Part 12

_History._--The settlement and the development of that part of the United States west of the Alleghany Mountains has probably been the most notable feature of American history since the close of the Seven Years' War (1763). Kentucky was the first settlement in this movement, the first state west of the Alleghany Mountains admitted into the Union. In 1763 the Kentucky country was claimed by the Cherokees as a part of their hunting grounds, by the Six Nations (Iroquois) as a part of their western conquests, and by Virginia as a part of the territory granted to her by her charter of 1609, although it was actually inhabited only by a few Chickasaws near the Mississippi river and by a small tribe of Shawnees in the north, opposite what is now Portsmouth, Ohio. The early settlers were often attacked by Indian raiders from what is now Tennessee or from the country north of the Ohio, but the work of colonization would have been far more difficult if those Indians had lived in the Kentucky region itself. Dr Thomas Walker (1715-1794), as an agent and surveyor of the Loyal Land Company, made an exploration in 1750 into the present state from the Cumberland Gap, in search of a suitable place for settlement but did not get beyond the mountain region. In the next year Christopher Gist, while on a similar mission for the Ohio Company, explored the country westward from the mouth of the Scioto river. In 1752 John Finley, an Indian trader, descended the Ohio river in a canoe to the site of Louisville. It was Finley's descriptions that attracted Daniel Boone, and soon after Boone's first visit, in 1767, travellers through the Kentucky region became numerous. The first permanent English settlement was established at Harrodsburg in 1774 by James Harrod, and in October of the same year the Ohio Indians, having been defeated by Virginia troops in the battle of Point Pleasant (in what is now West Virginia), signed a treaty by which they surrendered their claims south of the Ohio river. In March 1775 Richard Henderson and some North Carolina land speculators met about 1200 Cherokee Indians in council on the Watauga river and concluded a treaty with them for the purchase of all the territory south of the Ohio river and between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. The purchase was named Transylvania, and within less than a month after the treaty was signed, Boone, under its auspices, founded a settlement at Boonesborough which became the headquarters of the colony. The title was declared void by the Virginia government in 1778, but Henderson and his associates received 200,000 acres in compensation, and all sales made to actual settlers were confirmed. During the War of Independence the colonists were almost entirely neglected by Virginia and were compelled to defend themselves against the Indians who were often under British leadership. Boonesborough was attacked in April and in July 1777 and in August 1778. Bryant's (or Bryan's) Station, near Lexington, was besieged in August 1782 by about 600 Indians under the notorious Simon Girty, who after raising the siege drew the defenders, numbering fewer than 200, into an ambush and in the battle of Blue Licks which ensued the Kentuckians lost about 67 killed and 7 prisoners. Kentucky county, practically coterminous with the present state of Kentucky and embracing all the territory claimed by Virginia south of the Ohio river and west of Big Sandy Creek and the ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, was one of three counties which was formed out of Fincastle county in 1776. Four years later, this in turn was divided into three counties, Jefferson, Lincoln and Fayette, but the name Kentucky was revived in 1782 and was given to the judicial district which was then organized for these three counties. The War of Independence was followed by an extensive immigration from Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina[6] of a population of which fully 95%, excluding negro slaves, were of pure English, Scotch or Scotch-Irish descent. The manners, customs and institutions of Virginia were transplanted beyond the mountains. There was the same political rivalry between the slave-holding farmers of the Blue Grass Region and the "poor whites" of the mountain districts that there was in Virginia between the tide-water planters and the mountaineers. Between these extremes were the small farmers of the "Barrens"[7] in Kentucky and of the Piedmont Region in Virginia. The aristocratic influences in both states have always been on the Southern and Democratic side, but while they were strong enough in Virginia to lead the state into secession they were unable to do so in Kentucky.

