USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 1 > Part 41
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To the House of Representatives, he recommended the raising of an adequate revenue for public exigencies, and the appointment of commis- sioners to fix on a place for the permanent seat of government, giving to both houses his assurance of a cordial co-operation in such measures as should have for their object the good of the republic, and finally advising them to use dispatch, rendered the more necessary by the unorganized state of the various departments of the government.
The first law made by the first Legislature of Kentucky was entitled, "An act establishing an auditor's office of public accounts." It was ap- proved by the governor, and became a law June 22, 1792. And thus our State government began by making a law for keeping straight its accounts of receipts and expenditures, a good omen for the fine credit our Common- wealth has maintained from that day to this. This first session of our Legislature began on Monday, June 4th, and ended on Friday, June 29, 1792. Thomas Todd was made clerk of the House, and Buckner Thruston of the Senate. Rev. John Gano was made chaplain, and John Bradford public printer. Nicholas Lewis was appointed sergeant-at-arms to the House, and Roger Divine door-keeper. In the Senate, Kenneth McKoy was ap- pointed sergeant-at-arms, and David Johnson door-keeper.
There was great jealousy and contention over the selection of a seat of government, as provided for in the Constitution, between the people on the north and south sides of the Kentucky river. The appointment of commis- sioners was by the selection of twenty-one persons distributed over the State, from whom the delegations from Mercer and Fayette, alternately, struck off one, until five gentlemen were left. These were Robert Todd. John Edwards, John Allen, Henry Lee, and Thomas Kennedy, any three of whom might fix the seat of government. A majority decided on Frank- fort, and this place became the capital. A state-house of stone, uncouth enough, was soon erected to accommodate the Legislature, paid for princi-
1
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ADAIR AND PARTY ATTACKED BY INDIANS.
pally out of private means. An edifice of brick was built for the governor's use, at the expense of the State.
The assembly proceeded to organize the judiciary of the Commonwealth. The Court of Appeals was constituted of three judges-Harry Innes as chief- justice, and Benjamin Sebastian and Caleb Wallace second and third judges. Innes, declining, was appointed United States district judge, and George Muter was commissioned to fill the appellate vacancy. Subordinate to this. county courts were provided for, composed of justices of the different coun- ties, any two of whom, out of three appointed, were to constitute a court of quarterly sessions, and any other two a county court. The justices had jurisdiction of all cases of less value than five pounds sterling, or one thou- sand pounds of tobacco. If the judgment was for less than half the amounts named, they were final; if over, an appeal lay to the quarterly sessions. The jurisdiction of the latter extended to all cases at common law and chancery, excepting criminal cases involving life or limb. The criminal jurisdiction was exercised by one court called the Court of Oyer and Term- iner, held twice a year by three judges, from whose decisions there was neither appeal nor writ of error.
The members of the assembly received one dollar per diem, and twelve dollars extra for the session, or twenty dollars each to the presiding officers. The clerk was paid fifty dollars, and the sergeant-at-arms twelve dollars, "in full of all demands." The treasury department was organized by the appointment of an auditor and treasurer. There being no money in the treasury, as no revenue had been collected, the treasurer was ordered to borrow. The great scarcity of money, its enhanced purchasing value, and the simplicity of habits brought the wage standard then to a corresponding level.
To give an idea of the market prices of the times, beef was two cents per pound; buffalo meat, one and a half cents; venison, one and a quar- ter; butter, eight cents ; turkeys, fifteen cents each; potatoes, fifty cents per barrel; flour, five dollars per barrel; whisky, fifty cents per gallon. Mar- keting was not an established business; the stuffs were peddled around by such as had a surplus, but each man usually supplied his own meat from the woods.
On the 6th of November, 1792, Major John Adair, in command of one hundred Kentuckians, was attacked by a large body of Indians under Little Turtle, at a camp near Fort St. Clair, on a line of defense north from Fort Washington. After a severe contest, in which the Indians were several times repulsed, only to rally again with re-enforced strength, Major Adair was forced to retreat, with the loss of six killed, the camp equipage, and one hundred and forty pack-horses. The enemy were too badly punished to pursue, and were content to retire with their booty. Their losses in killed and wounded were much in excess of the whites, as seven of their dead were counted on the field when driven back by the whites. General Wil-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
kinson publicly complimented the steadiness and gallantry of the major and his men, in the face of superior numbers.
1 Toward the close of the year, the hearts of many were saddened by the intelligence of the death of the brave Colonel John Hardin and Major Trueman. They had been selected by General Wilkinson to proceed on a mission to the Miami towns, with a view to confer with the Indians upon the question of negotiations for a peace treaty. They had proceeded to the vicinity of the towns, and arrived at an Indian camp, about a day's journey from where Fort Defiance was built afterward on the Maumee. They were well received in camp by the Indians. who showed their usual respect for messengers of peace. After their arrival some time. five Delawares came from their town, about thirty miles off. Colonel Hardin proposed to visit their town with them that evening, but they refused. They encamped to- gether that night, seemingly in a friendly spirit. Next morning, they became much excited over some inquiries made by the white party in reference to the country. The counsels of the ferocious prevailed. and Colonel Hardin was murdered on the spot. His companion was escorted toward Sandusky, and assassinated on the road. When the news came to the Indian towns, that a white man with a peace talk was killed, it excited passionate indigna- tion, and brought much censure upon the perpetrators of the treacherous and cowardly deed; a waste of cheap sentiment that offered little consola- tion to Kentuckians for the butchery in cold blood of beloved comrades.
Pending these crucial trials and mishaps. which continued to vex the souls of the Western people, there were those among their fellow-citizens. of the Eastern States who dwelt in the repose of security, and prospered amid the happy fruitages of peace: and yet most diligently engaged in dis- seminating the self-excusing hypothesis, that these continued hostilities in the West were provoked and kept alive by the aggressive cruelties and out- lawry of the Americans; and that the poor Indians were indeed persecuted, murdered, and outraged beyond all forbearance. Hence. the latter were goaded to retaliation and self defense. Maudlin sentiment from the pulpit, ill-advised comments by the press, and cheap harangues by demagogues, had given enough importance to this misleading and mischievous philan- thropy, on the part of a specious class in the communities, to call for some attention on the part of the General Government.
We will be pardoned a brief digression here to notice this symptom of a distempered or affected humanitarianism, which has manifested itself in every age toward the forlorn red barbarians, with whom our country has had to deal, and has to deal now. Millions at a distance believe that the poor Indian out West is a victim to the persecutions and aggressive wrongs of the American invader of his territory and his rights: and that all the red man needs, to be innocent and good. is to be let alone, or treated well. by his white neighbor. In this conclusion, and in this sentiment. there are
1 Collins, Vol, IL., p. 316; Marshall, Vol. I.
315
INDIANS THE MODERN OUTLAWS.
none of the frontiersmen who have had to deal with the savages, to mourn their butcheries and atrocities, to engage in hostilities with them, and who knew them and their natures thoroughly, who will be found to share. They only know them, as we know all barbarians who have fallen farther away in their apostasy from all original virtue than any other living beings, as fero- cious, treacherous, and deceitful creatures of impulse and passion. In their brutal natures and instincts, there is no more scruple to murder, steal, or lie, than there is to eat their venison or smoke their pipes. As to suscepti- bility to a moral sense of wrong, that will make them amenable to conscience and restrain their evil inclinations for conscience sake, they evince small possession of it. They seem. in their aboriginal estate, to act only from an impulse of present gratification, or from a sense of fear, in their general habits.
The Indian is the modern type, but the same apostate outlaw against divine and moral government as were the antediluvians, the Sodomites and the Canaanites, whose national existence God decreed should be exter- minated. The law of such extermination was given in the words, "when their iniquity shall be full." The same law of God is in active force yet, and will be in all time; only, the execution of the first was by the agency of miracle, while since, the execution is by the natural laws of cause and effect, the agencies of providence ever presided over and directed by the unseen hand of God Himself. An apostate nation, whose "iniquity is full," is one that has obliterated the idea of the true God, and of responsibility to. Him, from their minds and practices ; and hence, have aborted the purposes of Deity who created and gave them national existence. It is His wise decree, for the defense and safety of better nations and peoples, that such should be nationally exterminated.
Such decree does not presuppose that there shall be no individual excep- tions in such national exterminations. Indeed, the reverse is shown. None of the ancient nations named were destroyed without warning, and a way of escape for the virtuous. It is the national or tribal existence of the In- dian that is fated for destruction. It is of the genius of our civilization and of our political institutions, that every individual of these tribes, whom it may be possible to save out of such tribal extinctions, should have the door of escape held wide open.
The Government has ever unwisely and unhappily reversed this divine order, in its treaties and policies with the red men. It has conceded to them independent tribal or national existence and territorial rights within our own national domain and jurisdiction, which it has done to no other people. Had it pursued the other policy of ignoring, or requiring a forfeit- ure of tribal existence. and given to each household or head a homestead of land, inalienable for a generation or two, and required the Indians to be- come industrious and law-abiding citizens, or to take the consequences of individual outlawry, the majority of them might have become assimilated,
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
and incorporated into the body politic. It is the recognition and concession of their tribal organizations and identity by the Government, that so long repeated and perpetuated savage hostilities, and that entail the main ex- penses of our military establishment to this date.
It is fairly estimated that for one hundred years, there have been slain by Indians, as many white men, women, and children, as there are red men within the jurisdiction of the United States. Ten years ago, the statement was made and not questioned, that on the route from Santa Fe, New Mex- ico, to Tucson, Arizona, a distance of four hundred miles, the remains and burial spots of six hundred persons murdered by Apaches could be identi- fied. It may be safely asserted that not less than five thousand men, women, and children fell victims to the fire-arms, the tomahawk, and scalping-knife of these barbarians during the pioneer days, in Kentucky. Their tribal ex- termination is fated and is but a question of time.
The policy of the Government has ever been in direct contravention of the divine order. The latter is just and humane, in that it destroys the tribal body that is utterly apostate and corrupt, and saves the individuals by incorporation into a better national life and body. The former is inhumane and cruel in the end, in that it seeks to perpetuate a depraved and prosti- tuted national or tribal existence; and in so doing fatally determines and perpetuates the barbarisms of the individual. It assures the gradual de- struction of the tribe, by the certain and more rapid destruction of its vicious and depraved individuals. It would have been absurd and unwise, had our Government provided for the distinct existence of a German nation, an Irish nation, an African nation, or a French or Italian tribe, out of the crude and diverse elements of our immigration, within its own body-politic and territorial ; but not more absurd and not more destructive of peace, good order, and prosperity, than the perpetuation of the tribal unity and distinction conceded to the Indians.
1 An authority who made a special study and investigation of this subject, a few years ago, shows that the Government pays out treaty annuities to the domesticated tribes, numbering an aggregate of less than two hundred thousand souls, six millions annually for their support, and an average of twenty-four millions more each year, in military equipment and expendi- tures, to police them into civil order and subordination. Besides this worse than waste of thirty millions annually, there are, in the aggregate, nearly two hundred millions of acres of choice lands set apart for these wild Arabs of the Occident, from which white settlers are interdicted; or an area of territory as large as Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. One-tenth of this territory would give to each head of an Indian family, or male adult, enough for a choice farm of five hundred acres, instead of five thousand to roam over in majestic seclusion and impudent deviltry, as now. This phenomenal policy brings about the singular anomaly of the existence
I L. D. Ingersoll, National Magazine, February, 1875.
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FORBIDDEN HOSTILITIES WITH THE SAVAGES.
within our national domain, of some two hundred distinct "nationalities," each based upon distinct treaty stipulations, and each with its own peculiar characteristics.
It would be as unjust and untrue to say of the Indian, that he can not be civilized and assimilated into the body-politic of a good government, as it would be to say the same of the African. The benign and subduing influ- ence of our Christianized civilization, with its potential agencies of light and love, finds nothing unconquerable in the wide world of human apostacy and depravity. The redeemed and restored African and Indian, while they may stand with the minority, are living indices pointing to the possibilities of our civilization, with the emphasis of demonstration. If all the inge- nuity of statecraft had been combined and concerted for the past century to formulate and enforce an Indian policy, the most mischievous, unkind, and pernicious, to the red man first. and to the white man also, it would not have better cause to-day to crown its authorship with the well-earned laurels of success, than is due the policy pursued.
The president, to counteract the pernicious impression which possessed the minds of the people of the Atlantic States, and also that the Indians were willing to listen to and accept terms of peace on just grounds, ordered a treaty council to be held at Sandusky. In the meantime, all citizens were forbidden to engage in any hostilities with the savages, a very painful and hard necessity laid on the Kentuckians after the many recent and distress- ing barbarities perpetrated on them.
On this state of affairs, Butler very pertinently remarks : 1 " Nor can the necessity of this action of the president be appreciated without attentively noticing the deep-rooted prejudices of the country at large on the subject of Indian hostilities. They showed themselves in the debates of Congress, and were too much confirmed by the history of the national intercourse with the aborigines in general. Sympathy with the interests of a race of men in- compatible with the existence of our agricultural people seems to have occupied the people east of the mountains when it had no longer room to operate against themselves. No thought then seemed to exist that the same causes of inconsistent states of social existence prevailed on the western side of the mountains, just as they had presented themselves on their east- ern side for the preceding century and a half. Our people would have gladly abided, for the present, with the territorial limit of the Ohio river. But no territorial limit could permanently arrest the ruin of the one race or the progress of the other. The decree of their fate was passed by natural causes which no human exertions could counteract."
The commissioners appointed by the president of the United States now announced that the Indians would not form a treaty of peace. The sincere and persevering benevolence of the Government was vindicated, and the rest was left to the fate of arms. General Wayne, who had assem-
I Butler, p. 221.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
bled his troops at Fort Washington, received orders early in October, 1793, to commence his march toward the Maumee. In pursuance of his author- ity, he had called upon the government of Kentucky for a detachment of mounted volunteers. These, so deep was the dislike and the want of con- fidence in regular troops among the militia of Kentucky, after the disasters of Harmar and St. Clair, could not be obtained by volunteering. On the 28th of September, the governor of Kentucky had been compelled by this reluctance to order a draft from the militia. The necessary re-enforcement was obtained, and by the 24th of October, General Scott, at the head of one thousand mounted men from Kentucky, reached within four miles of headquarters, then six miles in advance of Fort Jefferson and eighty miles from the Ohio river. Here the troops rested for several days. The Indians were now known to be in great force in the neighborhood of the Miami villages, eagerly anticipating another destructive victory over their white enemies. The season was far advanced in a rigorous climate, and the army not too well prepared for the stern and trying conflict with savages more flushed with confidence of conquest than they had ever been. This was the first campaign the army had prosecuted in the woods. In consid- eration of these united difficulties, the general-in-chief most prudently deter- mined to suspend his march and to build Fort Greenville. The regular troops now entered into winter quarters, and the Kentucky militia were dismissed, not unpleasantly, though with renewed confidence in regular forces, owing to the energy and the hardihood displayed by General Wayne.
Early in 1793, the contagion of French attachment manifested itself in the United States by the establishment of the Democratic Society in Philadelphia, in too close imitation of the disorganizing clubs which had disseminated anarchy and destruction throughout the beautiful kingdom of France. Not that the partialities of our countrymen for Frenchmen, or their sympathy with the fortunes of France, are to be confounded with the crimes against all social order which deformed the French revolution. Many of these they did not know, and much they did not credit, coming as it did through English channels, a source of information doubly suspicious to our countrymen, at the time, from the hostilities of England against France, and likewise from her exasperating policy toward the United States.
