Kentucky Rising: Democracy, Slavery, and Culture from the Early Republic to the Civil War

By James A. Ramage and Andrea S. Watkins

“The authors integrate the cultural, social, economic, and military history of the state into a highly readable, interesting story of antebellum Kentucky” (Marion Lucas, author of A History of Blacks in Kentucky).
 
Kentucky Rising presents a comprehensive view of the commonwealth in the sixty years before the Civil War. Covering everything from architecture and entertainment to the War of 1812 and the politics of slavery, historians James A. Ramage and Andrea S. Watkins explore this crucial but often overlooked period to reveal an era of great optimism and progress.
 
Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Ramage and Watkins demonstrate that the eyes of the nation often focused on Kentucky, which was perceived as a leader among the states before the Civil War. Globally oriented Kentuckians were determined to transform the frontier into a network of communities exporting to the world market and dedicated to the new republic. Kentucky Rising offers a valuable new perspective on the eras of slavery and the Civil War.
 
“An outstanding, beautifully written book that centers on Kentucky's contributions to the nation during the antebellum era.” —Bowling Green Daily News

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9780813140544

Book preview

KENTUCKY RISING

Democracy, Slavery, and Culture

from the Early Republic

to the Civil War

JAMES A. RAMAGE

AND ANDREA S. WATKINS

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

Published by The University Press of Kentucky

and The Kentucky Historical Society

Published by The University Press of Kentucky and The Kentucky Historical Society

Copyright © 2011 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

All rights reserved.

Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

www.kentuckypress.com

15 14 13 12 11    5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting

the requirements of the American National Standard

for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

To Rachel Watkins

Contents

Introduction

1. Henry Clay, Part One: American Hero

2. Henry Clay, Part Two: Champion of the Union

3. Art and Architecture: Where Artists Found a Home

4. Politics, Stump Speaking, and How the West Was Won

5. Half Horse and Half Alligator: War of 1812

6. Steamboats, Entertainment, Journalism, and Culture

7. Religion and Women: Toward a More Compassionate Home Life

8. Mexican War: Honor Reconfirmed

9. Surgery, Medical Botany, and Science: 1800–1825

10. Calomel, Cholera, and Science: 1825–1865

11. The Experience of Slavery

12. The Politics of Slavery

13. Civil War, Part One: Fighting Spirit, Divided Families, and the Confederate War of Proclamations

14. Civil War, Part Two: Union War of Pacification

15. Civil War, Part Three: Lincoln's War on Slavery

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations follow page

Introduction

Parents in Kentucky and throughout the United States in the 1850s recommended Henry Clay as a role model for their young sons; they said that the great Kentucky statesman was an example of self-reliance, meaningful and unselfish public service, and success without formal schooling or powerful connections. He was Kentucky's brightest star, a world-famous hero and champion of liberty who, when he died on June 29, 1852, was the most popular man in America. Pastors recommended him as an ideal, self-sacrificing Christian husband and father who joined the Episcopal Church and began taking communion at the age of seventy. Clay's career and the national legend surrounding him symbolize one of the themes running through this study—Kentucky had a relatively elevated status compared with the other states in the first half of the nineteenth century. We found evidence that Kentucky ranked near the top in respect among the states after the War of 1812 and that this prominence continued through 1860. Kentucky was an important center of higher education, and college students came into the state to study from fourteen states, including Virginia and others on the Atlantic coast; by 1840, Kentucky had ten colleges, more than Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, or Missouri.¹ Two medical schools were thriving by then—Transylvania University's Medical Department and the Louisville Medical Institute, forerunner of the Medical Department of the University of Louisville—and the combined enrollment was 460 students, second only to Pennsylvania.²

Another theme running throughout these years is that state governors and journalists in the eastern United States encouraged their citizens to emulate Kentuckians as the ideal models of patriotism and nationalistic military spirit. Beginning on the Indian frontier, Kentucky militiamen came to be known as the greatest warriors on the continent; when their reputation was transformed into legend, they were portrayed as great monsters, half alligator and half horse. When Kentuckians contributed to the victory against the larger, better-trained, and better-equipped Mexican army in the mountain pass at Buena Vista, in Kentucky they were compared to the three hundred Spartans who gave their lives for Greece in the narrow pass at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. The challenging side of these myths was that nearly every young man realized that, at the earliest opportunity, he was expected to reconfirm Kentucky tradition and charge into battle to gain honor for himself, his family, and the commonwealth.

When Kentucky selected two heroes for the national hall of honor in the U.S. Capitol, the two men chosen were both from the antebellum period—Henry Clay and Dr. Ephraim McDowell, recognized around the world as the father of surgery for performing the first ovariotomy in history. McDowell represents the accomplishments of Kentucky in medicine, science, and education. The doctors of the state, most of them educated in Lexington or Louisville, were well trained in the most up-to-date treatments, and some of the more outstanding were as successful with surgery as any physicians anywhere in the world. Science classes at Transylvania University included hands-on laboratory instruction and other teaching methods used in science classrooms today; Transylvania students had the latest journals, books, and laboratory equipment from Paris and London. Professor Constantine S. Rafinesque was a great science teacher who discovered healing drugs in Kentucky plants and was so far ahead of his time that today, even though many of his discoveries are used, others are yet to be fully explored. it was unusual for women to attend college classes, but Transylvania welcomed women as nonenrolled students in several science classes. By 1850, the people of Kentucky were taxing themselves to support one of the best public school systems in the South, and, in 1855, voters approved increasing the school tax from two to five cents per one hundred dollars of taxable property by a three-to-one vote, dramatic evidence of the people's belief in education.

