The Journal of Negro History Volume I Part 55

[10] Ibid., I, 365-366.

[11] In 1900 a writer in Pearson's Magazine in discussing race mixture in early Louisiana made some startling statements as to the results of the miscegenation of these stocks during the colonial period.

[12] Code Noir, 1724.

[13] Code Noir.

[14] Lebeau, De la condition des gens de couleur libres sous l'ancien regime, p. 49.

[15] Ibid., 49.

[16] Ibid., 50.

[17] Ibid., 51.

[18] In the treaty of 1803 between the newly acquired territory of Louisiana and the government of the United States, they and all mixed bloods were granted full citizens.h.i.+p.

[19] Most writers of our day adhere to this definition. See Grace King, "New Orleans, etc.," and Gayarre, "History of Louisiana."

[20] Lebeau, De la condition des gens de couleur libres sous l'ancien regime, pa.s.sim.

[21] Ibid., 60.

[22] Laws of Jamaica.

[23] Litigation on the subject of the definition of the free person of color reached its climax in the year of our Lord, 1909, when Judge Frank D.

Chretien defined the word Negro as differentiated from person of color as used in Louisiana. The case, as it was argued in court, was briefly this.

It was charged that one Treadway, a white man, was living in illegal relations with an octoroon, Josephine Lightell. The District Attorney claimed that any one having a trace of African blood in his veins, however slight, should be cla.s.sed as a Negro. Counsel for the defence had taken the position that Josephine Lightell had so little Negro blood in her veins that she could not be cla.s.sed as one. Judge Chretien held in his ruling that local opinion, custom and sentiment had previously agreed in holding that the black, and not the white blood settled the ethnological status of each person and that an octoroon, no less than a quadroon and a mulatto, had been considered a Negro. But he held that if the Caucasian wished to be considered the superior race, and that if his blood be considered the superior element in the infusion, then the Caucasian and not the Negro blood must determine the status of a person. The case went to the Supreme Court of Louisiana on an appeal from the decision of Judge Chretien who held that a mulatto is not a Negro in legal parlance. The Supreme Court in a decision handed down April 25, 1910, sustained the view of Judge Chretien. This decision was an interpretation of an act of 1908 which set forth a definition of the word Negro.--See State vs. Treadway, 126 Louisiana, 300.

[24] Gayarre, "History of Louisiana," I, 444, 448.

[25] Ibid., I, 365, 442, 454.

[26] Ibid., I, 448.

[27] Gayarre, "History of Louisiana," I, 435.

[28] Ibid., 440.

[29] Ibid., I, 444.

[30] Dumont, "Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane," 225, 226.

[31] Another interesting story is related by Dumont, a historian of Louisiana, who published a work in 1753. The colony was then under the administration of Gov. Kerlerec, whose opinion of colonial courage was not very high. The colony was without an executioner, and no white man could be found who would be willing to accept the office. It was decided finally by the council to force it upon a Negro blacksmith belonging to the Company of the Indies, named Jeannot, renowned for his nerve and strength. He was summoned and told that he was to be appointed executioner and made a free man at the same time. The stalwart fellow started back in anguish and horror, "What! cut off the heads of people who have never done me any harm?" He prayed, he wept, but saw at last that there was no escape from the inflexible will of his masters. "Very well," he said, rising from his knees, "wait a moment." He ran to his cabin, seized a hatchet with his left hand, laid his right hand on a block of wood and cut it off. Returning, without a word he exhibited the b.l.o.o.d.y stump to the gentlemen of the council. With one cry, it is said, they sprang to his relief, and his freedom was given him.--Dumont, "Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane," 244, 246.

The story is also told by Grace King of one slave, an excellent cook, who had once served a French governor. When, in one of her periodic transitions from one government to another, Louisiana became the property of Spain, the "Cruel" O'Reilly was made governor of the colony. He was execrated as were all things sent by Spain or pertaining to Spanish rule. However, having heard of the fame of the Negro cook, he sent for him. "You belong now," said he, "to the king of Spain, and until you are sold, I shall take you into my service."

