History of Morgan's Cavalry. Duke Basil Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ be made the battle-ground and subjected to the last horrors and desolation of war. The political education of the Kentuckians, also, disposed them to enter upon such a contest with extreme reluctance and hesitation.

      Originally a portion of Virginia, settled chiefly by emigration from that State, her population partook of the characteristics and were imbued with the feelings which so strongly prevailed in the mother commonwealth.

      From Virginia, the first generation of Kentucky statesmen derived those opinions which became the political creed of the Southern people, and were promulgated in the celebrated resolutions of '98, which gave shape and consistency to the doctrine of States' Rights, and popular expression to that construction of the relations of the several States to the General Government (under the Federal Constitution), so earnestly insisted upon by the master-minds of Virginia. The earlier population of Kentucky was peculiarly inclined to adopt and cherish such opinions, by the promptings of that nature which seems common to all men descended from the stock of the "Old Dominion," that craving for the largest individual independence, and disposition to assert and maintain in full measure every personal right, which has always made the people of the Southern and Western States so jealous of outside interference with their local affairs. It was natural that a people, animated by such a spirit, should push their preference for self-government even to extremes; that they should esteem their most valued franchises only safe when under their own entire custody and control; that they should prefer that their peculiar institutions should be submitted only to domestic regulation, and that the personal liberty, which they prized above all their possessions, should be restrained only by laws enacted by legislators chosen from among themselves, and executed by magistrates equally identified with themselves and appreciative of their instincts.

      In short, they were strongly attached to their State Governments, and were not inclined to regard as beneficent, nor, even exactly legitimate, any interference with them, upon the part of the General Government, and desired to see the powers of the latter exercised only for the "common defense and general welfare."

      Without presuming to declare them correct or erroneous, it may be safely asserted that such were the views which prevailed in Kentucky at a period a little subsequent to her settlement.

      This decided and almost universal sentiment was first shaken, and the minds of the people began to undergo some change, about the time of, and doubtless in consequence of, the detection of the Burr conspiracy. Burr had been identified with the party which advocated the extreme State Rights doctrines, and his principal confederates were men of the same political complexion.

      The utter uselessness of his scheme, even if successful, and the little prospect of any benefit accruing from it, unless to the leading adventurers, had disposed all the more sober minded to regard it with distrust. And when it became apparent that it had been concocted for the gratification of one man's ambition, the very people whom it had been part of the plan to flatter with hopes of the most brilliant advantages, immediately conceived for it the most intense aversion.

      The odium into which Burr and his associates immediately fell, became, in some measure, attached to the political school to which they had belonged, and men's minds began to be unsettled upon the very political tenets, in the propriety and validity of which they had previously so implicitly believed. The able Federalist leaders in the State, pursued and improved the advantage thus offered them, and for the first time in the history of Kentucky, that party showed evidence of ability to cope with its rival. Doubtless, also, the effect of Mr. Madison's attempt to explain away the marrow and substance of the famous resolutions, which told so injuriously against the State Rights party every where, contributed, at a still later day, to weaken that party in Kentucky; but the vital change in the political faith of Kentucky, was wrought by Henry Clay. All previous interruptions to the opinions which she had acquired as her birthright from Virginia, were but partial, and would have been ephemeral, but the spell which the great magician cast over his people was like the glamour of mediæval enchantment. It bound them in helpless but delighted acquiescence in the will of the master. Their vision informed them, not of objects as they were, but as he willed that they should seem, and his patients received, at his pleasure and with equal confidence, the true or the unreal. In fact, the undoubted patriotism and spotless integrity of Mr. Clay, so aided the effect of his haughty will and superb genius, that his influence amounted to fascination. Although himself, in early life, an advocate of the principles of (what has been since styled) the Jeffersonian school of Democracy, he became gradually, but thoroughly, weaned from his first opinions, and a convert to the dogmas of the school of politics which he had once so ably combatted. The author of the American System, the advocate of the United States Bank, the champion of the New England manufacturing and commercial interests, with their appropriate and necessary train of protective tariffs, bounties and monopolies, could have little sympathy with the ideas that the several States could, and should, protect and develope their own interests without Federal assistance, that the General Government was the servant of all the States and not the guardian and dry nurse of a few – the doctrine, in short, of "State Sovereignty and Federal Agency." Mr. Clay fairly and emphatically announced his political faith in word and deed. He declared that he "owed a paramount allegiance to the whole Union: a subordinate one to his own State," and, throughout the best part of his long political life, he wrought faithfully for interests distinct from, if not adverse to, those of his own State and section. His influence, however, in his own State, has determined, perhaps forever, her destiny. If he did not educate the people of Kentucky (as has been so often charged) to "defer principle to expediency," he at least taught them to study the immediate policy rather than the ultimate effect of every measure that they were called to consider, and to seek the material prosperity of the hour at the expense, even, of future safety. He taught his generation to love the Union, not as an "agency" through which certain benefits were to be derived, but as an "end" which was to be adhered to, no matter what results flowed from it.

      Mr. Clay sincerely believed that in the union of the States resided the surest guarantees of the safety, honor, and prosperity of each, and he contemplated with horror and aversion any thought of disunion. His own lofty and heroic nature could harbor no feeling which was not manly and brave, but, in striving to stimulate and fortify in his people the same love of union which he entertained himself, he taught many Kentuckians to so dread the evils of war, as to lose all fear of other and as great evils, and to be willing to purchase exemption from civil strife by facile and voluntary submission. After the death of Mr. Clay, Kentucky, no longer subjected to his personal influence, began to forget it.

      In 1851, John C. Breckinridge had been elected to Congress from Mr. Clay's district, while the latter still lived, and beating one of his warmest friends and supporters. Under the leadership of Mr. Breckinridge, the Democratic party in Kentucky rallied and rapidly gained ground. During the "Know-nothing" excitement, the old Whigs, who had nearly all joined the Know-nothing or American party, seemed about to regain their ascendency, but that excitement ebbing as suddenly as it had arisen, left the Democracy in indisputable power. In 1856, Kentucky cast her Presidential vote for Buchanan and Breckinridge by nearly seven thousand majority. Mr. Breckinridge's influence had, by this time, become predominant in the State, and was felt in every election. The troubles in Kansas and the agitation in Congress had rendered the Democratic element in Kentucky more determined, and inclined them more strongly to take a Southern view of all the debated questions. The John Brown affair exasperated her people in common with that of every other slaveholding community, and led to the organization of the State-guard.

      Created because of the strong belief that similar attempts would be repeated, and upon a larger scale, and that, quite likely, Kentucky would be selected as a field of operations, it is not surprising that the State-guard should have expected an enemy only from the North, whence, alone, would come the aggressions it was organized to resist, and that it should have conceived a feeling of antagonism for the Northern, and an instinctive sympathy for the Southern, people.

      These sentiments were intensified by the language of the Northern press and pulpit, and the commendation and encouragement of such enterprises as the Harper's Ferry raid, which were to be heard throughout the North.

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