USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 41
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The governor further submitted a special report of the superintendent of public instruction, and recommended "its matured suggestions to careful consideration. The Superintendent attributes a want of greater success in our common-school instruction to a want of means and to certain defects in local organization, which require amendment." This special report embodied the question of the Legislature submitting to a vote of the people the increase from five cents to twenty cents upon the one hundred dollars of taxable property for the benefit of the school fund, the increase of the school term from three to five months, and trebling the teachers' wages, with an improved management under a better-organized county superintendence and qualified corps of teachers. The ratification by popular vote in 1869, and the successful prosecution and development for years of the programme mapped out in the report, gave the basis and structure of the present system of common schools in Kentucky.
The message refers to the condition of the State prison at length. One hundred and nine thousand and twenty-seven dollars were appropriated by the preceding Legislature for the purpose of enlarging and extending the penitentiary building, which work would soon be finished. These accom- modations were imperatively demanded. The contract was for two hundred and four new cells. It was obvious that more would be needed, and it was recommended that an appropriation be made for one hundred and eight additional cells. In 1863, when Harry I. Todd entered upon the duties as lessee, there were but two hundred and forty-seven prisoners confined. Twenty years later they had increased to five hundred and fifty. At the date of the message, there were three hundred and thirty-six cells occupied, and on the completion of the new ones there were five hundred and forty, or ten less than the number of prisoners. And as the latter so rapidly increased, the additional one hundred and eight cells were found needed. The governor earnestly recommended a thorough revision of the prison discipline, mainly urging that the indiscriminate mixing of men and boys, and women and girls, without reference to their moral grade and condition as criminals, be discontinued or guarded against. The hardened, the prof- ligate, and the abandoned should be separated as far as possible from the young, the helpless, the unfortunate in crime. No system of prison dis- cipline which does not rest on Christian benevolence and the enlightened principles of civil polity is worthy of a free people. It was, therefore, rec- ommended that "a house of refuge for the young in crime, next to a com-
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ELECTIONS IN 1867 AND 1868.
mon-school system, which has been already reverted to, is one of the first wants of a free Commonwealth."
In reference to Federal relations, the message continues: "If we turn our eyes to ten States of the Union, we behold them stripped by Federal
legislation of their equality, their sov- ereignty, their right of suffrage, and all right of representation in either house of Congress. All the bulwarks of per- sonal freedom - habeas corpus, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, trial by jury- have been ruthlessly taken away. Palpable and flagrant as these violations of the rights of the States are, I am pained to say we are confronted with more fearful usurpations. The recent scheme of congressional reconstruction of ten States of the Union and the practical operations now occurring under it must, in their efforts, if successful, sweep away every vestige of our Federal GOVERNOR PRESTON H. LESLIE. system of free government. What is the remedy ? Not by State veto of any Federal enactment. No such power, in my judgment, is possessed by any State to nullify at will a Federal enactment. The remedy, then, is not in secession. Its madness has too recently been illustrated in blood to find any advocates."
Governor Stevenson, though ever a pronounced friend and advocate of States' rights, limited only by the rights of the Federal Government as de- fined and expressed in the Constitution, was as firmly opposed to the doc- trine of secession and nullification.
On the assembling of the Legislature, Hon. William Johnson, of Bards- town, was elected by the Senate to preside over that body and ex-officio lieutenant-governor of Kentucky, in place of John W. Stevenson, now gov- ' ernor. In January before, Garrett Davis had been re-elected United States senator for six years from March 4, 1867, over Henry D. McHenry, by but two votes. In February, 1868, James Guthrie having resigned his seat in the same body on account of ill health, Thomas C. McCreery was elected by the Legislature to the vacancy. In August, 1868, Governor Stevenson was regularly elected governor, and B. J. Peters again elected to the Appel- late bench.
The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, de- fining and conferring citizenship, including the colored race, though rejected by the Legislature of Kentucky, had in 1867 received the requisite vote of the majority of States for its adoption, and in 1869 the fifteenth amendment proposed was also rejected by our Legislature, though it was shortly after
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
ratified by a sufficient number of States to make it the law. It reads as fol- lows :
"SECTION I. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
"SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
The concession of the full privileges of citizenship to the colored freed. men in Kentucky came slowly and with apparent reluctance on the part of the party in power. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, conferring citizenship and suffrage respectively, were stubbornly resisted, and very much from a sense of defiance at the obnoxious intrusiveness of Federal in- terference. The extreme Radical element in the State, in full sympathy to fasten these results with a precipitancy in advance of public sentiment, lent its acquiescence to this policy of Federal coercion which invested the con- stitutional majority with the authority of military absolutism over the ten disarmed and dismantled Southern States. These citizens' rights must have come to all, and in reasonable time. Indeed, many of the Democratic party already favored their concession, as they did the right of the negro to testify in the courts, and which a majority of the party conferred in due time after, as they subsequently did equality of rights and privileges in the common schools. Of the justice and ultimate disposition of all these measures, there was a common consent of the wiser men of both parties, the Republicans urging that what was right should be enforced at once, the Demo- crats awaiting the education and growth of public sentiment until assured of a supporting majority. The great mass of the leaders of the former party, earnest, hon- est, and patriotic, believed and pleaded that the control of the old slave-State governments could not be entrusted to the white citizenship so recently in armed rebellion against its authority. And with the plausibility and force of ancient historic precedent it was argued that they would re- assert in some form a mastery over the colored freedmen, deny HON. JOHN G. CARLISLE. to them the rights of free and equal citizenship, and reduce the State governments in a measure to the ante-bellum status.
767
JOHN W. STEVENSON RESIGNS.
Conceding all honesty to these views held, we can but believe that they were based on premises which were untenable and misleading. They would have been justified in the centuries past, when the authority of force paid no respect to equal manhood, and when the honor and intelligence of the subject counted for nothing. But they undervalued and depreciated the nobler qualities of modern civilization in refus- ing to credit the good faith and integ- rity of the intelligent whites of the South. Instead of the twelve years of carpet-bag corruption and spoliation, and the impoverishment and debase- ment of these State interests, there might have been, in less than half these years, a reconstruction upon the basis of honor, self-interest, and intelligence, by the deposed and disbarred classes- the only element of these populations capable at the time of good and honest government.
WILLIAM O'CONNELL BRADLEY.
On the assembling of the biennial Legislature, in December, 1869, P. H. Leslie was elected president of the Senate. As the term of United States Senator Thomas C. McCreery would expire in March, 1871, the Assembly proceeded to the election of a successor ; and after a spirited and protracted contest, John W. Stevenson was elected over Mr. McCreery. This result vacated in due time the office of governor, and on the roth of February, 1871, John W. Stevenson sent in his resignation, to take effect on the 13th, Preston H. Leslie suc- ceeding him, by virtue of his position as the presiding officer of the Senate, for the few months remaining of the term.
On the assembling of the Democratic State Convention, May 3d, P. H. Leslie was nominated for governor and John G. Carlisle for lieutenant- · governor, for the regular term of four years. There were also nominated, for auditor, D Howard Smith ; for treasurer, James W. Tate ; for attorney- general, John Rodman; for superintendent of public instruction, H. A. M. Henderson; for register of the land office, J. Alex Grant. Opposed to these, respectively, the Republican State Convention nominated John M. Harlan, George M. Thomas, William Krippenstapel, Smith S. Fry, William Brown, W. E. Moberly, and J. K. McClarty. The Democratic ticket was elected by the reduced majorities of about thirty eight thousand, in conse- quence of the accession of the colored vote to the Republican ranks, follow- ing the adoption of the fifteenth amendment. It was an important episode in the suffrage rights of Kentucky, as it was in many of her sister Common- wealths.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
In the resolutions adopted in the Democratic Convention, the usual prin- ciples and sentiments were expressed. In those of the Republican body, the sentiment was announced in the last resolution, " We earnestly desire the restoration of friendly relations with the people of our sister States lately in arms against the national authority, and earnestly wish for them all the blessings and prosperity to be enjoyed under a republican form of government. We are in favor of complete amnesty to all of our fellow-citizens, of every State, who are laboring under disabilities by reason of their participation in the late rebellion." Thus, the honest leaders and masses of the Republican party, while steadily loyal to the principles they had espoused, put themselves on record in terms of condemnation of the abuses and wrongs that were being inflicted upon the subjugated States through the infamous and odious acts JUDGE WILLIAM LINDSAY. of the carpet-bag spoilers.
Their resolutions further held responsible the party in power for the failure to adopt and enforce measures to suppress and exterminate the Ku-klux organizations, whose lawlessness had become a very disturbing cause in some sections; censured the party for its neglect to provide for the education of the colored children, and for refusing the colored man the right to testify in the courts, all of which the Democrats in authority were disposed to, and did, accomplish in a reasonable time after. It is but due to credit here the Republican party with an earnest advocacy and aid of liberal measures for the material and intellectual progress of the people of the Commonwealth, and especially for their uniform and undivided support of all efforts at school reform from time to time. It is but due, on the other hand, to note the fact that all advancement in these directions has been promoted and sustained by the dominant majority of the Democratic party, looking to the welfare of both the white and colored races.
In the message of Governor Leslie to the Legislature, in December, 1871, the financial exhibit for the State is not largely different from that of his predecessor, except in the recurring annual deficits of receipts over ex- penditures, to which he makes special allusion. The subject was considered at the session of the Legislature, in March, 1871, when an act was passed providing for the sale of superabundant assets of the sinking fund, the pay- ment of the State debt, and the future diversion of all receipts into the treasury to the payment of the current expenses of the government. He estimates the excess of asset resources over the State debt at $2,401, 198, of which $1,013,098 is the balance due from the United States, on account
769
THE L., C. & L. RAILROAD SUED.
of advances during the war. The message discusses at length the lawless- ness existing in sections of the Commonwealth, from secretly-organized bands known as "Regulators " and " Ku-klux Klans." Under whatever plausible pretexts such organizations may have assumed to take the law into their hands for the summary pursuit and punishment of the perpetrators of unusual and frequent crimes, the logical result had followed, and the members of these bands themselves had become responsible for the worst of crimes. The governor calls upon the Legislature for its co-operation in breaking up this organized outlawry, and in bringing to justice its guilty members. Especially was this neces- sary as, under the authority of Con- gress, the Federal courts were assert- ing jurisdiction, and the marshals were arresting citizens implicated, bearing them hundreds of miles from home and casting them into the city prisons to await their trials in the Federal courts, and such proceed- NORVIN GREEN. ings worked infinite wrong and hardships to such as were unable to bear the expenses of witnesses, attorneys, etc., in their own defense. Finally, the governor urged upon the Legislature the propriety of an amendment of the laws, admitting the testimony of colored persons in the courts. Soon after, the law was enacted for the suppression of all secret lawless associations, fixing the severest penalties upon persons against whom its execution might apply.
In October, 1871, the Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington railroad, then under the presidency of Dr. Norvin Green, was sold to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company, in the interest of C. P. Huntington & Co. In · the terms of contract, the latter paid fifty cents on the par value for one million of the new stock, and obligated to pay for all, or any part, of the sixteen hundred thousand dollars of old stock which might be tendered them within sixty days, sixty cents on the par value cash, or sixty-five cents on six months' time. The State owning some three hundred thousand dol- lars of the stock of this railroad, the opportunity of selling this asset and realizing nearly two hundred thousand dollars to the treasury was lost, probably from a want of optional authority on the part of the commissioners. Though the Legislature met December 4th, thirty-seven days after the sale, it was not until January rith, after, that a resolution was passed direct- ing the sale at sixty-five cents, two weeks after the limitation. The railroad was operated by the purchasers but a few years, when it was sold in bank-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
ruptcy, the stockholders divested of all property rights, and the State's interest lost.
Several of the judges of the circuit courts, among them Judges William H. Randall, M. F. Cofer, William S. Pryor, J. Cripps Wickliffe, and H . W.
Bruce, ventured in advance of legislative provision, on grounds which seemed sufficient, to admit the testimony of colored persons in their courts, until precedent had almost become usage before the enactment of the statute, January 8, 1872.
In 1868, B. J. Peters was elected for eight years to a seat on the Appellate bench, and William Lindsay for eight years, in 1870. The venerable George Robertson having resigned his seat on account of protracted indisposition, September, 1871, William S. Pryor was appointed HON. MILTON J. DURHAM. for the remainder of his term, and in August, 1872, was elected for the succeeding eight years, and M. J. Cofer was, in 1884, elected to the same bench for a like term. In charging the grand jury in the United States District Court at Louisville, on the 22d of February, 1872, Judge Bland Ballard announced that the jurisdiction of that court in all cases arising under the "civil rights act " ceased January 30th, previous, when the Kentucky Legislature authorized negro testimony. Thus was ended a source of infinite annoyance and irritation to the people of the State.
On the 21st of January, 1873, Willis B. Machen, who had the previous year been appointed by Governor Leslie to fill out the unexpired term of Garrett Davis, deceased, as United States senator, was elected by the Legis- lature to the same office until March 4th, following; Thomas C. McCreery succeeding from that date for six years, until 1879. The representatives in the Forty-third Congress from Kentucky, 1873-75, were, George M. Adams. William E. Arthur, James B. Beck, John Young Brown, Ed Crossland, Milton J. Durham, Charles W. Milliken, William B. Read, E. D. Standiford and John D. Young. On the 4th of March, Grant and Wilson were inaug- urated as president and vice-president, elected over Horace Greeley and B. Gratz Brown.
Two important acts of the General Assembly, in 1873, are worthy of mention. One of these required the governor " to appoint a State geolo- gist, with two assistants, to undertake and prosecute, with as much expedi-
771
OUTCRY AGAINST THE KU-KLUX.
tion and dispatch as may be consistent with minuteness and accuracy, a thorough geological, mineralogical and chemical survey of this State, to discover and examine all beds or deposits of ore, coal, clavs, and such other mineral substances as may be useful and valuable, and with a view to deter- mine the order and comparative magnitude of the several strata or geolog- ical formations of the State." Under this act Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard College, was appointed chief of the corps of the survey, and subsequently was succeeded by Professor John R. Procter, the present incumbent. The results of the operations of this department, advertising to the world in reports, general and special, the superabundance of valua- ble ores, of vast timber growths, and of cheap and productive lands, have been, and promise to be, of inestimable benefit in the increase of popula- tion, industries and wealth of the State.
The other law referred to provided for the punishment, by severe penal- ties, of any person who should " send, circulate, exhibit, or put up any threatening notice or letter, signed with such person's own, or another name, or anonymously ; " also, "any two or more persons who shall confederate or band themselves together, for the purpose of intimidating, threatening, . or alarming any person or persons, or to do any unlawful act; or who shall go forth together armed and disguised." This act had become an evident and urgent necessity, from the frequent outrages perpetrated by men secretly banded together and in disguise, under the name of " Ku-klux," the vicious remains of the war issues. Another act passed imposed a fine of one hundred dollars, or imprisonment from one to twelve months, or both, upon any person who should at- tempt to intimidate or deter, by threat or violence, any other citizen from vot- ing at any election in the State. A military committee, appointed to inves- tigate these outrages, reported to the Legislature in December, 1872, that there were abundant reasons for the ' outcry and complaint against the acts of these unlawful bands of disguised armed men, and evidences of their bold and defiant proceedings : that the laws re- lating needed some further features of special application ; but that the main cause of the non-execution of the exist- ing laws for the prevention and punish- ment of the peculiar crimes committed HON, JOSEPH C. S. BLACKBURN. was the failure of the judges and grand juries to do their duties faithfully ; especially of the judges, who have the power of instructing and directing the grand juries in the full performance of their sworn duties. The conclu-
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772
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
sion of the committee as to the main cause may well be said to be confirmed in the observing and intelligent public mind, and with reference to other and aggravated forms of lawlessness and impunity which have brought cen- sure on the good name of the Commonwealth in the past and present, in other and many sections. Whether it be attributable to the compromising laxity of an elective judiciary, or other cause, certainly the indulgence of the highly-empowered and respon- sible functionary upon the bench has mainly to do with the artful and dis- sembling methods by which the most flagrant crimes go unpunished. Over the officers of the court, the attorneys, the grand and petit juries, and the methods and proceedings, the judge is invested with directing and controll- ing authority, and need only enforce it with firm consistency ordinarily to reach the ends of justice. Where they have shown and exercised these qual- HON. JAMES B. M'CREARY. ities of firmness and decision in their orderings and rulings, it will be noted these results usually followed-the re- straining of lawless violence, and the visiting of due punishment on criminals.