"Do not dare it;" answered the slave, "you killed my master, and I would poison you." O'Reilly dismissed him unpunished.--Gayarre, "History of Louisiana," II, 344.

[32] Gayarre, "History of Louisiana," I, 480.

[33] Ibid., III, 108.

[34] Gayarre, "History of Louisiana," III, 108.

[35] Ibid., III, 126-132.

[36] Gayarre, "History of Louisiana," III, 348.

[37] Gayarre, "History of Louisiana," III, 354.

THE DEFEAT OF THE SECESSIONISTS IN KENTUCKY IN 1861

The treatment of the Border States in the crisis of 1861 has received from historians the same attention as Saxony, the objective point between Prussia and Austria in the Seven Years' War. Directing special attention to Kentucky requires some explanation. The possession of this commonwealth was for several reasons more important than that of some other border States. The transportation facilities afforded by the c.u.mberland and Tennessee rivers furnished the key to carrying out the plan to divide the South. The possession of the State by the Confederates was of strategic importance for the invasion of the North too for the reason that the Ordinance of 1787 had been so interpreted as to fix the boundary of Kentucky on the north side of the Ohio River. It was, moreover, the native State of Abraham Lincoln and it was important to have that commonwealth support this untrained backwoodsman whom most statesmen considered incapable of administering the affairs of the nation.

In the beginning, the situation was not the least encouraging to the Unionists. The Breckenridge Democrats had carried the State in 1859 on a platform favoring Southern rights. Their chief spokesman had become such a defender of their faith that in 1860 he was chosen to lead the radically proslavery party which had come to the point of so doubting the orthodoxy of their Northern adherents as to deem it advisable to separate from them. Unalterably in favor of the rights of the slave States, the leaders of this persuasion had expressed themselves in terms that could not be misunderstood.[1] One of their spokesmen Humphrey Marshall contended that slavery is not a creature of munic.i.p.al law. He believed that the inst.i.tution followed the flag. He wanted Union but only with that equality which involved the recognition of the right of property in slaves everywhere.[2] Speaking in the House of Representatives on January 30, 1861, John W. Stephenson, another of this faction, said on the same topic: "Equality underlaid the whole Federal structure, and protection to persons and property within the Federal jurisdiction, was the price of allegiance of the States to such General Government, as delegated and prescribed in the const.i.tution. Wherever the American banner floated upon the seas or land, all beneath it was ent.i.tled to the protection of the flag."[3]

On this question, their leader John C. Breckenridge, "a believer in the old Democratic creed and a supporter of the South and her inst.i.tutions,"[4]

took the same, if not higher ground. Referring to the Dred Scott decision in a speech delivered in Ashland, Kentucky, in 1859, Breckenridge said: "After this decision we had arrived at a point where we might reasonably expect tranquillity and peace. The equality of rights and property of all the states in the common Territory, having been stamped by the seal of judicial authority, all good citizens might well acquiesce."[5] When the Southern States seceded because of the threatened infringement of these rights, the President of the United States, according to Breckenridge, had no right to enlist men and no right to blockade the Southern ports, in short, no right to wage war on these commonwealths. Lincoln had thus overthrown const.i.tutional government. If he was trying to preserve the Union, he must do it in a const.i.tutional way. Breckenridge wanted the Union but contended that it would be no good without the Const.i.tution.[6] To sum up, as Southern Democrats they had helped to disrupt the Charleston Convention, and developing into a strict Southern rights party, they had through bolting made possible the election of Abraham Lincoln. They then finally joined the States' rights party, which, boldly declaring the election of Lincoln a just cause for the dissolution of the Union, undertook to secede.[7]

With such radical leaders in control it might seem strange that, in a State formed from an aristocratic commonwealth like Virginia and extending into the fertile region of the Mississippi, these protagonists of States'

rights did not turn Kentucky over to the Confederacy. Exactly what part did the rich slaveholders play during this crisis when the State was called upon to decide the question between the North and South? What was the position of such influential men as James B. Clay, George B. Hodge, Cerro Gordo Williams, T. P. Porter, Roger W. Hansom, and S. B. Buckner?[8]