At the close of the War of Independence the Kentuckians complained because the mother state did not protect them against their enemies and did not give them an adequate system of local government. Nine conventions were held at Danville from 1784 to 1790 to demand separation from Virginia. The Virginia authorities expressed a willingness to grant the demand provided Congress would admit the new district into the Union as a state. The delay, together with the proposal of John Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and commissioner to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Spanish envoy, to surrender navigation rights on the lower Mississippi for twenty-five years in order to remove the one obstacle to the negotiations, aroused so much feeling that General James Wilkinson and a few other leaders began to intrigue not only for a separation from Virginia, but also from the United States, and for the formation of a close alliance with the Spanish at New Orleans. Although most of the settlers were too loyal to be led into any such plot they generally agreed that it might have a good effect by bringing pressure to bear upon the Federal government. Congress passed a preliminary act in February 1791, and the state was formally admitted into the Union on the 1st of June 1792. In the Act of 1776 for dividing Fincastle county, Virginia, the ridge of the Cumberland Mountains was named as a part of the east boundary of Kentucky; and now that this ridge had become a part of the boundary between the states of Virginia and Kentucky they, in 1799, appointed a joint commission to run the boundary line on this ridge. A dispute with Tennessee over the southern boundary was settled in a similar manner in 1820.[8] The constitution of 1792 provided for manhood suffrage and for the election of the governor and of senators by an electoral college. General Isaac Shelby was the first governor. The people still continued to have troubles with the Indians and with the Spanish at New Orleans. The Federal government was slow to act, but its

## action when taken was effective. The power of the Indians was overthrown

by General Anthony Wayne's victory in the battle of Fallen Timbers, fought the 20th of August 1794 near the rapids of the Maumee river a few miles above the site of Toledo, Ohio; and the Mississippi question was settled temporarily by the treaty of 1795 and permanently by the purchase of Louisiana in 1803. In 1798-1799 the legislature passed the famous Kentucky Resolutions in protest against the alien and sedition acts.

For several years the Anti-Federalists or Republicans had contended that the administration at Washington had been exercising powers not warranted by the constitution, and when Congress had passed the alien and sedition laws the leaders of that party seized upon the event as a proper occasion for a spirited public protest which took shape principally in resolutions passed by the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. The original draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 was prepared by Vice-President Thomas Jefferson, although the fact that he was the author of them was kept from the public until he acknowledged it in 1821. They were introduced in the House of Representatives by John Breckinridge on the 8th of November, were passed by that body with some amendments but with only one dissenting vote on the 10th, were unanimously concurred in by the Senate on the 13th, and were approved by Governor James Garrard on the 16th. The first resolution was a statement of the ultra states'-rights view of the relation of the states to the Federal government[9] and subsequent resolutions declare the alien and sedition laws unconstitutional and therefore "void and of no force," principally on the ground that they provided for an exercise of powers which were reserved to the state. The resolutions further declare that "this Commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-states are, tamely to submit to undelegated and therefore unlimited powers in no man or body of men on earth," and that "these and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these states into revolution and blood." Copies of the resolutions were sent to the governors of the various states, to be laid before the different state legislatures, and replies were received from Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia, but all except that from Virginia were unfavourable. Nevertheless the Kentucky legislature on the 22nd of November 1799 reaffirmed in a new resolution the principles it had laid down in the first series, asserting in this new resolution that the state "does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact [the Constitution], agreeably to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last to seek its dissolution," but that "the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing [short] of _despotism_--since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the _Constitution_, would be the measure of their powers," "that the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the infraction," and "that a _nullification by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument is the rightful remedy_." These measures show that the state was Democratic-Republican in its politics and pro-French in its sympathies, and that it was inclined to follow the leadership of that state from which most of its people had come.

The constitution of 1799 adopted the system of choosing the governor and senators by popular vote and deprived the supreme court of its original jurisdiction in land cases. The Burr conspiracy (1804-1806) aroused some excitement in the state. Many would have followed Burr in a filibustering attack upon the Spanish in the South-West, but scarcely any would have approved of a separation of Kentucky from the Federal Union. No battles were fought in Kentucky during the War of 1812, but her troops constituted the greater part of the forces under General William Henry Harrison. They took part in the operations at Fort Wayne, Fort Meigs, the river Raisin and the Thames.

The Democratic-Republicans controlled the politics of the state without any serious opposition until the conflict in 1820-1826, arising from the demands for a more adequate system of currency and other measures for the relief of delinquent debtors divided the state into what were known as the relief and anti-relief parties. After nearly all the forty-six banks chartered by the legislature in 1818 had been wrecked in the financial panic of 1819, the legislature in 1820 passed a series of laws designed for the benefit of the debtor class, among them one making state bank notes a legal tender for all debts. A decision of the Clark county district court declaring this measure unconstitutional was affirmed by the court of appeals. The legislature in 1824 repealed all of the laws creating the existing court of appeals and then established a new one. This precipitated a bitter campaign between the anti-relief or "old court" party and the relief or "new court" party, in which the former was successful. The old court party followed the lead of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams in national politics, and became National Republicans and later Whigs. The new court party followed Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren and became Democrats. The electoral vote of the state was cast for Jackson in 1828 and for Clay in 1832. During the next thirty years Clay's conservative influence dominated the politics of the state.[10] Kentucky voted the Whig ticket in every presidential election from 1832 until the party made its last campaign in 1852. When the Whigs were destroyed by the slavery issue some of them immediately became Democrats, but the majority became Americans, or Know-Nothings. They elected the governor in 1855 and almost succeeded in carrying the state for their presidential ticket in 1856. In 1860 the people of Kentucky were drawn toward the South by their interest in slavery and by their social relations, and toward the North by business ties and by a national sentiment which was fostered by the Clay traditions. They naturally assumed the leadership in the Constitutional Union movement of 1860, casting the vote of the state for Bell and Everett. After the election of President Lincoln they also led in the movement to secure the adoption of the Crittenden Compromise or some other peaceful solution of the difficulties between the North and the South.

A large majority of the state legislature, however, were Democrats, and in his message to this body, in January 1861, Governor Magoffin, also a Democrat, proposed that a convention be called to determine "the future of Federal and inter-state relations of Kentucky;" later too, in reply to the president's call for volunteers, he declared, "Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States." Under these conditions the Unionists asked only for the maintenance of neutrality, and a resolution to this effect was carried by a bare majority--48 to 47. Some of the secessionists took this as a defeat and left the state immediately to join the Confederate ranks. In the next month there was an election of congressmen, and an anti-secession candidate was chosen in nine out of ten districts. An election in August of one-half the Senate and all of the House of Representatives resulted in a Unionist majority in the new legislature of 103 to 35, and in September, after Confederate troops had begun to invade the state, Kentucky formally declared its allegiance to the Union. From September 1861 to the fall of Fort Donelson in February 1862 that part of Kentucky which is south and west of the Green River was occupied by the Confederate army under General A. S. Johnston, and at Russellville in that district a so-called "sovereignty convention" assembled on the 18th of November. This body, composed mostly of Kentucky men who had joined the Confederate army, passed an ordinance of secession, elected state officers, and sent commissioners to the Confederate Congress, which body voted on the 9th of December to admit Kentucky into the Confederacy. Throughout the war Kentucky was represented in the Confederate Congress--representatives and senators being elected by Confederate soldiers from the state. The officers of this "provisional government," headed by G. W. Johnson, who had been elected "governor," left the state when General A. S. Johnston withdrew; Johnson himself was killed at Shiloh, but an attempt was subsequently made by General Bragg to install this government at Frankfort. General Felix K. Zollicoffer (1812-1862) had entered the south-east part of the state through Cumberland Gap in September, and later with a Confederate force of about 7000 men attempted the invasion of central Kentucky, but in October 1861 he met with a slight repulse at Wild Cat Mountain, near London, Laurel county, and on the 19th of January 1862, in an engagement near Mill Springs, Wayne county, with about an equal force under General George H. Thomas, he was killed and his force was utterly routed. In 1862 General Braxton Bragg in command of the Confederates in eastern Tennessee, eluded General Don Carlos Buell, in command of the Federal Army of the Ohio stationed there, and entering Kentucky in August 1862 proceeded slowly toward Louisville, hoping to win the state to the Confederate cause and gain recruits for the Confederacy in the state. His main army was preceded by a division of about 15,000 men under General Edmund Kirby Smith, who on the 30th of August defeated a Federal force under General Wm. Nelson near Richmond and threatened Cincinnati. Bragg met with little opposition on his march, but Buell, also marching from eastern Tennessee, reached Louisville first (Sept. 24), turned on Bragg, and forced him to withdraw. On his retreat, Bragg attempted to set up a Confederate government at Frankfort, and Richard J. Hawes, who had been chosen as G. W. Johnson's successor, was actually "inaugurated," but naturally this state "government" immediately collapsed. On the 8th of October Buell and Bragg fought an engagement at Perryville which, though tactically indecisive, was a strategic victory for Buell; and thereafter Bragg withdrew entirely from the state into Tennessee. This was the last serious attempt on a large scale by the Confederates to win Kentucky; but in February 1863 one of General John H. Morgan's brigades made a raid on Mount Sterling and captured it; in March General Pegram made a raid into Pulaski county; in March 1864 General N. B. Forrest assaulted Fort Anderson at Paducah but failed to capture it; and in June General Morgan made an unsuccessful attempt to take Lexington.

Although the majority of the people sympathized with the Union, the emancipation of the slaves without compensation even to loyal owners, the arming of negro troops, the arbitrary imprisonment of citizens and the interference of Federal military officials in purely civil affairs aroused so much feeling that the state became strongly Democratic, and has remained so almost uniformly since the war. Owing to the panic of 1893, distrust of the free silver movement and the expenditure of large campaign funds, the Republicans were successful in the gubernational election of 1895 and the presidential election of 1896. The election of 1899 was disputed. William S. Taylor, Republican, was inaugurated governor on the 12th of December, but the legislative committee on contests decided in favour of the Democrats. Governor-elect Goebel was shot by an assassin on the 30th of January 1900, was sworn into office on his deathbed, and died on the 3rd of February. Taylor fled the state to escape trial on the charge of murder. Lieutenant-Governor Beckham filled out the unexpired term and was re-elected in 1903. In 1907 the Republicans again elected their candidate for governor.

GOVERNORS OF KENTUCKY

Isaac Shelby Democratic-Republican 1792-1796 James Garrard " " 1796-1804 Christopher Greenup " " 1804-1808 Charles Scott " " 1808-1812 Isaac Shelby " " 1812-1816 George Madison* " " 1816 Gabriel Slaughter (acting) " " 1816-1820 John Adair " " 1820-1824 Joseph Desha " " 1824-1828 Thomas Metcalfe National " 1828-1832 John Breathitt* Democrat 1832-1834 James T. Morehead (acting) " 1834-1836 James Clark* Whig 1836 Charles A. Wickliffe (acting) " 1836-1840 Robert P. Letcher " 1840-1844 William Owsley " 1844-1848 John J. Crittenden[+] " 1848-1850 John L. Helm[+] Democrat 1850-1851 Lazarus W. Powell " 1851-1855 Charles S. Morehead American 1855-1859 Beriah Magoffin Democrat 1859-1862 James F. Robinson " 1862-1863 Thomas E. Bramlette " 1863-1867 John L. Helm* " 1867 John W. Stevenson[++] " 1867-1871 Preston H. Leslie[++] " 1871-1875 James B. McCreary " 1875-1879 Luke P. Blackburn " 1879-1883 J. Proctor Knott " 1883-1887 Simon B. Buckner " 1887-1891 John Y. Brown " 1891-1895 William O. Bradley Republican 1895-1899 William S. Taylor§ " 1899-1900 William Goebel* Democrat 1900 J. C. W. Beckham " 1900-1907 Augustus E. Willson Republican 1907-

* Died in office.

[+] Governor Crittenden resigned on the 31st of July to become Attorney-General of the United States and John L. Helm served out the unexpired term.