In September, 1873, began the most extraordinary financial panic which this country has ever experienced. Ten years before and in the middle of the period of the great war of the rebellion, an era of speculative adventure, of overproduction and waste, and of unparalleled inflation, set in and con- tinued its onward flow toward high tide, until near the point of culmina- tion. Coincident with this inflation, which was a financial war result, and powerfully contributing to its abnormal growth, was the depreciated value of the national or greenback paper currency in its relation to the gold stand- ard. Before the close of the war, in 1865, it reached the point of three hundred to one hundred, in comparison with gold; then spasmodically at intervals advanced to two hundred, then to one hundred and fifty in its approximation toward par. The prices of real and personal property advanced in proportion with the decline of the mercurial currency with which it was bought and sold, since sensitive gold was hoarded and became an article of merchandise more than of exchange. Lands and realties, grain, stocks and manufactured wares, were doubled in value. All floated upon the wild and swollen current, little dreaming of the Niagara ahead. On the 18th of September, 1873, the crisis was reached, and the event precipitated by the failure of the noted banking houses of Jay Cooke & Co., in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, and the associate house of Cooke, Mccullough & Co., of London.
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SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED CHILDREN.
In the brief space of thirty days the cyclone of financial retribution and ruin had spent its most furious force, and spread the country over with its unhappy wrecks, prostrating thousands of commercial and industrial estab- lishments, cutting off the wages of hundreds of thousands of workingmen, overthrowing stock exchanges, banking houses, trust companies and manufactories. In a single day it broke off the negotiation of American se- curities in Europe, and paral- yzed the monetary circulation to a degree that carried distress to almost every home in the country. It was but a repeti- tion of the old story, only in its most gigantic illustration, of a period of abnormal inflation, followed by its inevitable result -collapse and long depression. Of course, Kentucky felt the shock of disaster as sensibly as other portions of the Union, and for the five years following was HON. ALBERT S. WILLIS. the scene of failures, of bankruptcies, and of business stagnation, with mer- chants, bankers, farmers, and others.
Before the close of the legislative session of 1873-74, an act was passed providing for a " uniform system of common schools for the colored chil- dren of the Commonwealth." A separate fund and separate schools were the main features. The fund was to consist of all the revenues derived from both the State and school taxes-forty-five cents on the one hundred dollars-collected on the assessments of the property of the colored people, a capitation tax of one dollar on each male colored adult, and some taxes from miscellaneous sources enumerated. The general supervision was then placed under the school commissioners of the counties, and the dis- trict management left with the colored people.
In the State election for 1875, the Democratic ticket was elected by majorities approximating forty thousand votes : James B. McCreary, for governor, over John M. Harlan, Republican ; John C. Underwood, for lieutenant-governor, over Robert Boyd; Thomas E. Moss, attorney-general, over William Cassius Goodloe; D. Howard Smith, auditor, over R. B. Ratliff; James W. Tate, treasurer, over W. J. Berry ; H. A. M. Hender- son, superintendent of public instruction ; and Thomas D. Marcum, register, over Reuben Patrick. Of the resolutions adopted by the Republican Con-
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