Another theme that continues throughout the history of Kentucky from 1800 to 1865 is that Kentuckians were uniquely engaged in public affairs. It was phenomenal how the people used the power of democracy to express their will in mass public meetings of support or protest. When the century began, many Americans admired Kentuckians for their mass-protest meetings in 1798 against the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson respected their effort so much that he selected the Kentucky legislature to enact his resolutions against the laws. Then Kentuckians gathered in public meetings again to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase, and, when Congress finally declared war on Great Britain in 1812, gatherings of the people had such violent anti-British feeling it was frightening. When Kentucky became a state, the first constitution had no property requirement to vote at a time when most states had such restrictions, and new settlers united with earlier residents in placing great value on elections—they considered the right to vote the most sacred of rights. Frequently, the election turnout was over 70 percent of eligible voters; during election campaigns, large crowds attended mass rallies to shake hands with the candidates and hear their debates and stump speeches. Cassius Clay was correct when he said in 1841 that the eloquence of public speakers in Kentucky was unsurpassed in any other state. On December 22, 1849, when Henry Clay was feeling desperate to prevent the proposed Nashville convention from destroying the Union over slavery, he wrote from Washington to his friend Leslie Combs in Lexington requesting that Kentuckians rally in public meetings in support of the Union. Can't you get up a large, powerful meeting of both parties, if possible, at Lexington, at Louisville, &c.? he asked.³

The strong belief in democracy was characteristic of American society, but the power of public meetings in Kentucky was extraordinary and had its dangerous side. In the debtor-relief controversy in 1824, stump speakers of the New Court Party, who were attempting to gain relief by destroying the independence of the judiciary, produced a legislature that agreed, and Kentucky almost had civil war. However, Old Court Party stump speakers awakened the gathered voters throughout the state to the danger, and they threw out the New Court Party legislators and elected Old Court Party members who respected property rights and the judges. Robert Breckinridge used the power of stump speaking to win voter approval of the first school tax; when slavery came under consideration in the election of delegates to the 1849 state constitutional convention, both antislavery and proslavery advocates spoke to local mass meetings. It was a tremendous debate—the most wide-ranging public debate on slavery in the slave states and probably in U.S. history—and, when the election came, the people of Kentucky were totally satisfied that the issue had been thoroughly considered. The result was a resounding defeat for gradual emancipation—popular votes against slavery totaled only about 9.7 percent of those voting.⁴

In the Civil War, both the Union and the Confederacy attempted to win Kentuckians to their side, and both recruited for their armies. Both sides hoped to produce support similar to the volunteering at the beginnings of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War when Kentuckians raced each other to reach the enrolling stations before the quota was filled. The great fear of Union commanders in Kentucky was that Kentucky men of military age would unite in a mass uprising against the Union and capture Louisville or Lexington. When the Confederate army occupied southern Kentucky early in the war, Albert Sidney Johnston, Simon Bolivar Buckner, and other generals caused great fear among Union military commanders by calling for a mass uprising on behalf of the South.

The closest the people came to such a rebellion, however, was not in response to Confederate proclamations but in reaction to Union commanders attempting to transform pro-Confederate Kentuckians into enthusiastic Unionists. Kentucky civilians suffered guerrilla war, arrests, loyalty oaths, trade restrictions, and many other ridiculous, wrongheaded pacification orders, and they complained; but, when Union commanders interfered with state elections, this threatened cherished democracy and the right of dissent that Kentuckians held most dear. And, when President Abraham Lincoln went to war against slavery in Kentucky by enlisting Kentucky slaves in the Union army, people turned out in large numbers to hear protesting stump speeches and interrupt with applause after almost every sentence. The problem was that Kentuckians realized that enlistment of slaves would bring the end of slavery in Kentucky—when a slave enlisted, he was freed—and this issue had been debated by the people in mass public meetings and decided by them when they adopted the constitution of 1850. It was no small matter to defy the power of stump speaking, mass meetings, and elections in the state. This was the greatest crisis in Kentucky during the war—in March 1864, the people were on the brink of rebellion, and this was the closest Kentucky came to leaving the Union.

It is well established that frontier towns and communities had class structures, but stratification was less rigid than back East, and on the frontier there was more social mobility. Most Kentuckians were friendly, optimistic people who never met a stranger they did not want to welcome and ask about what was happening back East or in Europe or wherever they hailed from. A theme running through the history of Kentucky in the first half of the nineteenth century is that Kentuckians experienced far more fraternization between classes than exclusion. For example, all classes, including African Americans, attended the theater together in playhouses in Lexington, Louisville, and Frankfort, and, while blacks and whites were required to sit in separate sections, they watched the same play. All classes of white men served in the militia, and politicians would attend militia musters and shake everyone's hand. At campaign rallies, lawyers from the professional class would greet everyone and ask about their family. The Cane Ridge evangelical revival—another mass public meeting that attracted about twenty-five thousand Kentuckians and others each day—greatly increased the number of Baptist churches, and Baptists welcomed slaves and free blacks into membership in their churches; many remained members until the Civil War. They sat in separate sections and took communion at different times during the service, but they were addressed as brothers and sisters and treated with respect. Perhaps the most dramatic transformation in the lives of white and black women came as a result of the Great Revival. For the woman whose husband or future husband was converted, life became more bearable in a home dominated by a patriarch whose heart was softened by religious faith.⁵

