to them submitted. It was im- portant thus to educate the mind of the people as emergency demanded.
Messrs. Wilkinson, Innes, Jouett, Muter. Sebastian, Allen, and Caldwell were made the committee. It was surmised that this action was forced through the convention by the dominant Court party, to give them the ad- vantage of authority to so address the people as to more easily arouse and excite them to precipitate the act of separation. But it is a notable fact that the committee, though in control of the Court party, forbore to avail themselves of this open opportunity for agitation before the people, whose sentiment and sympathies were largely with them. It is but another evi- dence that the Court party really preferred, and most ardently desired to have Kentucky separate from Virginia after the methods of loyal pro- cedure, and be adopted into the Union as a State, if it could be done with promptness and on terms of honorable guarantee of protective equality.
Thus adjourned a convention that gave rise to the most criminating and intensely bitter partisan discussions that had yet been known among the people, and during which, and since, the motives of men have been un- charitably aspersed and their actions characterized in language of merciless severity. A careful and dispassionate study of the events of this era. at this remote day, will lead to the conclusion that the men of both sides, with one or two important exceptions to be hereafter noticed, were impelled by what seemed to them honorable and justifiable motives in the divergent courses pursued, and that both were acting for what they conceived to be the best interests of their country and people. In the convention, and before, there were only the circumstances of appearance, and these too in- conclusive to base even the charge of constructive treason upon. Treason in intent and act is an offense too grave to be lightly charged to the scar-
291
KENTUCKY SAVED TO THE UNION.
worn veterans and tried patriots of that generation who made up the rank and file of both the Court and Country parties in this contest.
In making up the verdict of judgment on the former, we must consider that the chaotic and imbecile Government of the Union of 1788 was a very doubtful and precarious hope of the future, compared to the Union of to- day ; and the proposed independent separation from Virginia was just what Virginia and the other States had done a few years before with Great Britain, and apparently with less cogent reasons.
There is no doubt but that Spain was actively intriguing with leading citizens, and offering the most tempting advantages to Kentucky and bribes to individuals, to separate and set up an independent government. When we consider that Kentucky was disbarred then by distance and impassable mountains from trade with the Atlantic ports, and was offered the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, and trade with all Spanish America, which embraced the vast territory west of the Mississippi to the gulf, all east of the Mississippi to the Atlantic, below the latitude of Natchez, and all of Mexico, a territory as large as the present United States and Territories, the contrast to the neglected and starved orphanage which the Union was holding out to her was as much as mortal nature could bear.
Pending these delays which Virginia extended through so many years, by imposing the condition of congressional acceptance, vast quantities of the best lands of Kentucky were being absorbed by Virginia warrants and sales, and vast sums therefor flowing into the treasury of the latter, which the Western people felt should be reserved for their own benefit, since they had sustained their own war. One and a half million dollars from this source went into the treasury of Virginia, in the last four years of this con- test for Kentucky autonomy.1 There were reasonable suspicions that the motives for restrictive delays, on the part of Virginia statesmanship, were mercenary as well as patriotic.
Yet the great body of the citizenship had emigrated from Virginia, and universally retained an admiration and affection for the grand old Dominion, akin to that felt by children who have gone out into the world, for their old home and venerated parents. It was this touching and ardent love of Vir- ginia by her children that, probably more than any other one cause, saved Kentucky to the Union. Through all this period of peril and doubt, though she vexed them sorely sometimes, their hearts were with the old mother State, where their fathers were buried, and where their old homes and kin- dred were ever green in memory.
2 Of General Wilkinson, the most open advocate of separation. the cir- cumstances were exceptional. He was born in Eastern Maryland, well educated, and qualified for the practice of medicine. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, he entered the patriot army, and, by ability and distinguished services, attained to considerable note. He was at the siege
1 Littell's Political Transactions, p. 53.
2 Wilkinson's Memoirs.
292
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
of Boston, was aid-de-camp to Arnold in Canada, and in the campaign that ended at Saratoga. He became involved in the difficulties between Gates and Washington, and soon after was made brevet brigadier-general. He quarreled with Gates, and resigned his brevet rank, retaining a colonel's commission. Congress approved his conduct toward Gates, and he was soon after made clothier-general of the army, in which capacity he served until the close of the war. After the war, he engaged with some capitalists. of Philadelphia in a scheme of trade on the Mississippi, which led him to remove to Kentucky, where our history found him.
Toward Virginia he felt none of those ties of veneration and sympathy which were common to the majority of Kentuckians. A life of bold ad- venture found him without ardent local attachments, though he had been brave and patriotic in the cause of American liberty. His horoscope of the disordered and chaotic condition of the country opened to his view a mag- nificent future for Kentucky, and for himself, in the commerce of the Mis- sissippi river and the trade of Spanish America. In this he had already embarked, and his enterprise may have been both lucrative and legitimate. Of the covetous desires of the Spanish authorities to detach Kentucky from the Union, and to make of it the nucleus of independent empire, to hold in check the territorial expansion of the United States, and to control the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, Wilkinson, no doubt, availed of, to secure for himself extraordinary traffic arrangements. He was a man of policy, with little of respect or reverence for the antiquated precedents and formulas of political doctrinaires, in carving out a destiny for the country and people of his adoption, or for himself. He weighed in his commercial balances the pending issues, and, with his party associates, determined that under no circumstances should the right of navigation be bartered away and permanently lost to Kentucky. Had it not been for this resolute protest of the Court party in Kentucky, and the support they received from Vir- ginia and Pennsylvania, it is probable that the obnoxious recommendation of John Jay might have been a part of the treaty with Spain. In the mean- time, Wilkinson seems never to have lost sight of the main opportunities presented for personal gain and aggrandizement.
The closing and subsequent proceedings of the last Danville convention show that the preference of all parties was for an early separation from Vir- ginia and reception into the Union, on grounds of equitable advantage. The Country party of negative submission were willing for any terms which might be conceded, while the Court party boldly demanded equitable rights and relations in the Union, and offered the alternative of independent sepa- ration and the control of their own future, in time, without these.
No party intended such an act of political harlotry as a provincial de- pendency under the protectorate of Spain, or anything more than commercial relations, granting to Kentucky the right of navigation and exclusive trade, With consummate skill, the party under the lead of Wilkinson played this
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293
LETTER TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.
game of diplomatic strategy to tantalize the eager rapacity of Spain, while they menaced Congress to action, by pointing to the open arms and seductive blandishments with which Spain stood ready to welcome Kentucky to her alliance. Both parties were loyal. Only ill-treatment could have driven Kentucky from the Union. She had no alternative.
Enemies characterized the exclusive trade privileges granted to Wilkin- son as indirect bribery. In law or morals, the trade privileges may be excused. But was Wilkinson bribed?
We reproduce the views of Butler, who professed to have given to these questions the most searching and disinterested examination. Noting that on the 4th of March, 1789, Washington had taken his seat as first president of the United States, he says :
1 "To the new president-elect, Colonel Thomas Marshall wrote an ac- count of the district, and of such symptoms of foreign intrigue and internal disaffection as had manifested themselves to him, the names of Wilkinson and Brown being alone mentioned among the implicated. In this commu- nication Colonel Marshall was, it ought not to be doubted, actuated by an honorable zeal for the interests of his country; though the author is com- pelled to say, from the evidence now accessible, a mistaken one, of which both he and his illustrious correspondent were afterward convinced. This inference flows from a letter of General Washington to Colonel Marshall, as follows: 'In acknowledging the receipt of your letter of the 11th of Sep- tember, I must beg you to accept my thanks for the pleasing communication which it contains of the good disposition of the people of Kentucky toward the Government of the United States. I never doubted but that the opera- ations of this Government, if not perverted by prejudice or evil designs, would inspire the citizens of America with such confidence in it, as effectu- ally to do away these apprehensions which, under our former confederation, our best men entertained of divisions among themselves, or allurements from other nations. I am, therefore, happy to find that such a disposition prevails in your part of the country as to remove any idea of that evil, which a few years ago you so much dreaded.' This letter, taken in connection with the subsequent appointment of Wilkinson to be a lieutenant-colonel in the army, at the recommendation of Colonel Marshall, as well as others, and the repeated military commissions of high trust and expressions of thanks, as will hereafter appear, to Messrs. Brown, Innes, Scott, Shelby, and Logan, amply confirms the idea that the imputed disaffection of any of these distin- guished citizens to the Union of the States had been abandoned by Colonel Marshall himself; and most certainly by Washington, if ever admitted to disturb his serene and benevolent mind."
In the picturesque language of Wilkinson himself, "The people are open to savage depredations; exposed to the jealousies of the Spanish Govern- ment, unprotected by that of the old confederation, and denied the naviga-
s Butler, p. 182.
294
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
tion of the Mississippi, the only practicable channel by which the productions of their labor can find a market." Daniel Clarke to Secretary Pickering writes: "All who ventured on the Mississippi had their property seized by the first commanding officer whom they met, and little or no communication was kept up between the two countries."
In such a state of affairs, just as plausible charges of treason had been ยท often made, by partisan enemies, against Washington and Lee and Adams, as were against Wilkinson and Brown and Innes at this period. The sympa- thizing masses did not credit them.
1 In April, 1787, the house of Widow Skeggs, on Cooper's run, Bourbon county, was attacked at night by Indians. There were two sons and four daughters, one a widow with a babe. They broke down the door of the room where were three daughters, out of range of the rifles of their broth- ers, in the other room of the double cabin. The elder daughter plunged a knife into the heart of a savage. His comrades dashed out her brains, and those of her youngest sister, with their tomahawks, and made a captive of the third. Setting fire to the house, they awaited the appearance of the other inmates. One son supported his mother as the attempt to escape was made. The blazing building made it as light as day. As they ran, the mother fell pierced through by bullets, while the son escaped. The other son bravely defended his sister and her babe, as they ran in another direc- tion. The Indians threw down their guns and rushed on them with toma- hawks. The brother fired on them as they approached, then clubbed his gun and fought with such a tiger's fury, as to draw the attention of the sav- ages entirely to himself, while his sister reached the darkness of the woods, and escaped with her child. The brave man fell under the murderous toma- hawks; and the four slain were found, all scalped and mangled, the next morning. Pursuit was made, the Indians overtaken, and two shot, but not until they had fatally tomahawked the maiden captive.
2 In the summer of the same year, John Merrill, of Nelson county, aroused by some disturbance outside about midnight, arose and opened his cabin door, to ascertain the cause, when several shots from Indians broke his arm and leg. With the aid of his wife, he was gotten inside, and the door fast- ened. It was at once assailed with tomahawks, and a breach effected. Mrs. Merrill was fortunately as muscular and active as she was resolute and brave. Her husband prostrate and disabled, she assumed the forlorn defense. Seizing an ax, she met the Indians at the breach, and successively killed or disabled four, as they attempted to enter. Baffled at the door, the remaining Indians mounted to the roof of the house, and two of them started down the wide chimney. Mrs. Merrill seized her only feather bed. ripped it open. and poured the contents on the fire. The stifling smoke and blaze brought down the suffocating savages, both of whom the heroic woman dispatched with the ax. At this moment. the only remaining of seven Indians was
I Collins, Vol. II., p. 664.
2 Collins, Vol. II., p. 72.
295
ATTACK ON A FLAT-BOAT.
heard at the door, trying to enter. A fearful cut in the cheek from the bloody ax drove him off, and ended this most remarkable midnight battle. A prisoner related, afterward, that this last wounded Indian returned to Chillicothe, with a marvelous story of the fierceness and prowess of the Long Knife squaw.
1 A station at Drennon's Lick, Henry county, was, about the same time, captured by the enemy, and several whites killed. A number of depreda- tions having been committed within the Mason county settlements, an expe- dition of several hundred men was organized, under the active agency of Kenton and others, and placed under the lead of Colonel Todd. Chilli- cothe and other towns were burned, many Indians were killed, and much property destroyed by this force, proving a serious injury to the Indians. Captain Kenton, with his company of rangers, was kept quite busy for several years, repelling the invasions of, and in chastising, the marauding savages. He was the recognized leader in the work of border defense in that section.
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