Other representative citizens, however, had been equally outspoken in favor of the Union. Voicing the sentiment of the Union party, which on the eighth of January met in Louisville to take steps to support the Federal Government, Bell said: "Let us offer everything we can to avert the torrent of evil, but let us always stand ready to support our rights in the Union: the State is deeply and devotedly attached to the Union."[9]

Garrett Davis inquired: "Will you preserve the Union or rush into the vortex of revolution under the name of secession?"[10] J. T. Boyle said in the same convention that there could be no benefit or advantage, no civil or political rights, no interest of any kind whatever, secured by government in the Southern Confederacy which the people did not then enjoy in the "blessed Union formed by our fathers." In his opinion, it was the duty of Kentuckians "to stand by the Star Spangled Banner and cling to the Union."[11] Some of the most influential newspapers were fearlessly advocating the Union cause. Among others were the Frankfort _Daily Commonwealth_, the Louisville _Courier_ and the _Democrat_.

Exactly what support these leaders of the differing factions would obtain was determined by forces for centuries at work in that State. Southerners who thought that, because Kentucky was a slave State it should go with the South, had failed to take these causes into consideration. In the first place, not every slaveholder was an ardent proslavery agitator. There were masters who like Henry Clay considered slavery an evil and hoped to see it abolished, but while the majority of their fellow countrymen held on to it they did so too. Many Kentuckians, moreover, were like that restless cla.s.s of Westerners who, dissatisfied with the society based on slavery, had taken up land beyond the mountains, where the poor man could toil up from poverty.[12] Kentucky was the first section west of the Allegheny mountains settled by these daring adventurers because they were there cut off from the North by the French and from the South by the Spanish, and in Kentucky, a section hemmed in by these foreign possessions, the settlers were less liable to be disturbed. And even when the barrier of foreign claims had been removed, the movement of population from the East to the West took place along lines leading to the States later organized in the West rather than into Kentucky. The people of Kentucky, therefore, were not radically changed in a day by the influx of population. On the contrary, many of them, especially the mountaineers, have not changed since the days of Boone and Henderson. Some of them having left the uplands of the colonies because they were handicapped by slavery, were naturally opposed to the bold claims of that inst.i.tution in 1861. They, like the Westerners, learned to look to the General Government for the establishment of commonwealths, the building of forts, and the maintenance of troops,[13] and, therefore, adhered to it when it was threatened with destruction.

Another cause, moreover, was equally as potential. In Kentucky as in some other Southern States, there had grown up a considerable number of prosperous country towns, where resided lawyers, merchants, bankers, teachers, and mechanics, who had little property interest in slavery, who felt their own "intellectual superiority to the country squires and their fox-hunting, horse-racing, quarrelsome sons, and who consequently a.s.serted social independence of them and social equality with them."[14] They were hostile to the aristocratic masters, whom they generally denounced as "oligarchs," "slavocrats," "Lords of the Lash," and "Terror Engenders."[15]

This mercantile and professional cla.s.s, inspired by such men as Hinton Rowan Helper, contemplated the removal of the Negroes and the bringing of white laborers into the South.[16]

In view of this cleavage, it was difficult in the beginning of the struggle to characterize the situation. There were unconditional Secessionists and unconditional Union men. Judging from the condition then obtaining, no one could tell exactly which way the State would go. "Sympathy, blood, and the community of social feeling growing out of slavery," says one, "inclined her to the South; her political faith which Clay more than any other man had inspired her with and which Crittenden now loyally represented held her fast to the Union."[17] Many of the people, though believing in States'

