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SLAVERY IN KENTUCKY 
 
 1792-1865 
 
 BY 
 
 IVAN E. McDOUGLE, Ph.D. 
 
 A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty op Clark University, 
 
 Worcester, Massachusetts, in partial Fulfillment of the 
 
 Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 
 
 AND accepted ON THE RECOMMENDATION 
 
 OP George H. Blakeslee 
 
 Reprinted from The Journal of Negro Histort, Vol. Ill, No. 3, Ju^^, 1918 
 
SLAVERY IN KENTUCKY 
 
 1792-1865 
 
 S'^f'7 
 
 BY 
 
 IVAN E. McDOUGLE, Ph.D. 
 
 A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Clark University, 
 
 Worcester, Massachusetts, in partial Fulfillment of the 
 
 Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 
 
 and accepted on the Recommendation 
 
 OP George H. Blakeslee 
 
 Reprinted from The Journal of Negro History, Vol. Ill, No. 3, July, 1918 
 
 "ra 
 

 PRESS OF 
 
 THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
 Gift 
 UniversiT - 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 1. Introduction 1 
 
 2. Development and General Status of Slavery. . . 4 
 
 3. The Legal Status of Slavery 30 
 
 4. The Social Status of the Slave 71 
 
 5. Public Opinion regarding Emancipation and 
 
 Colonization 93 
 
 Bibliography 119 
 
SLAVEKY IN 
 KENTUCKY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 iNTRODUCTIOlSr 
 
 This study is an attempt to give a connected and concise 
 account of the institution of slavery as it existed in the State 
 of Kentucky from 1792 to 1865. Much has been written of 
 slavery in other States, but there has not been published a 
 single account which deals adequately with the institution 
 in Kentucky. A scholarly treatise on The Anti-Slavery 
 Movement in Kentucky, by Professor Asa E. Martin, of 
 Pennsylvania State College, has appeared but, as this work 
 is limited to a discussion of the history of the movement to 
 overthrow slavery, our study parallels and supplements it. 
 
 In this study the chief emphasis has been placed upon 
 the legal, economic and social history of slavery in Ken- 
 tucky, mention being made of a few of the interesting anti- 
 slavery incidents when these are known to have influenced 
 the local status of the slave. We have first considered the 
 inception of the system as based fundamentally upon the 
 type of land settlement and tenure, followed by a study of 
 the growth of the slave population, which brings in the 
 question of the local economic value of the slave. An at- 
 tempt has been made to explain the internal slave trade ; and 
 
 1 
 
2 Sla\'ery in Kentucky 
 
 to consider to what extent Kentucky served as a breeding 
 State for slaves destined to tlie market in the lower South. 
 
 Ill the ehai)ter on the legal status of slavery special 
 emphasis has been i)laced not only upon the legal position 
 of the institution but upon the general evolution of the 
 rights of the Negro in servitude. This section is vitally 
 connected with the anti-slavery movement after about the 
 year 1835. The problem of the fugitive slave and the gen- 
 eral rights of emancipation and of the freed Negro have 
 been approached purely from the legal standpoint. 
 
 The chai)ter on the social status of the slave considers 
 the conditions of slave life that were more or less peculiar 
 to Kentucky. There has often been made the statement, 
 that in Kentucky Negro servitude was generally on a 
 higher plane than in the States to the south and the treat- 
 ment of slaves was much more humane. Some light has 
 been thrown on these questions. 
 
 Asa supplement to the discussion of the legal and social 
 status a general summary of public opinion regarding 
 emancii)ation and colonization has been added. Although 
 for the most part consisting of previously published ma- 
 terial this section has been treated from the viewpoint of 
 the existing institution and not from the anti-slavery side 
 which occasioned most of the original publication. 
 
 This study has been made from a consideration of the 
 contemj^orary evidence as found in newspapers, statements 
 of slaves, and general evidence of travelers and citizens 
 of Kentucky during the period before the Civil War. The 
 material for the study of this field is not only scattered 
 throughout the country but for the most part it is very 
 meager comjiared with the records of States like Virginia 
 and Missouri. All the documents, papers, manuscripts and 
 works known to be of value, however, have been con- 
 sulted, 'i'lic most valnaltle records for this treatise are to 
 be found in the Durrett Collection at the University of 
 Chicago, the extensive files of early Kentucky papers in 
 tlio Library of the American Antiquarian Society, and the 
 documents in the Kentucky State Library at Frankfort. 
 
Intkoductiox 3 
 
 To Mr. Clarence S. Brigliam, of the American Anti- 
 quarian Society, Mr. Edward A. Henry, of the University 
 of Chicago Library, and Mr. Frank Kavanaugli, of the Ken- 
 tucky State Library, I am indebted for invaluable assistance 
 rendered in securing material for this work. The treat- 
 ment of the legal status of slavery would have been very 
 meager, were it not for the valuable aid given by Dr. George 
 E. Wire, of the "Worcester County (Massachusetts) Law 
 Library. To Miss Florence Dillard, of the Lexington (Ken- 
 tucky) Public Library, I am indebted for assistance given 
 throughout the period of my studies. To Prof. George H. 
 Blakeslee, of Clark University, I owe more than to any one 
 else — for his inspiration during my three years of study, 
 for his most valuable aid in the correction of the manu- 
 script, his candid judgment and judicial reasoning and the 
 many suggestions which have helped to make this study 
 what it is. 
 