We were surprised to observe the theme that Kentuckians were filled with a spirit of hope and optimism and that they had a forward-looking, global outlook on life, a perspective that extended into rural areas of the state more than we expected. Nearly everybody read the world news in weekly newspapers, and bookstores sold classical literature published in London; Kentucky piano makers and retailers sold London-and Kentucky-manufactured pianos throughout the state. Lexington had so many cultural and economic connections to Philadelphia that Stephen Aron suggested that the city be called, not Athens of the West, but Philadelphia of the West.⁶ Elizabeth Perkins discovered that, when a nineteenth-century Kentucky woman shopped at the general store, she connected to culture around the world by selecting items from India and China and other countries in the world market.⁷ Merchants such as John Wesley Hunt in Lexington had as many connections to Philadelphia as they had to the southern states, but Hunt was also a slaveholder, and his grandson John Hunt Morgan fought for the Confederacy.⁸

We believe that considering the history of Kentucky by themes, with emphasis on people, has given us perspective on and opened a window onto their lives. For example, focusing on slavery revealed many aspects of life in Kentucky throughout the nineteenth century. Many white Kentuckians believed that their slavery was milder and more humane than that of the Lower South, and the doctrine of slavery as an evil necessity continued as the primary justification for slavery until the Civil War.⁹ But the back-breaking work that slaves performed in the Kentucky hemp industry and the dangerous and unhealthy labor on steamboats were as harsh as that on cotton or rice plantations. Many masters were as benevolent as fictional Mr. Shelby in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, but others were inhumane, and the importance of the slave trade in the Kentucky economy illustrates the evil of slavery as families were separated by sales. Yet, in spite of these circumstances, the slaves of Kentucky helped create a unique African American culture that provided a refuge and recognized the importance of family and religion in their daily lives.

The prominent themes running through the period were dramatized during an extraordinary milepost in historical continuity in antebellum America—the 1824-1825 tour of the United States by the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette. Kentuckians took advantage of Lafayette's visit to their state to look back on their history, examine themselves, and articulate their vision of the future. The event opens a window onto their time, gives them an opportunity to speak for themselves, and enables us to understand them. Their expectations for the future were global and their hopes for Kentucky without limit. Lafayette's visit inspired a sense of historical continuity and shared values among the American people, wrote Anne Loveland.¹⁰ For Kentuckians, it was the interlude when they celebrated their patriotism and military tradition, honored their veterans, and took inventory of and expressed pride in their progress in manufacturing, commerce, higher education, and culture. It was the moment when men, women, and children and all social levels of society united in welcoming a visiting hero and strengthening their sense of community. It was the occasion when Kentuckians reinforced their nationalism and faith in the Republic, reaffirmed their identification with the Atlantic coast and the world, renewed their dedication to democracy and statewide community as expressed in voting and public gatherings, celebrated Kentucky's elevated status in the nation, and expressed the hope that into the future Kentucky would prosper and stand in the first rank among sister states in honor and respect.

Lafayette first came from France to America in 1777, at the age of nineteen, to volunteer to fight for the new republic. In Philadelphia, Congress commissioned him a major general and appointed him an aide without pay on George Washington's staff. He had barely turned twenty when he fought in the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and was wounded in the leg. He and Washington became close friends, and he earned Washington's respect by leading men effectively in combat. Washington placed him in command of the right wing at the Battle of Yorktown, and, during the surrender of the British army, when the British band played The World Turned Upside Down, Lafayette had his American band respond with Yankee Doodle, the song that had been used by the British to ridicule the American soldiers and then adopted by the patriots as their favorite marching tune. In the intervening years since the Revolution, Lafayette had championed liberty in France, been imprisoned for five years, and become known as the hero of two worlds. Kentuckians greatly admired Washington, and nearly everyone seemed anxious to see Lafayette because he was closer to Washington's heart than any person alive; seeing Lafayette was tantamount to seeing George Washington.¹¹

In early 1824, President James Monroe was pleased to learn that Lafayette would welcome an invitation to visit the United States. Monroe had pronounced the Monroe Doctrine the year before as a warning to the Holy Alliance of European monarchs who were rumored to be planning to invade South America and crush the republics that had sprung up during the Napoleonic period. Reactionaries in Europe ridiculed Monroe for pretending that the United States could protect Canada and South America. Republics had long been considered short-lived and vulnerable. In 1776, when the United States declared its independence, the dominant opinion in Europe was that the new republic would never succeed. Skeptics had questioned whether the American people could govern themselves without a monarch or despot; John Adams and other conservative Americans were among the doubters in the beginning. Now, Monroe and Lafayette realized that Lafayette's visit would call attention to the success of the American Revolution and to the United States as a republic where liberty reigned and that this would inspire advocates of liberty in France and around the world. Monroe sent the invitation, and Lafayette accepted.¹²

Lafayette arrived in New York in August 1824, and, when he reached Washington, DC, in December, Henry Clay, as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, delivered the welcome address of Congress at a joint session. He thanked Lafayette for his role in the American Revolution and spoke of the accomplishments of the United States since Layette helped win independence. He said that the general would view populous cities, impressive canals, highways, and advancements in education and the arts. He said that in one respect the American people had not changed; they were as devoted to freedom and as filled with admiration for George Washington as ever. Lafayette was accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, his valet, Bastien, and his secretary, Auguste Levasseur, who periodically dispatched reports of the tour to French newspapers and later published his travel journal. After visiting every state in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic region, in March 1825 Lafayette began touring the South and eventually steamed up the Ohio River, reaching Louisville on May 11, 1825.¹³

Kentucky had carefully prepared for this moment for over six months. Governor Joseph Desha had recommended that the General Assembly approve an official invitation to Lafayette to come to the state. Desha had been one of the war hawks representing Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives during the coming of the War of 1812. Participating in the military invasion of Canada, he was the general in command of the infantry on the left during the Battle of the Thames. He was elected governor in 1824 on a platform of debtor relief, and he and his opponents in the raging Old Court-New Court struggle then under way laid aside their conflict to welcome Lafayette. In his November 1, 1824, message to the legislature, he stated that he believed that, when Kentuckians hosted Lafayette, they would be encouraging the friends of liberty in Europe by reminding them that the flame of republicanism still burned in America. He wrote that he wanted Lafayette to view with his own eyes the new world that had sprung up west of the Alleghenies and witness for himself how rapidly and widely the tree of liberty had extended. He stated that he was confident that Lafayette's tour would in the future have a positive influence all over the world. The legislature agreed in a resolution that apostles of freedom would be encouraged, and it resolved that Lafayette should have the opportunity to observe how devoted Kentuckians were to their rights and to see the fruit of liberty in the cultivated landscape of Kentucky.¹⁴

Desha sent Lafayette a letter of invitation that embodied the positive spirit and hope of antebellum Kentucky. It is fondly hoped, he wrote, and confidently anticipated, that you will visit this country, and look upon a new world that has risen like enchantment from the wilderness since you fought on the Atlantic border. You will see the rapid growth and improvement of our State, new evidence of the success of those principles you so nobly contended for, and the countless blessings we enjoy under the Republican form of government you so eminently contributed to establish. Throughout the nation, several cities and states commissioned portraits of Lafayette for their public buildings, and, as discussed later, the General Assembly selected Kentucky's leading painter, Matthew Jouett, to paint a full-length portrait for the state capitol. The stated purpose in commissioning Jouett's painting was to provide future generations of Kentuckians a reminder of the dedication of that generation to liberty.¹⁵

The residents of Louisville, honored that Governor Desha selected their city for the official, initial welcome to Kentucky, made detailed, comprehensive preparations for the visit. One month before Lafayette arrived, young men organized a new militia unit, the Lafayette Cavalry, and, when the day arrived, they were beautifully mounted and well drilled; Desha appointed them as the official honor guard, and they served as Lafayette's advance escort during his tour of the state. The city trustees published a broadside requesting that, when Lafayette came, everyone gather on the streets wearing Lafayette Badges, star-shaped satin ribbons with Lafayette's portrait hand-painted on them. Businesses were to be closed, and schoolmasters were to have their students dress in white, bring flowers, stand in front of the crowd on Main Street, and strew flower petals on the streets just before Lafayette's carriage passed.¹⁶

All the planning and preparation in Louisville and the other cities that Lafayette visited in Kentucky were impressive; Kentucky succeeded wonderfully in properly hosting The Nation's Guest, as Lafayette was addressed by President Monroe in his letter of invitation. For example, Desha's choice of the man to act as Lafayette's official state host was ideal—Richard Clough Anderson, one of Lafayette's aides in the Revolution, who had migrated to Kentucky from Virginia and was living in Jefferson County. Anderson was to be the first person to greet Lafayette when he stepped off the steamboat in Portland. A large crowd gathered in the rain at Portland that morning, and, when the steamboat Paragon arrived, artillery fired a salute, and the people cheered Welcome, Lafayette! General Lafayette was six feet tall and plainly dressed with a blue jacket with the buttons covered. He was sixty-nine years old and walked with a limp from a stiff left knee. People in America said it was from his wound in the Battle of Brandywine, but actually he limped from a fall he had in his home in Paris in 1803. Visibly moved, Lafayette limped across the wharf and warmly greeted Anderson.¹⁷

Desha and the state committee of arrangements and committees in the Kentucky cities on the tour understood that the visit presented an ideal opportunity to recognize Kentucky veterans. Desha, therefore, appointed his attorney general, Solomon P. Sharp, a War of 1812 veteran, to deliver the state welcome address on Lafayette's arrival at Portland. In his speech, Sharp mentioned that among the people present were several soldiers of the Revolution with venerable faces and silvery-white hair. John Rowan, one of Kentucky's U.S. senators, delivered the greeting for the city of Louisville. He said that Kentuckians were justly proud of themselves, conscious of their worth, and greatly appreciative of their liberty. Lafayette was impressed with the welcome and greatly surprised with Portland. He had visited all the eastern and southern states, and now, when he viewed the steamboats tied up at the wharf, the shipyards, and the new warehouses, he realized that the development of the Louisville area surpassed reports that he had heard. At the time, Louisville had for about five years been the transshipment point for steamboats running between Pittsburgh and New Orleans; Louisville was the center for steamboat traffic in the West and, with New Albany, Indiana, was a center of steamboat manufacturing. Lafayette said that it gave him great satisfaction to observe the prosperity and new buildings, and he was pleased to see that Louisville was the flourishing commercial center of the important state of Kentucky.¹⁸

Lafayette and Anderson rode into the city in a carriage drawn by four horses, and an estimated ten thousand people cheered when the procession marched through the streets. Cannon fired, and the town bell tolled. After a brief rest at his lodgings, Lafayette reviewed the militia and shook hands with the Revolutionary War veterans, many of whom he recognized and called by name. The visit lasted for two days and included a reception at the Masonic Lodge, a grand ball, and an evening at the theater. Frankfort was next, and Lafayette was honored with a beautiful arch of cedar and roses on the bridge over the Kentucky River; children strewed roses on the streets; women waved handkerchiefs from windows on the streets leading to Weisiger's Tavern, later the site of the Capital Hotel. At the tavern, the escorting militia formed in line on both sides of the street, the general's carriage passing in between, and Lafayette met Governor Desha, who was waiting on the front porch. General Lafayette: Welcome! Desha said. He thanked Lafayette for his contribution to liberty. And in no place, I am proud to say, he continued, does the flame of liberty shine with more brilliancy than among the sons of Kentucky. About forty Revolutionary War veterans were in the crowd, readily identified because they had paper ornaments on their caps inscribed 76. An eyewitness recalled that tears flowed down their cheeks when Lafayette walked among them shaking hands with each. He replied to the governor that he was delighted to meet companions who fought with him and others who served on the frontier.¹⁹