rights, did not think that the grievances of the South were such as to justify secession. At the same time they opposed "coercion," and since a reconstructed Union was impossible they would have solved the difficulty by peaceful separation. Writing to Gen. McClellan June 8, 1861, Garrett Davis said: "The sympathy for the South and the inclination to secession among our people is much stronger in the southwestern corner of the state than it is in any other part, and as you proceed toward the upper section of the Ohio and our Virginia line, it gradually becomes weaker until it is almost wholly lost.... I doubt not that two thirds of our people are unconditionally for the Union. The timid are for it and they shrink from convulsion and civil war, while all the bold, the reckless, and the bankrupt are for secession."[18] This categorical distinction, however, is hardly right. There were Kentuckians of representative families on both sides in all parts of the State except in the extreme West.[19] A careful study of the facts, however, leads one to the conclusion that even in the beginning there were more Unionists than Secessionists. The Unionists, unhappily, were not organized while the Secessionists were led by the State officials, chief among whom was Governor Magoffin.

When the Southern States began to secede Governor Magoffin called a special session of the State legislature, thinking that he could have a secession convention called. He said in part: "I therefore submit to your consideration the propriety of providing for the election of delegates to a convention to be a.s.sembled at an early day to which shall be referred for full and final determination the future of the Federal and interstate relations of Kentucky." He further said: "Kentucky will not be an indifferent observer of the force policy. The seceding States have not in their haste and inconsiderate action our approval, but their cause is our right and they have our sympathies. The people of Kentucky will never stand by with folded arms while those States are struggling for their const.i.tutional rights and resisting oppression and being subjugated to an anti-slavery government."[20] He believed that the idea of coercion, when applied to great political communities, is revolting to a free people, contrary to the spirit of our inst.i.tutions, and if successful would endanger the liberties of the people.[21] But the legislature did not provide for such a convention. On the eleventh of February this body adjourned. It rea.s.sembled on the twentieth of March and remained in session until the fourth of April, but still these important matters were not decided. Pursuant to another call of the Governor, it rea.s.sembled on the 6th of May and sat until the twenty-fourth of May when it adjourned.

On the second of September the legislature elected in August came in, but still the important question as to what should be done hung in the balance. At first there came up the resolutions introduced by George W.

Ewing on the twenty-first of January, expressing regret that certain States had furnished men and money for the coercion of the seceded States, and requesting the Governor of Kentucky to notify such States that should attempts be made to coerce these commonwealths, Kentucky would join the South.[22] This resolution pa.s.sed the House but did not pa.s.s the whole legislature as so many have said. A resolution for calling a convention to amend the Const.i.tution of the United States was pa.s.sed.[23] Several distinguished men of Kentucky sat in this convention which was in session from the fourth to the twenty-second of February without accomplis.h.i.+ng anything.

The majority of Kentuckians were then neutral. There were two cla.s.ses of neutrals, however. This was easily possible since neutrality meant one thing to one man and a different thing to another. Each faction looked forward to the adoption of this policy as a victory over the other. The Unionists accepted it as the best policy, not knowing that, taking such a position, they would aid the Confederacy. Even John J. Crittenden had this idea. He said: "If Kentucky and the other border States should a.s.sume this att.i.tude, war between the two sections of the country would be averted and the Confederate states after a few years' trial of their experiment would return voluntarily to the Union." [24]

Neutrality was considered a necessity for another reason; namely, the expected short duration of the war. No one believed at first that the war would last long. Even Lincoln thought that it would be over in ninety days. Some, therefore, felt that Kentucky would be foolish to cause blood to be shed on her soil when the war could easily be kept out of the State three months. This sentiment, however, must not be misunderstood as evincing a lack of interest in the Union, for in the address declaring for neutrality these same leaders said that the dismemberment of the Union was no remedy for existing evils but an aggravation of them all.[25] To many Unionists neutrality meant going slowly in the right direction. It was in keeping with Lincoln's plan not to go so rapidly toward "coercion" in Kentucky as he had in the other border States.

How then did the neutrality policy work out? On the twenty-ninth of January R. T. Jacob introduced in the lower house of the legislature a resolution declaring that the proper position of Kentucky was that of a mediator between the sections, and that as an umpire she would remain firm and impartial in that day of trial to their "beloved country that by counsel and mediation she might aid in restoring peace and harmony and brotherly love." Giving the reasons for adopting such a policy Jacob said: