USA > Kentucky > The political beginnings of Kentucky. A narrative of public events bearing on the history of that state up to the time of its admission into the American Union > Part 15
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From no one of these came any testimony to support aught resembling the alleged quotation from Brown in con- vention. None of the older men testified to any thing of the kind, but emphatically denied that the imputations were warranted. None of the younger witnesses testified to any thing of the kind as coming down to them from any pro- fessing to have heard.
Nor did the legislative investigation into the conduct of Sebastian, had in 1806, elicit any thing that can be tortured into an appearance of support of Marshall's pretended "quo- tation." Brown appeared in that proceeding and gave under oath his uncontradicted account of his political life, indig- nantly denying all charges and insinuations against the loy- alty of his conduct.
The results of the three inquiries vindicated Innes, who
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was chiefly attacked. Street was mulcted by a jury in dam- ages that ruined him. Marshall agreed to refrain in future from assaults on Innes if the suit were dropped, and it was therefore discontinued.1
From the records of these three bitter controversies, where nothing was omitted that could affix guilt or suspicion of guilt on the opposing party or his friends, it is distinctly ascertained that no man, of his contemporaries present and taking part in the conventions, knew or believed or sus- pected that Brown or Innes had ever entertained a thought other than that of entering the Union as a sovereign State, or a plan consistent with that thought.
It is an incontrovertible fact, so far as contemporary doc- uments can be trusted, and the testimony of the men of the convention believed, and the evidence of younger men as to what were the rumors and traditions that they received from their elders credited, that Marshall had no warrant whatever for his deductions.
To this subject Marshall devoted the greater part of the ninth chapter of the first volume of his History of Ken- tucky. (Vol. I, page 358 and following, edition of 1812.) It is in truth the objective point of his work, and in the deduc- tions of treason and conspiracy his purpose was accom-
"The negotiations were conducted by John Jouett in behalf of Innes. The cor- respondence is preserved by Harry I. Todd, Esq., of Frankfort, Ky.
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plished. It will serve as a warning against rash historical assertion to note how the charge, utterly baseless as it was, has floated down the current of Kentucky history, carelessly accepted by every subsequent writer.
When Butler published his history in 1834, he expended no search upon the accuracy of Marshall's statement. With- out reference even to Marshall he adopts the statement and perpetuates the quotation marks,' using the identical words and adopting the objectionable grammar found in Marshall's first volume. By strange misreading he attributes to Thomas Todd a seeming approval of "notes made by Col. Thomas Marshall" of the convention proceedings .? The smallest investigation would have shown that Todd never spoke of "notes," nor said what could intimate the existence of any made by Col. Marshall or any other contemporary.3
So industrious an historian as Collins has given currency to the error, and later writers have taken the story without examination.
1 Butler's History of Kentucky, edition of 1836, p. 177.
2 Butler's History of Kentucky, edition of 1836, p. 177.
3 Thomas Todd was the clerk of all the earlier conventions in Kentucky. He became an Appellate Judge of the State, and died in office as an Associate Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. What he really said (in 1806) as to the matter mentioned in the text was this:
"QUESTION. Do you recollect the subject or object of the memorial read by Gen. Wilkinson ?
"ANSWER. I do not; but upon reading the letters published in the newspapers as having passed between Col. Marshall and Gen. Washington, it appears to me to be tolerably accurately stated in Col. Marshall's letter."
The evidence of Judge Todd and others is given in the report of the legislative committee in Sebastian's case, already mentioned.
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The November Convention of 1788, having declined (though not by formal vote) to undertake the framing of a State Constitution, adjourned to meet in the coming August, for by the terms under which the delegates had been elected the duration of the body was to Ist January, 1790.
The legislature of Virginia, however, took prompt action to remedy the difficulty suggested by Muter's alarm, that it was treason to Virginia for Kentucky to organize and get ready for admission to the Union.