 Ivan E. McDougle 
 
 Clark University, 
 
 Worcester, Massachusetts. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 The Development of Slavery 
 
 J I i> impossible to understand slaverj- in Kentucky with- 
 out some knowledge of the method by which the land was 
 settled in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Be- 
 tween 17S2 and 1802 the seven States which had interest in 
 western lands ceded their rights to the United States and 
 all that territory with the exception of Kentucky and the 
 Connecticut Reserve in Ohio was made a part of the public 
 domain. Hence, one of the distinguishing features of the 
 settlement of Kentucky as compared with Ohio was that in 
 the latter State the land was sold by the Federal Govern- 
 ment to settlers coming from all parts of the country but 
 particularly from the northeastern section. The result of 
 this was that few citizens of Ohio held more than 640 acres. 
 
 Kentucky had been reserved by Virginia and con- 
 se(iueiitly the method of settlement was purely a matter 
 governed by that State and was separate and apart from 
 the system which was employed by the United States 
 Government. Furthermore, Kentucky^ lands were all given 
 out l)y 1790, just one year after the beginning of our national 
 IKM-iod. The federal land i)olicy was at that time just 
 beginning. Virginia gave out the lands in Kentucky by 
 what is known as the ])atent system, and all the settlers in 
 Kentucky held their lands by one of three different kinds 
 of rights. 
 
 In tlie first place there were those who were given tracts 
 in i1m' new territory as a r('\var<l for military services which 
 liad iH'cn rendered in the i\evolution. This had been pro- 
 vided for by the legislature f)f Mrginia as early as December, 
 177S.' Xo land north of the Ohio River was to be granted 
 out as a military bounty until all the "good lands" in the 
 
 « Hcnint^'n Statutes, Vol. X, y. .'0. 
 
 t 
 
The Development of Slavery 5 
 
 Kentucky region had been exhausted. The size of these 
 tracts was to be governed by the official status of the re- 
 cipient in the late war, and the bounties finally granted by 
 Virginia ranged all the way from one hundred to fifteen 
 thousand acres.- 
 
 The Virginia legislature of 1779 found it necessary to 
 establish a second method of settlement in Kentucky in 
 response to the demands of the large number of people who 
 were migrating to the west of the Alleghenies. Provision 
 was made for the granting of preemption rights to new 
 settlers and also for the introduction of a very generous 
 system of settlement rights. These settlement and preemp- 
 tion rights were alm^ost inseparable, as the latter was de- 
 pendent upon the former. It was provided that four hun- 
 dred acres of land would be given to every person or family 
 who had settled in the region before the first of January, 
 1778.^ The word "settlement" was stated to mean either 
 a residence of one year in the territory or the raising of a 
 crop of corn. In addition to the above grant every man 
 who had built only a cabin or made any improvement on the 
 land was entitled to a preemption of one thousand acres, 
 providing such improvements had been made prior to Jan- 
 uary 1, 1778. Preference in the grants was to be given to 
 the early settlers and even the most famous heroes of the 
 Eevolution were not allowed to interfere with the rights of 
 those who held a certificate of settlement. 
 
 Thus far provision had been made only for those who 
 had settled before 1778. To them was given the best of the 
 land. Thereafter all settlement and preemption rights 
 ceased and the further distribution of land in Kentucky was 
 by means of treasury warrants. A person desiring land 
 in Kentucl^ would appear at one of the Virginia land offices 
 and make an entry and pay a fee amounting to about two 
 cents per acre. The paper he would receive would give the 
 approximate location of the tract and the recipient would 
 
 2Hening's Statutes, Vol. XI, p. 309; Treat, P. J., National Land System, 
 p. 235. 
 
 sihid., Vol. X, pp. 35-45. 
 
('. ,Si.A\i.Kv IN Kextuckv 
 
 proceed to liave the land survej'ed at his pleasure. Within 
 throe months after the survey had been made he was to 
 api)ear at the land office and have the same recorded. A 
 copy of this record was to be taken to the assistant register 
 of the land office in Kentucky and there it was to remain six 
 months in order to give prior settlers, if any, the right to 
 j»rove their claims to the property. No such evidence being 
 ])roduced a final record of the jiatent was to be made and a 
 copy given to the original grantee.^ 
 
 An interesting example of this method of settlement is 
 shown by the experience of Abraham Lincoln, the grand- 
 father of President Lincoln. On March 4, 1780, soon after 
 the establishment of the new system, he appeared at the land 
 office in Richmond, Virginia, and was given three treasury 
 warrants, each for four hundred acres of land in Kentucky. 
 The first and third of these warrants were not returned for 
 the final recording until May 16, 1787, at which time Beverly 
 Randolph, Governor of Virginia, issued a final deed of 800 
 acres of land in Lincoln County, Kentucky, to Abraham 
 Lincoln.-'* The second treasury warrant was not returned 
 until July 2, 1798, more than a decade after the death of 
 Abraham Lincoln and six years after Kentucky had be- 
 come a State. At that time the warrant was presented with 
 a record of the survey by Mordecai Lincoln, the eldest son 
 of Abraham. After some period of investigation the deed 
 for the four hundred acres in Jefferson County was turned 
 over to Mordecai Lincoln on April 26, 1799." 
 
 The result of this method of granting laud was that Ken- 
 tucky was settled by a comi^aratively few men who rented 
 their i)roperty to tenants. A large number of the military 
 bounties were never settled by the original owners but were 
 farmed by the later incoming tenant class. George Wash- 
 ington liad been given five thousand acres and this land 
 was actually settled by the ])Oorer wliite element. In the 
 
 « Wintcrbotham, An Historical Geographical Commercial ami Tupngraph- 
 teal TiVif of the United States, Vol. 3, pp. 156-157. 
 t Kd:tin-ky Land CJrantH, Book l.'l, j). 59. 
 ''Ibid., Hook 8, ].. 228. 
 
The Development of Slavery 7 
 
 case of the land! warrant property it was true that it was 
 usually granted to the poorer class of early settlers but as 
 in the instance of the Lincoln family the land soon passed 
 into the hands of the wealthier settlers either by purchase 
 or through law suits. It is commonly stated that Daniel 
 Boone thus became landless and was forced to migrate to 
 Missouri.''' 
 
 Thus we see that Kentucky was distinctly different from 
 all the other settlements to the west of the Alleghenies in 
 the original system of land tenure and she further inherited 
 from her mother State of Virginia the ancient theory of a 
 landed aristocracy which was based upon tenantry. The 
 early inhabitants of Kentucky can be easily divided into 
 three classes, the landed proprietors, their slaves, and the 
 tenant class of whites. The second and third classes tended 
 to keep alive the status of the former and led to the per- 
 petuation of the landed aristocracy. In Kentucky, however, 
 the laws of descent were always against primogeniture and 
 this resulted in the division of the lands of the wealthier 
 class with each new generation. 
 
 The institution of slavery in Kentucky, as in every other 
 State, depended for the most part upon the existence of large 
 plantations. The only reason Kentucky had such large 
 estates was because of the method by which the land was 
 given out by the mother State. Economically Kentucky 
 was not adapted to plantation life. The greater part of the 
 State required then, as it still does, the personal care and 
 supervision of the owner or tenant. The original distribu- 
 tion of land made this impossible and there grew up a large 
 class of landholders who seldom labored with their hands, 
 because of the traditional system. A large number of in- 
 habitants as early as 1805, Michaux found, were cultivating 
 their lands themselves, but those who could do so had all 
 the work done by Negro slaves.^ 
 
 With passing years, while Kentucky maintained slavery, 
 
 T Shaler 's Antohiograylxy, p. 33. 
 
 sMichaux (Thwaite's Eeprint), Travels to the West of the Allegheny 
 Mountains, Vol. 3, p. 237. 
 
S Slavery in Kextucky 
 
 it came to have a social system uot like that in the South 
 but one more like the typical structure of the middle nine- 
 teenth century West. There were several reasons for this. 
 In the first i)lace, the absence of the policy of primogeniture 
 in time came to distribute the lands over a much larger 
 population. In the second place, while all the land in Ken- 
 tucky had been granted by the year 1790, the patrician land- 
 holding element was completely submerged by the flood of 
 so-called i>lebeians who came in soon after Kentucky be- 
 came a State. In 1790 there were only 61,133 white people 
 in Kentucky, and althougli all the land had been granted, 
 the white pojuilation in the next decade nearly tripled, 
 reaching 179,871 in 1800, and this increase, at a slightly 
 smaller rate, continued down to about 1820. Still further 
 the nature of the soil made it more profitable for the 
 wealthier landed class to let out their holdings to the incom- 
 ing whites who did their own work and in time came to own 
 the property. "Each year increased this element of the 
 state at the expense of the larger properties."^ 
 
 A study of the growth of the slave and white population 
 of Kentucky from 1790 to 18G0 is necessary to an adequate 
 understanding of the slave problem. It will be found ad- 
 
 POPUIATION FEOM 1790 TO 1860 WITH RATES OF INCREASE 
 
 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 Free 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 
 
 Increase 
 
 Colored 
 
 Increase 
 
 Slave 
 
 Increase 
 
 Total 
 
 Increase 
 
 1790.. 
 
 01.1.33 
 
 
 114 
 
 
 11,830 
 
 
 73.077 
 
 
 1800.. 
 
 179.871 
 
 194.22 
 
 741 
 
 550.00 
 
 40.343 
 
 241.02 
 
 220.955 
 
 202.36 
 
 1810.. 
 
 324.2.37 
 
 80.26 
 
 1.713 
 
 131.17 
 
 80.561 
 
 99.69 
 
 406,511 
 
 83.98 
 
 1K20. . 
 
 434.644 
 
 34.05 
 
 2.759 
 
 01.06 
 
 126,732 
 
 57.31 
 
 564.317" 
 
 38.82 
 
 1830.. 
 
 517.787 
 
 19.12 
 
 4.917 
 
 78.21 
 
 165,213 
 
 30.36 
 
 687.917 
 
 21.09 
 
 1840.. 
 
 590.253 
 
 13.99 
 
 7.317 
 
 48.81 
 
 182,258 
 
 10.31 
 
 779,828 
 
 13.36 
 
 1850.. 
 