England was cordially hated by the people of Kentucky, who knew that it was her treacherous hand that raised the Indian tomahawk against them and their defenseless women and children. To this was to be added the no less agitating sentiment of national gratitude for the people who so signally befriended us in the hour of our greatest peril and need. Many of the Revolutionary officers who had removed to Kentucky, as Scott, Hardin. Anderson, Croghan, Shelby, and Clark, with numerous followers, had fought side by side with the French in our own armies, and together against the British and their auxiliaries, the savages. Out of this state of public senti- ment, Democratic societies were readily established at Georgetown, Paris,
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FRANCE ASKING ASSISTANCE.
and Lexington, on the model of the one at Philadelphia, and all after the model of the Jacobin clubs of Europe. The French revolution, a volcano lit by the torch of Republicanism carried back to Europe from the flames of American liberty, was in its first stage of eruption, and was shaking the thrones and establishments of that continent with its ominous vibrations. The outbreak in 1793 was yet kept within the legitimate bounds of the right of revolution. It had not committed any of those excesses of brutality which finally set all virtuous sentiment against it throughout the world. It was a remarkable phenomenon to witness the effect of the political changes in Europe on the people of the Western wilderness, so remote and isolated. But they hailed the advent of the French revolution with open enthusiasm. They believed it the precursor to the general downfall of monarchical gov- ernments and the erection of republics upon their ruins. Again, the senti- ment of Kentucky was strongly anti-Federal, believing, as the people did, that Federal usurpation was tending to the establishment of an aristocratic government at home, and to endanger the individual rights of the States. Their ideas were doubtless exaggerated on this latter subject, but they served to enlist prejudice even against the administration of the peerless Washing- ton. These Democratic clubs would ask of the Government that it confine its acts and jurisdiction within the strict letter of the Federal Constitution.
They ventured further in demanding, what they conceived to be, those rights which the Government should guarantee to one section as to another. The society at Lexington gave vent to their wishes in the violent resolu- tion, "That the right of the people on the waters of the Mississippi to the navigation thereof was undoubted, and that it ought to be peremptorily de- manded of Spain by the Government of the United States." It must be borne in mind by the reader in this connection, that the monarchy of Spain was in league with England and the other monarchies of Europe, in a mighty effort to extinguish the Titanic struggle for popular government in Demo- cratic France. It was all Europe against France, and France in a life-and- death contest to secure for herself that liberty she had so grandly fought to secure for the Americans. The Democrats of the Occident were intoxicated with the mirage of freedom which appeared in the East.
The ardent and grateful friends of France now reminded the Govern- ment that the colonies. when treating with her for assistance in the extremity of their need during the war with the mother country, consented to make war on England whenever the French Government did. Now, nearly twenty years after, when called on to carry out that dangerous stipulation, the Federal Government, under the lead of the prudent Washington, very wisely de- clined to keep the contract which a predecessor had made, and under cir- cumstances altogether different from those considered in the treaty. The fathers had bargained to pay a tribute of indemnity, which, though named in the bond, the sons dared not liquidate. The stipulation was more an im- pulse of sentimental diplomacy than of international obligation.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
The further relation of the history of this interesting episode is lucidly given by Butler :
1 " In this state of public feeling, the French minister, Genet, about the Ist of November, 1793, sent four persons of the names of Le Chase, Charles Delpeau, Mathurian, and Gignoux, to Kentucky, with orders to engage men in an expedition against New Orleans and the Spanish possessions. For this purpose, they carried with them blank commissions. The governor was soon afterward informed by the secretary of state of this enterprise, and 2 ' that the special interests of Kentucky would be particularly committed by such an attempt, as nothing could be more inauspicious to them than such a movement, at the very moment those interests were under negotiation between Spain and the United States.'
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