USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 39
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G CRGF D. PRENTICE. [From an early painting, owned by the Polytechnic Society of Kentucky.]
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
tucky, and Clarence J., who lost his life by being thrown from his buggy, near Louisville, in 1873. Mrs. Prentice died in 1868, and her husband, January 21, 1870.
Walter N. Haldeman, presi- dent of the Courier-Journal Com- pany, was born at Maysville, Ky., April 27, 1821, and educated at Maysville Academy, along with U. S. Grant, W. H. Wadsworth, T. H. Nelson, R. H. Collins, and others of note. In 1840, he became book-keeper in the Louis- ville Journal office ; in 1844, he started the Daily Dime paper, soon converted into the Morning Courier, which he conducted suc- cessfully until 1861, when it was WALTER N. HALDEMAN suppressed by military domina- tion. It reappeared soon at Nashville, and at other points in the Confeder- acy. after. At the close of the war, in 1865, Mr. Haldeman resumed the publication of the Courier in Louisville, with marked success, until 1868, when, in concert with Henry Watterson, of the Journal, the two dailies were blended, and appeared as the Courier-Journal, which has since been the leading paper of the South, under the same management. The Louisville Democrat was soon also absorbed into this combination. The Courier-Journal building is the finest newspaper edifice west of the Alleghanies, completed in 1876. Mr. Haldeman is a man of most versatile, but practical, talents. and endowed with remarkable energy, persistency, and sagacity in business venture. His life has been a series of marvelous successes, often under the frowns of discouragement.
Hon. Henry Watterson was born in Washington City, February 16, 1840. and was well educated, mainly under private tutors. He began his literary and editorial career in New York and Washington until the civil war. Cast- ing his fortunes with the South. he edited the Nashville Banner. afterward the Rebel, at Chattanooga. After the war, he returned to the Banner. vis- ited Europe in 1866, and on his return became editor of the Louisville Journal, and finally of the Courier-Journal, after the consolidation, and yet holds that position. He was elected to Congress in 1876, in which year he was mainly instrumental in the nomination of Tilden for the presidency. Mr. Watterson is distinguished for his brilliancy and elegance as a writer and speaker, and has proved himself an adroit and powerful political leader for the last twenty years. His defective eyesight greatly interfered with his
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EDITORS OF KENTUCKY.
studies in youth, and gave a desultory cast to his education. He began, at nineteen, a regular writer on the States, a Demo- cratic paper of Washington City. Next, he became editorial mana- ger of the Democratic Review, to the breaking out of the war. In 1865, he was married to Miss Rebecca Ewing, of Tennessee, a daughter of the Hon. Andrew Ewing.
Emmett Garvin Logan, editor of the Louisville Evening Times, was born in Shelby county, Ken- tucky, October 9, 1848; attended " old field " schools in winter. and worked on a farm in sum- mer, until eighteen years of age ; HON. HENRY WATTERSON attended Professor J. W. Dodd's Classical School, in Shelbyville, for three years ; then Washington University, Lexington, Virginia, under the presi- dency of General Robert E. Lee; was one of the guard of honor to conduct the burial services at his death ; was elected editor of the college paper ; re- turned to Kentucky, and established the Shelby Courant ; afterward accepted a position on the editorial staff of the Courier-Journal, taking charge of the Kentucky and Southern news department, and making it a decided feature of the paper, the originality, the brilliancy, and wit of his writings being everywhere recognized. Joining with Governor Underwood and Colonel E. Polk Johnson in the publication of the Intelligencer, at Bowling Green, for a time, he was soon recalled to take charge as managing editor of the Courier-Journal, writing many of the leading editorials of that day. In 1882, when Governor Underwood es- tablished the Cincinnati Vews. Mr. Logan was selected as the managing editor, at a liberal salary. Under his leadership, that paper became a main factor of political power in Ohio, es- pecially in aid of the election of Gov. ernor Hoadly. In 1884, he joined EMMETT G. LOGAN. with Colonel E. Polk Johnson again,
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
in the establishment of the Evening Times, and which he yet continues to edit with ability and brilliancy. Mr. Logan is gifted as a versatile and ready writer, and especially for the terse, piquant, and pungent style which has marked his individuality as an editor.