 761.413 
 
 28.99 
 
 10.011 
 
 36.81 
 
 210,981 
 
 15.75 
 
 982,405 
 
 26.98 
 
 I860.. 
 
 919.484 
 
 20.76 
 
 10.684 
 
 6.72 
 
 225,483 
 
 6.87 
 
 1,155,684" 
 
 17.64 
 
 vantageous to deal with two sets of figures— one relating 
 to the slave jwinilation within the State and the other with 
 the slave increase in Kentucky as coni]inred with the general 
 
 "Hhalcr, N. S., Kentucky, p. 196. 
 >o Includes 182 Indians. 
 »> IncludoH .3.1 Iri.llniiH. 
 
The Development of Slavery 9 
 
 increase tlirougliout the United States. It would not be of 
 any value to compare the figures for Kentucky with those 
 of any other State, for that would involve the discussion of 
 local factors which are beyond the scope of this in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 First of all we shall take the census statistics for the 
 State for all eight of the enumerations which were taken 
 during the slavery era. The figures for the year 1790 were 
 originally taken when Kentucky was a part of the State of 
 Virginia, but they are included, since Kentucky became a 
 State before the census was published. Furthermore they 
 furnish an interesting light upon the growth of the slave 
 population during the first decade of the new common- 
 wealth. The important part of this table is in the increases, 
 on a percentage basis, in the slave and white populations. 
 Another viewpoint of the growth of the slave population 
 may be seen in this little table : 
 
 Eatio of Slaves to the Total Population 
 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 1790 
 
 16.1 
 
 1830 
 
 24.0 
 
 1800 
 
 18.2 
 
 1840 
 
 23.3 
 
 1810 
 
 19.18 
 
 1850 
 
 1860 
 
 21.4 
 
 1820 
 
 22.4 
 
 19.5 
 
 Here it will be seen that the proportion of slaves increased 
 down to 1830 and then began to decline. Most authorities 
 are agreed that this was in a large measure due to the enact- 
 ment of the law of 1833 forbidding the importation of slaves 
 
 Free Negro and Slave Population of the United States, 1790 to 1860, 
 ■with Eates of Increase 
 
 Free Negro 
 
 Per Cent Increase 
 
 Slaves 
 
 Per Cent Increase 
 
 59,557 
 
 
 697,024 
 
 
 108,435 
 
 82.1 
 
 893,602 
 
 28.1 
 
 186,446 
 
 71.9 
 
 1.191,302 
 
 33.3 
 
 233,634 
 
 25.3 
 
 1.538,022 
 
 29.1 
 
 319,599 
 
 36.8 
 
 2.009,043 
 
 30.6 
 
 386,293 
 
 20.9 
 
 2,487,355 
 
 23.8 
 
 434,495 
 
 12.5 
 
 3,204,313 
 
 28.8 
 
 488,070 
 
 12.3 
 
 3,953,760 
 
 23.4 
 
 1790 
 1800 
 1810 
 1820 
 1830 
 1840 
 1850 
 1860 
 
10 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 into KfiitiK-ky. iiui beiore dcalini,^ with that qiie.-tiou it 
 would be well to have before us the figures for the whole 
 country at the same period. 
 
 The facts seem more signifieant, if we compare the slave 
 increase in Kentucky witli that of the Negroes in the country 
 as a whole. Jiearing in mind that Kentucky was a com- 
 paratively new region when it became a State and that at 
 that time slavery was firmly estahlislied along the seaboard, 
 we are not surprised to find that the slave increase in Ken- 
 tucky was nmch more rapid for the first three or four dec- 
 ades than it was in the nation as a whole. After the year 
 1830 the increase in the United States, on a percentage 
 basis, was much greater than in Kentucky. It seems that 
 the institution started in with a boom and then eventually 
 died down in Kentucky. 
 
 There were several reasons for this fact. A glance at 
 the increase of whites in Kentuclcj^ for the last three decades 
 will show that they were forging ahead while the slaves 
 were relatively declining. This was due to a large amount 
 of immigration of that class of white people who were not 
 slaveholding. A second factor was the non-importation act 
 of 1833. About the same time there came to be a convic- 
 tion among a large portion of the population that slavery 
 in Kentucky was economically unprofitable. There is 
 abundant ground for the position that the law of 1833 was 
 passed because of a firm conviction that there were enough 
 slaves in the State. The only ones who could profit by any 
 amount of importation were the slave dealers and beyond a 
 certain point even their trade would prove unprofitable. If 
 there was ever a single slaveholder who defended importa- 
 tion on the ground that more slaves were needed in Ken- 
 tucky lie never spoke out in }tublic and gave his reasons for 
 such a ])osition. 
 
 Unfortunately there are few statistics concerning the 
 number of slaveholders in Kentucky. Cassius M. Clay in 
 his api)eal to the peoi>le in 1845 stated that there were 31,495 
 owners of slaves in the State.'= The same year the 
 
 "Grcclry, Horace, Writings, Speech, s and Addnssrs of Cassius M. Clay, 
 p. 177. 
 
The Development of Slavery U 
 
 auditor's tax books showed that there were 176,107 slaves in 
 Kentucky. ^^ This would mean an average of 5.5 slaves for 
 each owner. The accuracy of these figures is substantiated 
 by those for the census of 1850 which gave 210,981 slaves 
 held by 38,456 slaveholders or an average of 5.4 to each 
 owner. These holders were classified according to the num- 
 ber of slaves held as follows : 
 
 Holders of 1 slave 9,244 
 
 Holders of over 1 and less than 5 slaves 13,284 
 
 Holders of 5 and under 10 slaves 9,579 
 
 Holders of 10 and under 20 slaves 5,022 
 
 Holders of 20 and under 50 slaves 1,198 
 
 Holders of 50 and under 100 slaves 53 
 
 Holders of 100 and under 200 slaves 5 
 
 38,38514 
 
 This distribution shows that, although the average number 
 of slaves held may have been 5.4 for each slaveholder, 21,528 
 or 50 per cent of them held less than five slaves each, and 
 that 34,129 or 88 per cent held less than 20 each. Of the 
 132,920 free families in the State only 28 per cent held any 
 slaves at all. This was somewhat below the average for 
 the whole South. The total number of families holding- 
 slaves in the United States, by the census of 1850, was 347,- 
 525. With an average of 5.7 persons to each family there 
 were about 2,000,000 persons in the relation of slave owners, 
 or about one third of the whole white population of the slave 
 States. In South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Loui- 
 siana about one half of the white population was thus classi- 
 fied. As stated above, this percentage in Kentucky was 
 only twenty-eight. 
 
 This comparison can be more clearly shown by a table 
 of the slave States from the census of 1850 showing the 
 number of white people, the slaveholders, slaves, and the 
 average number of slaves for each slaveholder. 
 
 13 Collected Documents, 1847, p. 581. 
 1* De Bow 's Statistical Eeview, p. 95. 
 
12 
 
 Slavery ix Kentucky 
 
 
 
 Slave- 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 
 Average per 
 
 
 WhltM 
 
 holdrrs 
 
 of Whites 
 
 Slavefl 
 
 Holder 
 
 Alabaiuu 
 
 4l.'G,514 
 
 29,295 
 
 6.8 
 
 342,844 
 
 11.6 
 
 Arkansas . . 
 
 162,189 
 
 5,999 
 
 3.7 
 
 47,100 
 
 7.8 
 
 Florida ... 
 
 47,203 
 
 3,520 
 
 7.4 
 
 39,310 
 
 11.1 
 
 Georgia . 
 
 521,572 
 
 38,456 
 
 7.3 
 
 381,622 
 
 9.9 
 
 Kenturky . 
 
 761,413 
 
 38,385 
 
 5.0 
 
 210,981 
 
 5.4 
 
 L«>ui!»ian;» 
 
 255,491 
 
 20,670 
 
 8.0 
 
 244,809 
 
 11.4 
 
 Mikrvhind 
 
 417.943 
 
 16,040 
 
 3.8 
 
 90,368 
 
 5.6 
 
 Misais!<i|>jii 
 
 295,718 
 
 23,116 
 
 7.8 
 
 309.878 
 
 13.4 
 
 Miiisouri ... 
 
 592,001 
 
 19,185 
 
 3.2 
 
 87,422 
 
 4.5 
 
 North Carijliii I 
 
 553,028 
 
 28,303 
 
 5.1 
 
 288,548 
 
 10.2 
 
 South Carolitii 
 
 274.5(;.i 
 
 25,590 
 
 9.3 
 
 384,984 
 
 15.0 
 
 TcnncAseo . 
 
 750,830 
 
 33,804 
 
 4.4 
 
 239,459 
 
 7.0 
 
 Texaa 
 
 154,031 
 
 7,747 
 
 5.2 
 
 58,161 
 
 7.5 
 
 Virginia 
 
 894,800 
 
 55,003 
 
 6.1 
 
 472,528 
 
 8.5 
 
 Among the fourteen real §laveholding States of tlie Union 
 Kentucky stood ninth in the number of slaves in 1850, but 
 was third in the number of slave owners and with the excep- 
 tion of Missouri had less slaves for each owner than any 
 other State. From the third column of this table, however, 
 we are rather surprised to find that not only in Missouri 
 but in Arkansas, Maryland and Tennessee the number of 
 slaveliolders was smaller in in-oportion to the total white 
 I)opulation than in Kontncky, 
 
 Helper in his Impending Crisis made the following in- 
 teresting table from the census figures for 1850. He set a 
 perfectly arbitrary valuation of $400 on each slave, but, if 
 
 Value of Slaves at Value of Real and Personal Property 
 
 $400 per Head Less the Value of Slaves 
 
 Alabama $137,137,600 $ 81,066,732 
 
 ••Vrkansas 18,840,000 21,001,025 
 
 Florida 15,724,000 7,474,734 
 
 Georgia 152,672,800 182,752,914 
 
 Kcntuckv 84,392,400 217,236,056 
 
 Ivouisian.i 97,923,000 136,075,164 
 
 MarvI.iJi.l . . 36,147,200 183,070,164 
 
 MiKNissij.j.i . 123,951,200 105,000,000 
 
 MiHBouri 34,968,800 102,278,907 
 
 North Caroliii.i 115,419,200 111,381,272 
 
 South Caroliii.i 153,993,600 134,204,094 
 
 T/'iiiewkM. 115,783,000 111,671,104 
 
 /yexan .. 23,264,400 32,097,940 
 
 'Virginia 1,S9,011,200 202,634,638 
 
 » Adapted from Dc Bow's S(atislical Jicvicw, pp. 67, 85, 99. 
 
The Development of Slaver v 13 
 
 one takes into account the infants and the aged unable to 
 work, his general appraisement of the slave group is fair 
 enough for the time and for a basis of comparison. It will 
 be seen at a glance that after taking out the value of the 
 slaves in all the States Kentucky was the richest southern 
 commonwealth. 
 
 From the three preceding tables it is apparent that while 
 the Kentucky slaveholders represented about 28 per cent of 
 the white population of the State, on the average they held 
 less slaves than in the other Southern States. Slave prop- 
 erty in Kentucky was a much smaller part of the wealth 
 of the commonwealth than in the States to the south. The 
 relatively large number of holders is to be explained by the 
 type of slavery which existed in the State. Many persons 
 held a few servants in bondage and those who held many 
 slaves were very few in number. 
 
 The question of the sale of slaves from Kentucky into 
 the southern market presents a much more formidable prob- 
 lem. The chief charge that the anti-slavery people made 
 against Kentucky was that the State regularly bred and 
 reared slaves for the market in the lower South. What was 
 the attitude of the Kentucky slaveholder and the people in 
 general on the question of the domestic slave traded There 
 is no doubt that in the later years of slavery there were 
 sold in the State many slaves who ultimately found their 
 way into the southern market notwithstanding the contempt 
 of the average Kentucky slaveholder for the slave trade. 
 This trend of opinion will be seen as we proceed. If the 
 sentiment was decidedly against such human commerce how 
 did so many slaves become victims of the slave trader? 
 
 There were five general causes which led to the sale of 
 slaves in Kentucky: (1) When they became so unruly that 
 the master was forced to sell; (2) when their sale was neces- 
 sary to settle an estate ; (3) when the master was reduced to 
 the need of the money value in preference to the labor; 
 (4) when captured runaways were unclaimed after one year ; 
 and (5) when the profit alone was desired by unscrupulous 
 masters. Many other reasons have been given, but a care- 
 
11 Slavkuv IX Kentucky 
 
 ful investi.iration of all available material confines prac- 
 tically every known case of sale to one of the above clas- 
 sifications. Mrs. Stowe in her Key to Uncle Tom's Cahin^'^ 
 maintained that the prevalence of the slave trade in Ken- 
 tucky was dne to the impoverishment of the soil beyond 
 recovery and the decrease in the economic value of the slave 
 to its owner. This argument is fallacious, for the very 
 blue-grass region which held most of the slaves is today the 
 most fertile section of the State. 
 
 As long as a slave conducted himself in accordance with 
 the spirit of the slave code there was little chance of his 
 owner selling liim against his will. The president of the 
 Constitutional Convention of 1849 stated that in the interior 
 of the State, where slaves were the most numerous, very 
 few Negroes were sold out of the State and that they were 
 mostly those whose bad and ungovernable disposition was 
 such that their owners could no longer control them.^" A 
 true picture of the average master's attitude has been given 
 us by Prof. N. S. Shaler. ''What negroes there were," 
 said he, "belonged to a good class. The greater number of 
 them were from families which had been owned by the an- 
 cestors of their masters in Virginia. In my grandfather's 
 liousehold and those of his children there were some two 
 dozen of these blacks. They were well cared for; none of 
 them were ever sold, though there was the common threat 
 that ' if you don't behave, you will be sold South.' One 
 of the commonest bits of instruction mj^ grandfather gave 
 me was to remember that my people had in a centurj^ never 
 bought or sold a slave except to keep families together. 
 By that he meant that a gentleman of his station should 
 not run any risk of a]ii)earing as a 'negro trader,' the last 
 word of opj)robium to be slung at a iii;iii. So far as T can 
 roineml)or, this rule was well ke])t and social ostracism was 
 likely to bo visited on any one who was fairly suspected of 
 buying or selling slaves for ])rofit. This state of opinion 
 was, I believe, very general among the better class of slave 
 
 >«8towc, Kry to Uncle Tovx's Cabin, p. 143. 
 ^'< LouiavUlc Weekly Journal, October 17, 1849. 
 
The Development of Slavery 15 
 
 owners in Kentucl^^ When negroes were sold it was be- 
 cause they were vicious and intractable. Yet there were 
 exceptions to this high-minded humor. "^^ 
 
 When a master had a bad Negro about the only thing 
 that could be done for the sake of discipline was to sell him. 
 If the owner kept the slave, the latter would corrupt his fel- 
 lows and if he were set free, the master would reward where 
 he ought to punish. The human interest which the owner 
 took in his servant when the demands of the institution 
 necessitated his sale is shown in the case of the Negro 
 Frank, owned by A. Bamett, of Grreensburg. Witness these 
 words of the master in a runaway advertisement: ''His 
 transgressions impelled me, some years since to take him 
 to New Orleans and sell him, where he became the property 
 of a Spaniard, who branded him on each cheek thus, CD » 
 which is plain to be seen when said negro is newly shaved. 
 I went to New Orleans again last May, where, having my 
 feelings excited hj the tale Frank told me, I purchased him 
 again, "^^ After the master had gone to all this trouble in 
 the interest of the slave the latter ran away shortly after 
 his return to Kentucky. 
 
 It was often necessary to sell slaves in order to settle an 
 estate. It was seldom possible for a man to will his prop- 
 erty in Negroes without some divisions becoming necessary 
 at the hands of the executor in the just interest of tne lieir.>i. 
 These public auctions usually took place on court day, at 
 the courthouse door and were conducted by the master com- 
 sioner of the circuit court. The following advertisement 
 reveals the necessity and the procedure : 
 
 SALE OF NEGROES 
 
 By virtue of a decree of the Fayette Circuit, the undersigned 
 will, as Commissioner to carry into effect said decree, sell to the 
 highest bidder, on the public square in the city of Lexington, on 
 Monday the 10th of March next, being county court day, the fol- 
 lowing slaves, to wit : 
 
 IS staler 's Autoiiography, p. 36. 
 
 19 Louisville Public Advertiser, December 24, 1829, 
 
10 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Ki'isiT, Carr, Sally. Bob, Susan. Sam. Sarah and Ben; belong- 
 ing to the estate of Alexander C'ulbertson, deceased. The sale to 
 be on a eredit of three months, the purchaser to give bond with 
 approved security. The sale to take place between the hours of 11 
 o'clock in the morning and 3 o'clock in the evening. 
 February 26, 1834 John Clark, Commissioner^'^ 
 
 On the .same day the sheriff of the county might appear 
 at the courthouse door in accordance with a previous an- 
 nouncement and auction off any unclaimed runaway that 
 had Ik'I'U lodij:ed in the county jail or hired out under his 
 authority for a period of a year or more. The slaves thus 
 sold were usually fugitives from the lower South who had 
 been apprehended on their way to Ohio or Indiana. 
 Althoup:h the utmost publicity would have been given to 
 their capture, in accordance with the law, few of the planters 
 of the far South seem ever to have claimed their property. 
 The usual legal code in this matter is shown by the notice 
 bi'h.w : 
 
 NOTICE : Agreeably to an act of the General Assembly, passed 
 January 11, 1845, I will, on the first Monday of May, 1846, before 
 the Court House door, in the city of Louisville, sell to the highest 
 bidder, on a credit of six months, the purchaser giving bond with 
 jjood ^'^ciirity, iiavmg the force and effect of a replevin bond, 
 JOIliN, a runaway slave, 18 or 19 years of age, 5 feet 3 or 4 inches 
 high, a rather lieavy built, supposed to be the property of Daniel 
 McCaleb or Calip, residing on the coast some twenty miles below 
 New Orleans. 
 
 F. S. J. Ronald Deputy Sheriff 
 y,), -2' l-in for James IIahki.son Sheriff Jefferson Co.-^ 
 
 Under tlic three causes of sale thus far cited the blame 
 would not ])e ])laced upon the master. In the case of the 
 unruly Negro the owner was according to the ethics of that 
 day not at fault. In the settlement of an estate the slave- 
 liolder wa.s no longer a factor, for his demise alone had 
 
 i" Lexington Olmrrvcr atul KciHurkj/ i;,i>ortcr, IVhruary 27, 1S34. 
 2» LouvtviUe Weekly Journal, March 4, 1S4G. 
 
The Development of Slavery 17 
 
 brought the sale. In the case of the runaway the owner 
 was unknown. Mrs. Stowe probably showed the attitude of 
 the average Kentucky master when she pictured Uncle Tom 
 as being sold for the southern market only because of the 
 economic necessities of the owner. Wlien in such a posi- 
 tion the master felt called upon to explain the necessities of 
 the case. He was very careful not to be cast under the 
 suspicion of public opinion as a "slave trader," which, as 
 Shaler has said, was the "last word of opprobrium." Wit- 
 ness a few instances in evidence : 
 
 NEGROES FOR SALE 
 
 A yellow negro woman of fine constitution, and two children, 
 from the country, and sold for no fault but to raise money. Will 
 not be sold to go down the river. Her husband, a fine man, can 
 be had also. Apply at the store of 
 
 Jarvis and Trabue — 3rd & IMain^^ 
 
 The editor of the Lexington Reporter was very careful not 
 to get under the ban of his constituents when he was forced 
 to sell a farm hand and his wife. 
 
 FOR SALE 
 
 A negro man, a first rate farm hand, about 27 years of age ; and 
 a very likely woman, the wife of the man, about 22 years of age, 
 a good house servant. They will not be sold separately, or to any 
 person wishing to take them out of the State. Enquire at this 
 office.-^ 
 
 In 1834 Thomas J. Allen, a citizen of Louisville, desired to 
 exchange his property in the city for 40 or 50 slaves, but he 
 specifically stated that they were to be for his own use and 
 that he wanted them to be "in families. "^^ The same atti- 
 tude appears in the case of a house servant for sale with the 
 reasons for such specifically stated: 
 
 22 Louisville JVeelly Journal, September 3, 1843. 
 
 23 Lexington Observer and Kentucly Eeporter, Jan. 28, 1835. 
 
 2iIMd., July 9, 1834. 
 