That evening of May 14, a great dinner was served in the public square for seven hundred people, seated at two giant semicircular tables. Lafayette walked to his seat between two lines of dignitaries and Revolutionary War veterans. There were thirteen toasts and nineteen speeches, and one of the toasts demonstrated the global view of the guests. The ‘Holy Alliance’! shouted the unidentified speaker. An insolent and wicked conspiracy against the independence of nations and the rights of man. The crowd responded with jeers. Other themes in the tributes included the fighting ability of the Kentucky militia and the patriotism of the citizens of Kentucky. Lafayette's entourage had come into Kentucky from Nashville, and Tennessee governor William Carroll and two of his staff were in the group. Governor Carroll participated in the festivities in Louisville, and now, in Frankfort, he delivered one of the toasts. He had commanded the center of the line in the Battle of New Orleans, an assignment that placed him in command of the detachment of Kentucky militiamen. He had seen firsthand their fighting spirit and steady aim. He toasted: The State of Kentucky, industrious, patriotic and valorous, she stands conspicuous among her sisters of the Union. John P. Ervin, one of Carroll's staff members, toasted the people of Kentucky and declared: The enthusiasm with which they greet their country's benefactor is equaled only by their intrepidity in repelling their country's foes. Lafayette replied to all the toasts that Kentucky had earned the blessings of liberty because of the state's industry, valor, and spirit of republicanism.²⁰

Lexington was the Athens of the West economically, culturally, and socially and, in the census of 1820, was still the largest city in Kentucky, with 5,279 people, compared to 4,012 in Louisville. Therefore, Lexington's committee of arrangements had asked Governor Desha to plan the official state welcome in Lexington rather than Louisville. Its members pointed out that Lexington had Transylvania University and that the city was named for the first battle in the Revolutionary War and that Fayette County was named for Lafayette. Desha ignored the request, and Lexington's leaders arranged to host Lafayette in the grand style appropriate to the status of their city. The Lexington committee appointed Leslie Combs to meet Lafayette five miles west of town at John Keen's plantation on the Versailles Pike, the site of Keeneland Race Course today. Combs was a hero of the War of 1812, having been one of the prisoners of war in William Dudley's defeat at Fort Meigs. Standing on the front porch of the Keen house, he told Lafayette that Fayette County had come a long way since the Revolution. Where we at this moment stand, he said, in the midst of plenty, civilization, and refinement, the wild beasts of the forest prowled in undisturbed dominion forty years before.²¹

Combs and his party were accompanied to Keen's plantation by three cavalry militia companies that joined the Lafayette Cavalry in escorting Lafayette. One of the three companies was the Georgetown Troop, striking because all its horses were white. The procession into Lexington was equal to the entries into Louisville and Frankfort, with thousands of people wearing Lafayette Badges, women waving handkerchiefs, and young girls casting flowers on the street in front of Lafayette's carriage. What set the parade into Lexington apart was that several times movement stopped when Revolutionary War veterans in the crowd saw Lafayette and moved forward in tears to shake his hand. Lafayette halted his carriage each time and responded with equal emotion. When the parade concluded at Mrs. Sanford Keen's tavern, later the site of the Phoenix Hotel, Lafayette was greeted—in truly remarkable historical continuity—by seventy-six-year-old pioneer John Bradford, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City of Lexington and former editor of the Kentucky Gazette, published beginning in 1787, the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies. Bradford recalled the naming of Lexington and Fayette County and said that enterprise and industry had wrought amazing changes in the last forty years. He proclaimed that the despots of the world should take note of the success of the Republic and the enthusiastic national celebration of Lafayette's visit. Lafayette responded that he was moved with the most unusual emotions and declared that Lexington's prosperity and improvements were the result of republican values. Several Revolutionary War veterans came forward to meet Lafayette after the welcoming ceremony.²²

Transylvania University invited Lafayette to a special ceremony in the chapel on campus to award him an honorary doctor of laws degree. At the time, the university was at its zenith, with Horace Holley as president, and the university community prepared for months; the students were eager to demonstrate that Transylvania was equal to any university in the nation. Throughout the ceremony, the themes of excellence and progress in science and the arts and humanities were dramatized. For example, a senior from New Orleans read a poem by the president's wife, Mary Austin Holley, and in honoring Lafayette she wrote:

Our nation's great Champion has come to the West;

O meet him and greet him with hearts of devotion!

…………………………………………………

Let this temple of science, the Pride of the West,

Assemble its sons in devout gratulation:

Let the love of our country pervade every breast,

Till it wake every soul to intense emulation,

Already its children in gladness are met

To raise loud the anthem to brave La Fayette.²³

Students read original poems and speeches they had written in English, Latin, and French, and Lafayette responded, in turn, in English, Latin, and French. He said that the essays were eloquent and competently delivered. The compositions were published in a booklet, and Lafayette said that it was the most classical work published west of the mountains.²⁴

The highlight and keynote of the program was President Holley's address. He expressed his vision for the future of the university and the commonwealth of Kentucky and his confidence in and anticipation of the bright prospect ahead for Kentuckians. This was the same optimism that motivated the people to approve the public school taxes later. He called his audience's attention to the exhilarating fact, that where, a few years since, wolves howled and buffaloes congregated, there was now higher education and high culture, with a society capable of fully appreciating Lafayette's contribution to American liberty. He stated that the university was prosperous, with industrious and aspiring students from over half the states of the Union; he praised the faculty for their zeal, activity, and devotion to truth; he said that, with other western colleges, We hope to make the fertile Valley of the Mississippi as rich in mental, as it is in physical resources, and the rival of the Eastern Border in arts and science, in taste and elegance, and in all that adorns our common nature. He recounted Lafayette's life, commended him for conducting a tour that was calling the attention of the world to the success of republicanism in America, and pointed out that this was the time for Americans to understand their blessings and come to know themselves more completely. He stated that Lafayette was making an unforgettable impression on the young men of Kentucky and that, in the future, they would willingly give the last drop of their blood fighting to defend liberty. Lafayette responded that education and culture in Kentucky and the West were shining with bright luster in the councils of the Union. He said that Mexico and South America would always remember that Henry Clay from Kentucky was the first member of Congress to speak for their independence.²⁵

Josiah Dunham, principal of the Lexington Female Academy, invited Lafayette to visit the school, and 150 students participated in the ceremony. In his welcoming address, Dunham lauded the Republic for its progress in science, literature, and the arts. The same republican spirit and patriotism was manifest in the West, he said. And, if you do not find us equally advanced in the walks of science, literature, and taste, with some of our older sister states, you find us as zealous, at least, in the cause, and moving forward, with a step equally firm and sure. He concluded by announcing that, as of that moment, the name of the school was changed to the Lafayette Female Academy. Lafayette told his secretary that he was moved beyond words. He had not expected this many young ladies to be attending an outstanding academy in the West, and he said that he was deeply honored to have his name associated with the school.²⁶

Lafayette's visit touched the soul of the people of Kentucky. The most dramatic evidence was the public weeping by Lafayette and the Revolutionary War veterans and their families. When Benjamin Netherland, a veteran of the Battle of Blue Licks, said good-bye as Lafayette was leaving Lexington, there was not a dry eye in the house. Netherland remembered that the general cried and that his wife, Dosia, shed tears and kissed Lafayette. He wrote that hundreds of people in Lexington cried when Washington's great friend departed. Lafayette was surprised and greatly impressed with Kentucky, and Kentuckians stirred his emotions in return. A strong theme running throughout the visit was military tradition and impact on the young men. In honoring Lafayette and the Kentucky veterans, the young militia volunteers and other young people in the crowds were celebrating nationalism and recalling Kentucky's reputation for fighting for the Union. The marshal of the day for the military review in Lexington was General John M. McCalla, who had been one of the men captured in the Battle of the River Raisin in the War of 1812. The tour was one of the public events that united all levels of society and contributed to the sense of community. An eyewitness of the journey from Lexington to Georgetown wrote that both sides of the road were filled with one large mass of men, women, and children, African Americans, and all classes of people like he had never seen and never expected to see again. He stated that he was unable to describe the feeling that pervaded the scene.²⁷

Modern tour organizers might benefit by studying Lafayette's visit to Kentucky as a model. The statewide committee of arrangements arranged for Lafayette's entourage to move north from Lexington to Georgetown, and the date was announced, enabling central Kentuckians who had not seen Lafayette to gather along the road and greet him. And it was arranged that Lafayette would visit the second most popular man in Kentucky after Henry Clay—Old Tecumseh, Richard M. Johnson, who was at his home, Blue Spring, a few miles northwest of Georgetown. Johnson was famous for having reportedly killed Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames, and his wounds in the battle left him with a limp in both legs. The large crowd at Blue Spring realized it was high drama when Lafayette left his carriage and limped forward to shake Johnson's hand and the two veterans limped side by side into the house. At the time, Johnson was a member of the U.S. Senate for Kentucky, and almost twelve years later he would be elected vice president of the United States.²⁸

Levasseur's journal mirrors several of the themes running through Kentucky history before the Civil War. He was very impressed that Kentuckians did not become discouraged when the visit to Kentucky was delayed over two days beyond the expected date and when heavy rain fell in Louisville and on the morning of the approach to Lexington. He and Lafayette were pleased that about ten thousand people of Lexington and the surrounding area gathered on the streets to welcome the guests on a stormy morning. Dark clouds moved across the sky, and rain fell in torrents, turning the roads into muddy quagmires. Levasseur told his readers that he was enchanted when, just as the procession reached the city limit, the clouds disappeared and the sun burst forth and brightly shined on the parade and welcome. He wrote that the people of all the states were ardent patriots but that patriotism was more manifest in Kentucky than any other state in the Union; Kentuckians loved liberty with the enthusiasm of a youthful people in a new community, he concluded. Lavasseur's journal demonstrates that he and Lafayette were struck with the rapid development of the state and the education of all classes of people only forty years from settlement. Surprised with the level of education in Lexington, Lafayette observed that Transylvania rivaled the most prominent universities in Europe. Lafayette found the state outstanding in hospitality, manufacturing, prosperous cities, and productive factories, and he noted that the Kentucky militia had a national reputation for courage.²⁹

Another stop on the tour north of Lexington was at the home of an unidentified Kentucky yeoman farmer. Levasseur related how, on the journey from Georgetown to Covington, he came on an isolated cabin and greeted the man who was smoking a cigar at his door. He said the man asked him where he came from, where he was going, and the purpose of his trip. He invited Levasseur into his home, and they discussed Napoleon and what might have happened if Napoleon had attempted to conquer the United States. Look at that rifle, said the farmer, pointing to his Kentucky long rifle standing in a corner of the room. With that I never miss a pheasant in our woods at a hundred yards; a tyrant is larger than a pheasant, and there is not a Kentuckian who is not as patriotic and skilful as myself. Levasseur wrote that he concluded from the conversation that a deep hatred of despotism was embedded in the hearts of every class of the happy Kentuckians. During Lafayette's visit, Kentuckians united to entertain him with their most gracious hospitality, and Lafayette responded with generous praise and gratitude. Hyperbole was the order of the day, but the following chapters will reveal that behind the overstatements were the optimistic and hopeful dreams of a rising globally oriented society.³⁰

1

Henry Clay, Part One

American Hero

The people create heroes, and, when Henry Clay looked and acted the part and led the way toward national greatness and away from civil war, the legend began. With a great hero, it helps if he has overcome adversity and suffered and experienced failures; reality is left behind anyway, and he becomes larger than life.¹ It is an apotheosis in which the hero becomes superhuman, a myth, and a demigod. Clay was second only to George Washington in the American pantheon before the Civil War, and, when the Clay legend was made morally perfect like that of Washington, it was even more dramatic because there was more to overlook. Clay migrated to Lexington from Virginia in November 1797 at the age of twenty, and his buoyant spirit thrived on the atmosphere of frontier optimism and the garrulous nature of his neighbors and friends. He quickly became Lexington's best defense attorney, and in Congress he became the leading representative of Kentucky in national politics. The status of Lexington as the leading manufacturing center in the West stimulated him to develop his American System; as a slave owner, he formulated the necessary-evil doctrine on slavery that dominated the slavery debate in Kentucky from 1800 to 1865. His dedication to the Union, coupled with his maintenance that a state had the exclusive right to legislate regarding slavery, was the lodestar that guided Kentucky through the Civil War.²

One of the most prominent myths about Clay was that he was born in poverty, became an orphan when his father died, had to plow the fields of his mother's farm to support her, was denied formal schooling, and became successful on his own without any connections. In reality, he was born on April 12, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia, in an attractive two-story frame house to a respectable family more prosperous than many Virginia farmers. His father, John, was a Baptist pastor and tobacco farmer, and he and Clay's mother, Elizabeth, lived on her father's 464-acre farm, a plantation with twenty-one slaves. Henry's father died when he was four years old, bequeathing two slaves to Henry in his will. When Elizabeth married Henry Watkins, she brought to the marriage her father's farm, which she had inherited. Elizabeth and Henry Watkins were prosperous, and they sent Henry to school and may have tutored him. The couple and their young children moved to Kentucky when Henry was fourteen, having arranged that the boy would work in the drug store of Richard Denny in Richmond, Virginia, and then become a clerk for Peter Tinsley, clerk of the High Court of Chancery in Virginia. At fifteen, Henry started his training in law at the High Court, and there he met and impressed George Wythe, one of the best law teachers in Virginia, teacher of John Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, and others. For four years, Henry worked as Wythe's secretary and law student, all the while socializing at the top of Richmond society. He then studied under Robert Brooke for about a year, passed the bar exam, and moved to Kentucky at the age of twenty.³

In the pressure of campaigning for president in the time when claiming to have been born in a log cabin seemed almost essential, Clay once stated that he was left poor, penniless when his father died. The neighborhood where he was born had land that was swampy and overgrown, and it was called the slashes. Campaign writers and local Hanover County historians created the myth that he rode barefoot on his pony to the gristmill, and orators proclaimed him Mill Boy of the Slashes. It is true that Clay did not attend college preparatory school or college, that beginning at age fourteen he lacked the daily guidance and comfort of a parent, and that he never studied Latin or Greek. Yet, with all the advantages Clay had, and with his outstanding education in the law and friends in Richmond, it was quite a leap in mythmaking to present him as a poor, uneducated orphan. Abraham Lincoln could recognize campaign rhetoric as readily as anyone, but the myth was so pervasive that, in his eulogy of Clay, he stressed that poor boys should be encouraged that Clay rose to fame in spite of his comparatively limited education and his birth to undistinguished parents and in an obscure district of Virginia.⁴

American heroes must look the part, and Clay was one of the most handsome men anyone had ever seen. When he walked into a room or rose to speak, every eye focused on him. He was six feet tall and thin and had a high forehead, large nose, and wide mouth with an unusually broad smile. He learned manners and dress in Richmond, Virginia, and in public he always appeared neat and fashionable, usually with a large collar shirt, dress coat, and black cravat. In conversation, he listened with his entire body but especially with his sparkling blue eyes, which burned with optimism and sympathy. When he addressed a jury or delivered a public speech, he moved with strength and grace, crouching low and rising to his full height, leaning backward, sweeping his lengthy arms in mighty circles, and thrusting his right hand forward to point with his index finger.⁵