On the 29th December, 1788, an act was passed "con- cerning the erection of the District of Kentucky into an independent State."" Its effect was to give Virginia's formal assent to Kentucky's becoming an independent member of the Union. It ordered the election of a new convention, to assemble in the coming July, empowered to speak for the people of Kentucky their ratification or disapproval of the terms of separation which the act prescribed. Should the convention accept the terms, they were to become a compact between the two political communities, provided Congress should, prior to Ist September, 1790, recognize and receive the new State as a member of the Union.
The work of so many weary years was thus begun anew. Fortunately, and strangely enough, the animosities of lead- ing men were for the time allayed.
I Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. XII, p. 788.
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The Convention of July, 1789.
The convention which met on the 20th July, 1789, named Samuel McDowell for his accustomed place of president, and without delay addressed itself to a consideration of the terms of separation proposed by the last Virginia statute.
A serious variation from the former act of separation was discovered in one of the provisions of the new statute which reserved to military claimants holding Virginia land warrants an unlimited time for location and survey, and exempted them in that regard from legislative control on the part of the new State. Another new feature was added in relation to the "domestic debt" of Virginia, imposing a share of it upon the new State.
It was the opinion of the convention that these altera- tions of the original act of separation were inadmissible, and a memorial was at once prepared praying Virginia to recede from the new conditions. -
After providing for a census to be taken in October, the convention adjourned, subject to the call of its president, to await the response of the legislature of Virginia to the memorial."
There was still division of opinion as to the erection of a new State. Not a few persisted in their wish to remain part
* MS. Journal of Convention of July, 1789.
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of the Old Dominion. The popular sentiment was other- wise. But men ceased for the time to charge treason upon those whose opinions on the question of statehood were not their own. A feeling of security had followed upon the election of Washington to the Presidency.
Brown, as has been noticed already, wrote to Innes of the confidence inspired by Washington's administration, and the certainty of the West being cared for. Col. Marshall was satisfied, as he wrote Washington, that there was no purpose of disunion. There was a fortunate and most opportune lull of personal enmities and political bitternesses.
The leaders in Virginia lost no time in considering the Kentucky memorial, and as soon as the forms of legislation could be gone through with the final Act of Separation was passed on the 18th December, 1789.1
By its terms yet another convention was called for the month of July, 1790, to finally accept the offered terms of separation, now definitely conformed to the suggestions of the last memorial.
The Convention of July, 1790.
A resolution declaring the sense of the good people of Kentucky to be that the District should be erected into an independent State upon the conditions embodied in the 1 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. XIII, p. 17.
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Virginia Act of 18th December, 1789, passed by the narrow majority of twenty-four against eighteen votes.' The voice of the minority was the last protest of unalterable attach- ment to their native Virginia.
A brief and dignified communication to the legislature of Virginia was framed, informing the mother State that her legislation for separation had been accepted, and expressing the thanks of the people of Kentucky for all the care and interest shown by Virginia. A communication "To the President and the Honorable the Congress of the United States of America" was also adopted, asking a sanction of the compact entered into between the peoples and an ad- mission of Kentucky into the Union on the Ist June, 1792.
After providing for the election of delegates to a conven- tion which they called to meet in April, 1792, and to whom should be committed the preparation of a Constitution, the eighth Kentucky Convention dissolved.
The action of Congress was speedy and favorable. On the 4th of February, 1791, it was enacted :
"That upon the aforesaid first day of June, One Thousand seven hun- dred and ninety-two, the said new State, by the name and style of the State of Kentucky, shall be received and admitted into this Union as a new and entire member of the United States of America." 2
1 MS. Journal of Convention, 28th July, 1790.
2 Laws First Congress, third session. Debates in Congress, Old Series, Vol. II, p. 2372, Appendix. The act in full is to be found in Poore's Collection of "Charters and Constitutions," from the Government Press.
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The year of intervening time between the vote of admis- sion and the assembling of the Constitutional Convention presented the unusual feature of debates purely upon local affairs and interests. The folly and injustice of their crim- inations and recriminations seemed to be recognized, and men of all parties turned their thoughts to framing a funda- mental law for the new State.
The absorbing political topics had heretofore been almost wholly of a national character. They concerned, as has been shown, the building up of the Commonwealth and its incorporation into the Union ; and for their immediate prac- tical bearing looked toward the south for an establishment of trade down the uninterrupted current of the Mississippi, and to the northward for repression of Indian hostilities and the restoration to the American Union of posts still held along the Canadian frontier.
. With the assurance of admission into the Union, these questions were transferred to the Congress, to engage the collective wisdom of the country, and enter into the national diplomacy.
Of domestic polity there were but few subjects to agitate the debates that marked the formation of the new State's Constitution. The irrepressible question of slavery, how- ever, presented the problem that for so many succeeding years demanded solution.
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So long as Kentucky remained an integral part of Vir- ginia, there arose no division on the subject of negro slavery. Legislation of the parent State alone could deal with it, and to that legislation the District must perforce submit. There was little division of public opinion, and no exhibition of angry differences. The religious sentiment of the entire pop- ulation was adverse to a perpetuation of the institution of slavery, and political inclinations were in the same direction.
The debates and resolves of the Political Club were sig- nificant of the influential sentiment of the country. Its members (as has already been shown) unanimously disap- proved of that feature of the Federal Constitution which by implication and in fact continued the African slave trade until 1808. It is almost certainly true that only a minority of the talent, wealth, or influence within the bounds of the District desired or expected a long duration of slavery within its borders. All opinions concurred in the policy of restrict- ing, as far as possible, the importation of slaves from other States, and in the advisability of providing, as soon as pos- sible, a system of emancipation.
As the progress of events made it plain that the state- hood of Kentucky was not long to be deferred, the question of slavery began to assume proportions of practical morality in the eyes of many of the most serious and resolute of the pioneers.
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It is to the honor of the Baptist preachers of the new country that they faced the problem with a courage that did honor to their intellect, their religious sincerity, and their sense of public duty. They were not then, as a rule, cultured or rich. Their horizon of speculation was narrow, but their mode of thought was the essence of honest logic applied to the rigid Calvinistic doctrines they so devoutly embraced.
The Baptists of Virginia had not flinched from the ques- tion which presented itself with the launching of the new government. Their General Committee, convened at Rich- mond on the 8th August, 1789, took up the subject which had been adjourned from March of the preceding year. It was then
" Resolved, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of nature, and inconsistent with a Republican government, and we therefore recom- mend it to our brethren to make use of every legal measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land, and pray Almighty God that our honorable legis- lature may have it in their power to proclaim the great jubilee, consistent with the principles of good policy." I
Their western brethren quickly responded to this declara- tion, and on 3d October, 1789, the Baptist Church at Roll- ing Fork, in Nelson County, propounded to the Salem Association, of which it was a member, the query:
" Sample's History of Virginia Baptists, p. 79; Spencer's History of Kentucky Baptists, Vol. I, p. 183.
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"Is it lawful in the sight of God for a member of Christ's Church to keep his fellow creature in perpetual slavery ?"
The response was not definite. and the dissatisfied ques- tioners withdrew almost unanimously from their ecclesias- tical connection.1
The agitation that moved the Baptist fraternity was pro- found. Contemporary annals of their churches, pamphlets from the preachers of the day, and their familiar correspond- ence exhibit the alarmed sincerity with which they treated the problem of morals that confronted them. Carman and Dodge were soon joined in their anti-slavery preaching by the venerable William Hickman, along with Ambrose Dud- ley, Garrard (afterward Governor of the State), and others more or less influential. Debate grew warm. From a gen- eral acquiescence at first, in the proposition that slavery was morally indefensible and politically undesirable, the Baptists divided, in time, into parties, some advocating immediate abolition and non-fellowship with slaveholders; some insist- ing on a gradual system of emancipation of the negroes then in slavery and the immediate freedom of those born after a date in the near future; and some denouncing all dis- cussion in the churches as tending to confuse politics with religion. The history of the first party may be traced
I Spencer's History of Kentucky Baptists, Vol. I, p. 184.
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through Dodge and Carman, the Suttons,' Carter Tarrant, and others, and it culminated in that singularly-named organ- ization, " The Baptized Licking-Locust Association, Friends of Humanity," in 1807.2
The ablest among the preachers who opposed the incor- poration of slavery into the polity of Kentucky was David Rice, the father of Presbyterianism in the West. He had come from Virginia in 1783; had established in his house in Lincoln County in 1784 the first grammar school in the West, and the influence of his piety and talents was very great. In the political crisis of 1792, when the Constitution of the State was to be formed, he put in print the doctrine he had long preached and the sentiments of a life-time, issuing a pamphlet entitled, "Slavery inconsistent with Jus- tice and Good Policy."3 A single extract will illustrate the . deep feeling that generally prevailed :
"The slavery of the Negroes began in iniquity ; a curse has attended it, and a curse will follow it. National vices will be punished with national calamities. Let us avoid these vices, that we may avoid the punishment which they deserve, and endeavor so to act as to secure the approbation and smiles of heaven.
" John Sutton organized in Woodford County, in 1791, an avowedly abolition Bap- tist congregation : "New Hope Church, where Sutton and Tarrant set up the first emancipating church in this part of the world." (Taylor's History of Ten Churches, 79.) 2 Spencer, History of Kentucky Baptists, Vol. I, p. 180; Tarrant's History of Eman- cipationists in Kentucky.
3 This very strong and temperate paper is printed in Bishop's Memoirs of Rev. David Rice, p. 385.
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" Holding men in Slavery is the National vice of Virginia, and while a part of that State we were partakers of the guilt. As a separate State we are just now come to the birth, and it depends upon our free choice whether we shall be born in this sin or innocent of it. We now have it in our power to adopt it as our national crime, or to bear a national testimony against it. I hope the latter will be our choice; that we shall wash our hands of this guilt, and not leave it in the power of a future legislature ever more to stain our reputation or our conscience with it." 1
Upon the assembling at Danville on 2d April, 1792, of that last convention in the long series of assemblies to which was intrusted the formation of a State Constitution, it was speedily ascertained that no serious differences existed among the delegates, except as regarded the recognition in the Constitution of the existence or perpetuity of negro slavery.
It is not difficult now to discern the power that overcame the strong public feeling-especially among the religious denominations-adverse to a continuance of slavery.
A new and strong and trained man made his first appear- ance in Kentucky politics as a member of that body. George Nicholas had but recently come from Virginia, but the fame of his abilities and the record of his public services had pre- ceded him. He had sustained debate against no less oppo- nents than Patrick Henry and George Mason, in the Vir- ginia Convention, and deservedly shared with Madison the
1 Bishop's Memoirs of Rice, pp. 417, 418.
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credit of carrying the vote that ratified the Federal Consti- tution.
He took charge, as if by common consent, of the serious work of the convention. The State Constitution of 1792 may be fairly regarded as his production. He was the prin- cipal debater on the floor, and the principal draftsman in committee.
His ablest opponent was the Rev. David Rice, his col- league from Mercer County. Rice, however, resigned on the 11th April, and his successor, Harry Innes, came into the convention too late to participate influentially in the debates.
When the vote came to be taken on the perfected draft of the Constitution, the question of slavery or no slavery in the new State was put to the direct issue.
The ninth Article of the Constitution, as prepared by Nicholas and passed through committee, read as follows :
"Article IX, Section 1. The legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of their owners, or with- out paying their owners, previous to such emancipation, a full equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated. They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to this State from bringing with them such persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States, so long as any person of the same age or description shall be continued in slavery by the laws of this State. That they shall pass laws to permit the owners of slaves to emancipate them, saving the rights of creditors and preventing them from
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becoming a charge to the county in which they reside. They shall have full power to prevent any slaves being brought into this State as merchan- dize. They shall have full power to prevent any slaves being brought into this State from a foreign country, and to prevent those from being brought into this State who have been, since the first day of January, One thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, or may hereafter be imported into any of the United States from a foreign country. And they shall have full power to pass such laws as may be necessary to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity, to provide for them necessary cloathing and provision, to abstain from all personal injuries to them extending to life or limb, and in case of their neglect or refusal to comply with the directions of such laws, to have such slave or slaves sold for the benefit of their owner or owners."
The system of slavery thus contemplated was designed to be as mild, as humane, and as much protected from traffic evils as possible, but it was to be emphatically perpetual, for no emancipation could be had without the assent of each particular owner of each individual slave.
In opposition to this Article a vote by yeas and nays was taken-the only one noted on the journal. Under date of Wednesday, 18th April, 1792, it is recorded that
"A motion was made by Mr. Taylor, of Mercer, and seconded by Mr. Smith, of Bourbon, to expunge the Ninth Article of the Constitution, respecting slavery, which was negatived; and the yeas & nays on the ques- tion were ordered to be entered on the Journals.
" The names of those who voted in the affirmative were : Mr. Andrew Hynes, Mr. Samuel Taylor, Mr. Jacob Froman, The Honorable Harry Innes, The Reverend John Bailey, the Reverend Benedict Swope, the Rev- erend Charles Kavanaugh, the Reverend George Smith, Mr. Robert Frier,
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the Reverend James Crawford, the Reverend James Garrard, Mr. James Smith, Mr. John McKinney, Mr. George Lewis, Mr. Miles W. Conway, and Mr. John Wilson.
"The names of those who voted in the negative were: Mr. President (Samuel McDowell), Mr. Benjamin Sebastian, Mr. John Campbell, Mr. Will- iam King, Mr. Matthew Walton, Mr. Joseph Hobbs, Mr. Cuthbert Harrison, Mr. George Nicholas, Mr. Benjamin Logan, Mr. Isaac Shelby, Mr. William Montgomery, Mr. Thomas Kennedy, Mr. Joseph Kennedy, Mr. Thomas Clay, Mr. Higgason Grubbs, Mr. Hubbard Taylor, Mr. Thomas Lewis, Mr. John Watkins, Mr. Richard Young, Mr. William Steele, the Honble Caleb Wallace, Mr. Robert Johnson, Mr. John Edwards, Mr. Benjamin Harrison, Mr. Robert Rankin, & Mr. Thomas Waring. Yeas 16; Nays 26." 1
" The six ministers who voted to expunge the article recognizing slavery were three Baptists (Bailey, Smith, and Garrard), one Presbyterian (Crawford), one " Dutch Presby- terian," as the phrase was (Swope), and one Methodist (Kavanaugh, an uncle of the late Methodist Bishop, H. H. Kavanaugh). The place of Rice (Presbyterian) had been filled, after his resignation, by Judge Innes. It is thus readily seen that the religious opinion was unanimous for abolition. The predominating ability, wealth, and political experi- ence of the convention was with their opponents, and its leadership by George Nicholas far surpassed any possible tactics of the minority. It seems strange that Wallace, Wal- ton, and Sebastian, who are known to have been emancipationists, should have voted to retain the ninth article with the feature of perpetuity so woven into it. It is to be explained by the dominating ability of Nicholas. The exclusion of slavery, so desira- ble and easy, and resting on so solid a foundation of popular opinion in 1792, was made practically impossible at the time of the revision of the Constitution in 1799, by rea- son of the rapid increase in the number of slaves and in the wealth represented by them. When the present Constitution was framed, in 1849, the burning issue was what was termed the "open clause," that is to say, a constitutional power to take meas- ures for ascertaining the sense of the people as to the extinction of slavery. This was rejected, and the perpetuity of the institution of slavery was considered secured. The further fastening of the system of African slavery upon the State was attempted by interpolating in the Bill of Rights a new declaration, that "the right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever." It required a civil war to correct the error made in 1792. The humble preacher delegates were wiser than their able opponents. It is to be noticed, as an evidence of their disinterestedness, that the preacher-members of the convention voted, without exception, for a constitutional provision disqualifying all ministers of religious societies from service in the legislature. (MS. Journal Convention of April, 1792.)
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