[++] Governor Stevenson resigned on the 13th of February 1871 to become U.S. Senator from Kentucky. P. H. Leslie filled out the remainder of the term and was elected in 1871 for a full term.

§ Taylor's election was contested by Goebel, who received the certificate of election.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For descriptions of physical features and accounts of natural resources see _Reports of the Kentucky Geological Survey_, the _Biennial Reports of the Bureau of Agriculture, Labor and Statistics_, the _Reports_ of the United States Census and various publications of the U.S. Geological Survey, and other publications listed in Bulletin 301 (_Bibliography and Index of North American Geology_ for 1901-1905) and other bibliographies of the Survey. For an early description, see Gilbert Imlay, _A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America_ (London, 3rd ed., 1797), in which John Filson's "Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke" (1784) is reprinted. For a brief description of the Blue Grass Region, see James Lane Allen's _The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky and other Kentucky Articles_ (New York, 1900). An account of the social and industrial life of the people in the "mountain" districts is given in William H. Haney's _The Mountain People of Kentucky_ (Cincinnati, 1906). For administration, see the _Official Manual for the Use of the Courts, State and County Officials and General Assembly of the State of Kentucky_ (Lexington), which contains the Constitution of 1891; _The Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention ... of 1849_ (Frankfort, 1849); _The Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1890_ (4 vols., Frankfort, 1890); B. H. Young, _History and Texts of Three Constitutions of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1890); J. F. Bullitt and John Feland, _The General Statutes of Kentucky_ (Frankfort and Louisville, 1877, revised editions, 1881, 1887); and the _Annual Reports_ of state officers and boards. For history see R. M. McElroy's _Kentucky in the Nation's History_ (New York, 1909, with bibliography); or (more briefly) N. S. Shaler's _Kentucky_ (Boston, 1885), in the American Commonwealths Series. John M. Brown's _The Political Beginnings of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1889) is a good monograph dealing with the period before 1792; it should be compared with Thomas M. Green's _The Spanish Conspiracy: A Review of Early Spanish Movements in the Southwest_ (Cincinnati, 1891), written in reply to it. Among older histories are Humphrey Marshall, _The History of Kentucky ... and the Present State of the Country_ (2 vols., Frankfort, 1812, 1824), extremely Federalistic in tone; Mann Butler, _History of Kentucky from its Exploration and Settlement by the Whites to the close of the Southwestern Campaign of 1813_ (Louisville, 1834; 2nd ed., Cincinnati, 1836), and Lewis Collins, _The History of Kentucky_ (2 vols., revised edition, Covington, Ky., 1874), a valuable store-house of facts, the basis of Shaler's work. E. D. Warfield's _The Kentucky Resolutions_ of 1798 (New York, 2nd ed., 1887) is an excellent monograph. For the Civil War history see "Campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee," in the 7th volume of _Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts_ (Boston, 1908); Thomas Speed, _The Union Cause in Kentucky_ (New York, 1907); Basil W. Duke, _History of Morgan's Cavalry_ (Cincinnati, 1867), and general works on the history of the war. See also Alvin F. Lewis, _History of Higher Education in Kentucky_, in Circulars of Information of the U.S. Bureau of Education (Washington, 1899), and R. G. Thwaites, _Daniel Boone_ (New York, 1902). There is much valuable material in the _Register_ (Frankfort, 1903 seq.) of the Kentucky State Historical Society, and especially in the publications of the Filson Club of Louisville. Among the latter are R. T. Durrett's _John Filson, the first Historian of Kentucky_ (1884); Thomas Speed, _The Wilderness Road_ (1886); W. H. Perrin, _The Pioneer Press of Kentucky_ (1888); G. W. Ranck, _Boonesborough: Its Founding, Pioneer Struggles, Indian Experiences, Transylvania Days and Revolutionary Annals_ (1901), and _The Centenary of Kentucky_ (1892), containing an address, "The State of Kentucky: its Discovery, Settlement, Autonomy and Progress in a Hundred Years," by Reuben T. Durrett.

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