As a young lad, Clay heard Patrick Henry speak and set himself the goal in life of becoming a great speaker. The feature that impressed people most about Clay as a speaker was his matchless voice. As he spoke, he modulated the tone and volume, changing from almost whispering in soft, high notes, to moderate volume and tones, to thunderous bass. Eyewitnesses compared his voice to melodious music, and one man said that it was as impossible to describe as it would be to paint a lightning bolt. Another person declared: He is the most perfect speaker I have ever heard, and it was truly astonishing to see with what intense interest every one, high and low, listened to him. When he gets up, all is still as midnight and naught is to be heard save his sweet melodious voice. Eyewitnesses said that we have no record of his best speeches because reporters became so enthralled they laid down their pens and forgot to take notes. Abraham Lincoln said that he touched the chords of human sympathy, and Clay's outstanding biographer, Robert Remini, declared that, if the entire nation could have heard him speak, he would have been elected president as many times as he wanted.⁶

Lithograph prints by Currier and Ives and other companies were the posters of the day, and people collected and displayed them on the walls of their homes. Black-and-white prints sold for ten or fifteen cents and large color images for three dollars. Clay's image was a best seller in this market, and artists often portrayed him in full figure, but what was unusual was that, in still images, they attempted to capture his gestures. In the nationally popular lithograph by P. F. Rothermel of Clay speaking in the Senate for the Compromise of 1850, he is portrayed from the side, standing tall and leaning back slightly, gesturing with his right hand as the senators surrounding him lean forward enthralled. Sculpture artists, frustrated in not being able to show his arm raised, depicted him gesturing with his right arm down by his side and his palm open to the front. Clay's favorite image of himself was a daguerreotype by Marcus A. Root produced in 1848 that captures Clay's glance, which, people said, was characterized by earnestness, wit, and a love of conversation. The photograph shows him seated looking off to the viewer's right, with a slight grin, and his eyes gleam with strength and kindliness as if he were about to answer a query from a beloved family member or close friend.⁷

The custom of kissing heroes began with Henry Clay, and women requested his autograph and a lock of his hair. "If the LADIES,—Heaven bless them! could vote, the election of Mr. Clay would be carried by acclamation!" wrote John S. Littell, president of the Clay Club of Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1844. Their influence was powerfully felt in 1840, and their appreciation of eloquence, patriotism and genius, will prompt them to a warm support of ‘Harry of the West,’ Littell continued. One of the 1844 campaign songs promised:

If e'er I should wish to get married

And indeed I don't know but I may

The man that I give up my hand to

Must be the firm friend of Old Clay.

Mothers and fathers named babies for him, including Henry Clay Shall-cross of Wheeling in present-day West Virginia, Henry Clay Wright of St. Louis, and Henry Clay Work born in Middletown, Connecticut, on October 1, 1832, one of the years Henry Clay ran for president. Work became a popular writer of Civil War songs, including Marching through Georgia (1865). Henry Clay Frick, born on December 19, 1849, in West Overton, Pennsylvania, was Andrew Carnegie's steel factory manager and partner. In 1829, when the parents of an Indian youth enrolled him in the Choctaw Academy in Scott County, Kentucky, they honored him with the name Henry Clay.⁸

Nicknames bring the hero down to the level of the people, and Clay probably had more than any other public figure in American history. He was called Prince Hal, Valiant Hal, Old Coon, Ashland's Sage, and Star of the West. Not all the nicknames were positive; he was also called Judas of the West, Gone Old Coon, and Ole Spavined Nag.⁹ Clay sought the White House five times, achieving nomination three times, and as a hero-candidate he may have inspired more songs than any other candidate. For the 1844 campaign, John Littell published the book The Clay Minstrel in 1843 and included a campaign biography of Clay and many Clay songs. The first edition sold out, and booksellers requested a second. Littell added songs, and the 1844 second edition had over one hundred song lyrics. They included Harry of Kentucky, For Harry Clay, Huzza! Clay, Our Nation's Glory, Come All Ye Men Who Push the Plough, Working Men's Song, and Hurrah for the Clay! Probably no British monarch other than Elizabeth I inspired more songs than those published by the Whig press for the campaign of Henry Clay in 1844, concluded Arthur K. Moore.¹⁰

Littell made no claim that his book included all the pro-Clay songs of the campaign, and he included none of the satiric anti-Clay compositions. Moore wrote his article when he found many Democratic songs in the Lafayette, Louisiana, newspaper Southern Traveller. They included Coon Hunter Melodies, Old Rosin the Bow, Orator Clay, and Clay's Lament. In Clay's Lament, the writer satirized Clay's losing of votes in Kentucky because he supported the Old Court during the relief controversy:

It's now a gone old coon—no relief—no relief

I'm now a gone old coon—no relief

I'm now a gone old coon.

A song entitled Tune—‘Old Dan Tucker’ declared Clay a used-up horse: His track hab got most debblish mucky / He's a used up hos, dat ole Kentucky. Another featured dueling and mentioned George Prentice's campaign biography of Clay:

’Tis written in Prentice's history

How he met one Marshall, his N-M-E

And fought him because they couldn't agree—

And how Marshall marr'd his L-E-G

Ri tu, & c.¹¹

The popular lithographs and painted portraits of Clay often had images of sailing ships before the fresh'ning gale in celebration of Clay's promotion of America's position in world trade and championing of the rights of seamen in the coming of the War of 1812. In a two-day speech in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 8-9, 1813, he upheld the rights of American sailors in words that appear today on Internet sites for Flag Day quotations: The colors that float from the mast head should be the credentials of our seamen. Clay's support was memorialized in the naming of ships. In 1826, the steamer Henry Clay carried passengers on the Great Lakes out of Buffalo. In 1845, Grinnell, Minturn and Company, a New York City shipping company with a fleet of packet ships transporting passengers between New York and Liverpool, commissioned the Henry Clay and sent Clay a painting of the ship by William Marsh. On September 27, 1845, Clay wrote thanking them for the honor and the painting. "It is