Colonel Robert Morrison Kelly was born at Paris, Kentucky, Septem- ber 22, 1836, and educated in the schools of Paris and vicinity. Here he taught school two years, and two years more in Owingsville Academy. Studied law under Hon. J. Smith Hurtt, and opened an office for the practice at the county-seat of Bath county. In 1860, he removed to Cynthiana and formed a partnership with Garrett Davis, his uncle by marriage. In 1861, he entered the Federal army as captain of a company in the Fourth Kentucky infantry, under Colonel Smith S. Fry; was promoted to be major, lieutenant- colonel, and colonel, successively, to October, 1864, and mustered out September 1, 1865, after over four years of service. In 1866, he was appointed collector of internal rev- enue for the Seventh district, with COLONEL ROBERT M. KELLY. office at Lexington. Resigned in 1869, to take the editorial control of the Louisville Commercial. In 1873, he was appointed pension agent by President Grant, which office he in time vacated and transferred to his successor, General Don Carlos Buell, March, 1886, resuming editorial charge of the Commercial.
Kentucky has been as fruitful in the production of editors of talent who have won distinction in their day, and wielded a power that, perhaps more than any other one agency, shaped the parties and governments of the country, both Federal and State, as her sister commonwealths. We might add to the list such men as Bradford, Wickliffe, Penn, Harney, and a host of others, did the occasion admit. It may justly be said that the editorial profession has shown itself worthy of encomium in the faithfulness with which it has performed its duty as an educator of the people. Indeed, it is an important factor in the educational forces, ceaselessly at work in the great cause of human enlightenment.
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FROM 1865 TO 1886.
CHAPTER XXXI.
(1865-86.)
The assassination of President Lincoln. Electric effect.
Estimate of friends and foes of his char- acter.
Union party divides.
Military interference at the polls.
Officials elected in 1865-66.
Illegal elections.
Prosecutions for military interference.
Designs to subject Kentucky to military rule.
Union men prevent. General Palmer's rule.
General Brisbin's interference with the slaves.
Judge Andrews' decision.
. Thirteenth amendment ratified.
Habeas corpus restored.
One hundred and fifty million dollars in slave property lost.
Amnesty legislation. Magnanimity of the Union men.
Freedmen's bureau.
Carpet-baggers.
Their corruptions and outrages.
Struggle between the civil and military authorities.
Quick restoration of peace and quiet in Kentucky.
„Anarchy and ruin in the South from Federal military interference.
Kentucky's war finances. Financial exhibit in 1865. High State credit. William Preston.
Election of several officials of the Ap- pellate Court.
Carpet-bag rule odious to Union men of Kentucky.
Election of congressmen and State offi- cials in 1867. John L. Helm. Third party.
James W. Tate.
Seceded States should have reconstruct- ed as readily as Kentucky. Post-bellum condition.
Reorganization of the Democratic party.
John W. Stevenson. State finances in 1867. " Regulators." Kentucky congressmen are denied their seats. James B. Beck.
Governor Stevenson's message.
Finances, revenue, education, peniten- tiary, Federal relations, treated. Elections by Legislature.
Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments adopted.
Negro testimony admitted.
Colored schools provided for.
P. H. Leslie.
Elected to preside over the Senate.
Governor Stevenson is elected United States senator.
Leslie governor.
Elected governor for four years, in 1871.
John G. Carlisle, lieutenant-governor.
Party nominees.
Negroes vote in State election.
William O. Bradley.
Republican declarations.
William Lindsay.
Message of Governor Leslie. Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington railroad sold.
Norvin Green.
Federal courts withdraw jurisdiction on the admission of negro testimony in the State courts. Appellate bench changes. Milton J. Durham. Geological survey. Anti-Ku-Klux laws.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
Joseph C. S. Blackburn.
Responsibility of judges.
Panic of 1873.
The act of 1873-74 establishing colored schools.
State elections.
Governor James B. McCreary.
His message.
Sale of State turnpike stock confirmed by the courts.
Bureau of agriculture.
Election of James B. Beck and John S. Williams, United States senators.
Albert S. Willis.
Presidential election, 1876.
Tilden elected and Hayes counted in.
Bargain to withdraw carpet-bag rule from the South.
John M. Harlan on the United States Supreme bench.
Judges Hines and Lewis elected to the Appellate bench.
Luke P. Blackburn is elected gov- ernor.
His message.
Walter Evans.
Appointed commissioner of internal revenue.
Presidential election, 1880.
Assassination of President Garfield. Superior court created.
The tragedy.
Neal and Craft murders and trials.
Congressmen-elect in 1882.
State election, 1883.
J. Proctor Knott.
His message.
Defective revenue laws.
Auditor suggests reforms.
State educational conventions.
Good school laws enacted, 1883-84, for white and colored.
Vote on the question of a new Consti- tution.
New penitentiary ordered built at Ed- dyville.
Temperance reform.
Gambling made a felony.
Benevolent institutions.
Presidential election.
President Cleveland's appointments in Kentucky.
Sudden death of Vice-President Hen- dricks.
His successor.
Present Kentucky congressmen.
Live State questions.
Present finances.
In the very midst of the surrenders which gave token of assured peace, and before the reverberations of the last artillery had died away, the last drum-beat of the war heard, and the last flag furled to rest, the rent and divided nation was shocked with the news of one of the most revolting and unfortunate tragedies that history records of any age. On the 14th day of April, 1865, five days after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, President Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater, Washington City, by a pistol- shot in the head, at the hands of J. Wilkes Booth, the actor. The event thrilled every section of the country with a consternation and horror such as were never before felt upon the Western Continent. The laurel wreath of victory over the great rebellion was woven and ready to be placed upon his brow, crowning him with honors and fame unsurpassed by those con- ferred upon any man of ancient or modern times. His obscure and mys- terious birth, the poverty and privations of his infancy, the struggles and discouragements of his backwoods boyhood and youth, the splendid manhood wrought out of all these experiences by indomitable purpose and inflexible principle, the public recognition of his virtues and worth, his call to liberate five million human beings from bondage, and to lead the nation
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LINCOLN'S DEATH A CALAMITY TO THE SOUTH.
safely through deliverance from a mighty rebellion, the triumphal honors ready to be conferred by grateful millions, the bloody assassination at the very point of culmination of a marvelous career-all, together, complete the picture of a life of romance, beside which fiction fades into tame insig- nificance. The true attributes of Mr. Lincoln's character had by this time come to be understood and appreciated by foes as well as by friends. His simplicity of spirit and ingenuous nature were unaffected by the artificial surroundings of official exaltation. His loyal homage to his convictions and the intense sincerity of his nature exposed to public view the motives of his actions and administration. The sternness of resolution with which he executed the inexorable laws and military decrees of a revolutionary period was mitigated in the tenderness of a sympathy and concern he often expressed toward the people who had arisen in rebellion against his author- ity. The wise and flexible discretion with which he gave audience and heed to the counsels of others, while holding supreme mastery of the situ- ation of authority with marvelous judgment and skill, had fully marked him as one of the most sagacious statesmen of the age. The solicitous overtures to win back to submission the defiant and hostile people, and to reimburse for the loss of slave property as far as public sentiment and policy would admit, and stay the shedding of blood, were not forgotten to the memory of those now subdued by the issue of war. The manly sym- pathy and humane expressions toward the vanquished rebels on the sur- render of Lee led the people of the South to hope for generous terms and treatment at his command.
For many obvious reasons, the death of President Lincoln at such a crisis in the affairs of the nation was accepted as a common calamity to the country, but more to be deplored by the people of the South than by those of the North. If he had been the open enemy of the former, his character and conduct throughout the trial period of responsibility had extorted from them respect for his integrity of motive and admiration for the qualities of manhood that forgot not to be generous and kind to a fallen foe. It was now feared that, by his death, the processes of a return of the seceded States to the Union, of the reconstruction of their governments, and of a restoration of equal civil rights to all, would be more obstructed and difficult-a fear that was too sensibly realized in years after. The South could better have lost any other man.
The war was over, but there remained in Kentucky, as in all other por- tions of the country, a class of men in both military and civil offices, with their mercenary dependents, whose interests and dispositions were to keep up an appearance of strife and danger, and thus to continue the exercise of the war power, seemingly more from passion or interested motives than for the peace and order of good government. The Southern rights element were disposed to be passive for the time, while the majority of the Union - party lent their support to a full restoration of civil rights to these and a
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
complete return of unobstructed civil authority over the military. The result of this state of affairs was to force an issue which divided the Union party into the Conservative and Radical wings. At the August election, James H. Garrard (Conservative) was elected State treasurer over William L. Neale (Radical). The Senate stood twenty Conservative and eighteen Radical, and the House sixty Conservative and forty Radical. With Gov- ernor Bramlette, the State government was fairly and fortunately Conserva- tive. The executive, legislative and judicial departments were in accord in the sentiment and expression to subordinate the military to the civil arm of government once more. But the machinery of the State government was not in a condition to operate smoothly as yet, whatever may have been the good intentions.
On the 11th of March, 1862, the Legislature had passed the expatriation act, requiring that every person who came to the polls to vote should state on oath " that he has not entered into the service of the Confederate States, nor of the so-called provisional government of Kentucky, in either a civil or military capacity," etc. This law had not been repealed ; therefore, Governor Bram- lette, on the 22d of July, 1865, preceding the election in August, issued his proclamation to the officers of elections and citizens that it must be enforced. Though it was offered in apology that this would leave the soldiery without any excuse for interfering with this election, the governor was severely censured for his proclamation. The act had been declared uncon- stitutional by Judges Joseph Doniphan and Richard Apperson, in their respective circuits ; and now that the war was over and peace restored, it was generally thought that it was an unwarranted exercise of authority on the part of the executive. Besides, it seemed to have the opposite effect from that intended, as it was rather interpreted as a license by military officials to interfere with the voting at many places, and so much so as to probably affect the result in some districts.
The election for representatives in Congress came off at the same time in August with that of legislators and State treasurer. The results were that of the Conservative candidates there were elected in the First district. L. S. Trimble; in the Second, B. C. Ritter ; in the Third, Henry Grider ; in the Fourth, A. Harding, and in the Seventh, G. S. Shanklin. Of the Radical candidates, there were elected, in the Fifth district, L. H. Rousseau ; in the Sixth, G. C. Smith ; in the Eighth, W. H. Randall, and in the Ninth, S. McKee. It would be but conjecture to express an opinion as to whether the result in any case of the above would have been different in the absence of military or other interference with the freedom of suffrage, certainly not in more than two, if in these. There were a number of indictments by grand juries throughout the State for such unlawful interference, and these were made quite annoying and expensive to the petty military officials who so perverted their callings as to engage in such practices,
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INTERFERING WITH VOTERS.
In the November Circuit Court at Cynthiana, S. F. January recovered five thousand dollars, and J. R. Curry five hundred dollars, damages against Captain Cranston, for interfering with their right to vote. For similar interferences with voters at Alexandria, Campbell county, attended with arrests and inhuman treatment, by Captain J. W. Read, of the Fifty-fifth Kentucky, he was fined four thousand dollars, and Captain J. H. Lennin, of the Fifty-third Kentucky, five hundred dollars, and, being unable to pay, they were cast into jail. Other indictments were made, but in a number of instances the prosecution was not followed up. In February, 1866, the Legislature declared vacant, on account of such illegal inter- ferences, the seats of Dr. A. Sidney Allen, R. Tarvin Baker, M. M. Ben- ton and L. B. Goggin, of the Senate; and of Representatives Ballew, L. Barber, U. P. Degman, J. Hawthorn, R. Gregory, J. Wilson, J. Stroube and D. Murphy, and ordered new elections to be held to fill the vacancies in a lawful manner. These proceedings on the part of the Union civil authorities had a most salutary effect upon that characteristic class, who had discreetly and adroitly survived the perils and period of war ; but who were, on the restoration of peace, most reluctant to permit the privileges of military license to slip from their fingers. Their day of abused power and factitious importance was evidently very nigh to its sunset, to their own discomfiture, and to the joy of a grateful people.
It was the desire and intention to subject Kentucky and other border Union States to the same visitation of carpet-bag domination, for riotous rule and spoliation, on the part of some of this vulture class who so freely plundered eleven secession States. But the effort was feeble and abortive. The great mass of the Union men were themselves prompt and resolute to resist any such corrupt invasion of the integrity of Kentucky sovereignty. Indeed, there were but few native Kentuckians to be found in any party who would courtenance such an attempt at the deliverance of power to an unworthy and disreputable set of adventurers. The whole people of the State, therefore, owe a debt of gratitude to the Union party for the honor- able and patriotic resistance and defeat of the insidious purpose, and the early restoration of civil order.
General John M. Palmer, who had succeeded General Burbridge, was in command of the Kentucky department at the close of the war, and proved himself to be a man of fair impulses and moderation, in the main ; yet, sur- rounded by the conflicting and varying influences of the hour, he was occa- sionally betrayed into some measures and acts of frivolous and petty tyranny. In April, he issued an order guaranteeing protection to all Confederate soldiers returning and remaining peaceably at home, of which many availed themselves. Another order forbade the arrest of any except real offenders. In May, he disbanded all the independent Federal scouts. In October, on his recommendation, four thousand colored troops then in Kentucky were " mustered out, leaving about six thousand yet in service in the State. It was
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
not until May, that the enlistment of negro troops was discontinued; and this unnecessary continuance of enlistment was with a purpose not of mili- tary necessity. Indeed, the most puerile, annoying and obnoxious acts of General Palmer grew out of a seeming nervous and uncontrollable dispo- sition to intermeddle with the frail tenure of relation yet remaining between masters and slaves, and to aid and incite the colored people to every effort toward effecting general emancipation from the skeleton of slavery, which was already doomed to an early extinction.
Until the order of May 8th came from the war department to discontinue the enlistment of negro troops, there were a number of Federal officers who made themselves gratuitously officious in this work of supererogation, prin- cipal among whom was General Brisbin. In a letter to Governor Bramlette, of April 22d, he boasted that " negro enlistments had bankrupted slavery in Kentucky, over twenty-two thousand valuable slaves having gone into the service. Nearly one hundred are yet enlisted daily, freeing, according to the law of Congress, March 3, 1865, an average of five women and children to each man. Thus some four hundred black people are daily made free through this instrumentality." General .Palmer lent other aid to the work of emancipation. By his orders, thousands of passes were issued to negroes over the ferry at Louisville, and over the railroad to Cincinnati, from Central Kentucky, to encourage and enable them to escape from any claims of ownership by their masters. Many petty conflicts and annoyances grew out of these proceedings. In the Carlisle Circuit Court, Judge L. Wat Andrews had decided unconstitutional the late act of Congress liberating the wives and children of enlisted negro soldiers, a decision confirmed by the Court of Appeals in December following. Generals Palmer and Brisbin were indicted in Louisville, " for abducting slaves and otherwise violating the slave code of Kentucky," and the former was placed under bond for five hundred dollars.
On the 8th of December, Secretary Seward issued a proclamation that the requisite constitutional three-fourths of the States bad ratified the thirteenth amendment, that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should any longer exist in the United States, and that the same was now a part of the United States Constitution." This was the end of the institu- tion, and all pretext for any future conflict, as to any rights existing in the relation of master and slave, was forever removed. In March, 1866, General Palmer resigned his commission as commander of the District of Kentucky, and, no doubt, to the mutual satisfaction of himself and the people. In course of time, the restoration of the writ of habeas corpus. which had been made to the States of Maryland, Delaware, West Vir- ginia and Missouri, but withheld from Kentucky, was extended to the latter, and did much to restore civil authority to its legitimate jurisdiction. The " peculiar institution " rapidly disappeared, after many months of dis- integration, losing to Kentucky about one hundred and fifty million dollars
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THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU.
of property in slaves, for which the Commonwealth has never asked or received any reimbursement.
On its assembling in December, the Legislature enacted a law of general pardon to all persons indicted by the courts of Kentucky for treason against the Federal government through acts done within the State. It repealed the act of October 1, 1861, declaring any citizen who invaded Kentucky as a Confederate soldier guilty of felony, to be punished by confinement in the penitentiary from one to ten years; also the expatriation act of March II, 1862, and the act requiring ministers and others to take the oath of loyalty before solemnizing marriage, and another requiring a similar oath from jurors. Thus, one by one, every obstacle to restoration to civil rights and reconciliation which had grown up out of war measures was removed. The policy was one of manly magnanimity on the part of the Unionists in power toward their old neighbors, kindred and companions in citizenship. The confidence of intimacy assured those in authority that, though differing to opposite extremes as to the choice between the Federal or Confederate side in the great war issue, their less fortunate brethren of the Common- wealth were not less honest, sincere and brave than themselves; nor were they less to be trusted on their return from the surrenders of the war, in the good faith with which they grounded the arms of rebellious strife forever and resumed the functions and duties of loyal citizenship under the flag of the Union.
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