18 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 FOR SALE 
 
 I wish to sell a negro woman, who has been accustomed to house 
 work. She is an excellent cook, washes and scours, and is in every 
 respect, an active and intelligent servant. I do not require her 
 services, which is my only reason for wishing to dispose of her. 
 
 Maslin Smith-^ 
 
 The prevalence of statements giving the reasons for and 
 the restrictions upon these sales should show beyond any 
 reasonable doubt that public opinion would not tolerate any 
 suspicion of a heartless trafiic in slaves. These sentiments 
 were especially prevalent in the central portion of the State. 
 The only case known to the writer where a large number of 
 slaves were sold without any qualification was near 
 Harrodsburg in August, 1845; but in this instance all the 
 man's property, including 450 acres of land, was sold at 
 the same time.^^ 
 
 There were, naturally, some unscrupulous masters who 
 cared little for the fate of their slaves when sold. They 
 placed no restrictions upon the sale, either in destination or 
 in the break-up of family ties. We will cite only two, one 
 for the earlier and one for the later period, noticeable chiefly 
 for the lack of regard for Negro family life. 
 
 NEGROES FOR SALE 
 
 The subscriber has for sale a negro man and woman, each about 
 24 years of age, both are excellent plantation hands, together with 
 two children. They will be sold separately or altogether. 
 
 LUIDORES LUCAS-^ 
 
 FOR SALE 
 
 I wish to sell a negro woman and four children. The woman is 
 22 years old, of good character, a good cook and waslier. The 
 children are very likely, from 6 years down to V/o. I will sell 
 them together or separately to suit purchasers. 
 
 J. T. Underwood.-^ 
 
 25 Lexington Observer and Kcniucly Jicportcr, Jan. 7, 1835. 
 '<^ Louisville Wcclchj Journal, August 6, 1845. 
 2T Jiairdstown Candid Ixcviexc, June 20, 1809. 
 2» Louisville Wcclchj Journal, May 2, 1849. 
 
The DE\rELOPMENT of Slavery 19 
 
 The aggregate of all these causes was sufficient to bring 
 about a supply for the southern market. The question now 
 arises as to how the demand was met commercially. To 
 what extent were there slave traders in Kentucky? George 
 Prentice, the famous editor of the Louisville Journal, him- 
 self a loyal exponent of slavery, early pointed out that Ken- 
 tucky had an ample supply of Negreos and that they were 
 being sent south in large numbers. He further stated that 
 any one who wanted slaves could always purchase them by 
 leaving an order in Louisville.^'' This opinion was ex- 
 pressed at a time when the non-importation act of 1833 had 
 been in force for sixteen years, which meant that Kentucky 
 was producing slaves faster than she needed them. It was 
 only two months after this that Kichard Henry Collins in an 
 editorial in the Maysville Eagle gave a flagrant example of 
 a slave trader in Kentucky who violated the spirit as well as 
 the letter of the law. But the sentiment of the people on the 
 slave dealer had been expressed much earlier. In 1833 a 
 Lexington editor felt exasperated because of the appearance 
 of a large group of slaves in the streets of the city on their 
 way to be sold south. When another trader appeared with 
 his Negro slaves held together with a chain he voiced his 
 wrath in this fashion: 
 
 "A few weeks ago we gave an account of a company of men, 
 women and children, part of them manacled, passing through the 
 streets. Last week, a number of slaves were driven through the 
 main street of our city, among them were a number manacled 
 together, two abreast, all connected by, and supporting, a heavy 
 iron chain, which extended the whole length of the line.''^'^ 
 
 About the same time a citizen of Danville sold a Xegro 
 woman to a regular slave trader. The news spread around 
 the town rapidly and to save himself from the threats of 
 the gathering mob the owner was compelled for his own 
 safety to follow the slave dealer and repurchase the woman 
 at a decided increase in price.^^ 
 
 29 Louisville WeeJcly Journal, September 26, 1849. 
 
 30 Lexington Western Luminary, June 5, 1833. 
 
 31 Blanchard and Eiee, Debates on Slavery, p. 133. 
 
20 Slavery ix Kextucky 
 
 It is very difficult to find out liow many slave dealers 
 there were in the State, for few of them ever came out in 
 the oj^en and advertised their trade. As would be expected 
 from its size and situation Louisville was the place where 
 the dealer could ply his trade to the best advantage. It was 
 the central business point and the port from which most 
 slaves from Kentucky were shipped down the Ohio and 
 Mississippi. There is no mention in the newspapers of any 
 dealers there before the year 1845. Thereafter there were 
 several who advertised for any number of slaves and made 
 no secret of the purpose of purchase. In the Journal for 
 October 29, 1845, William Kelly called for all persons who 
 had slaves to sell to see him and offered them the highest 
 prices. He further stated that he had slaves for sale. His 
 name does not often appear in succeeding years. During 
 the next decade there were four regular dealers who appar- 
 ently did considerable business: T. Arterburn, J. Arterburn, 
 William F. Talbott, and Thomas Powell. Later John 
 Mattingly came upon the scene presumably from St. Louis. 
 In July, 1845, the Arterburn brothers began a series of 
 advertisements which ran for several years. *'We wish to 
 purchase 100 negroes for the Southern market, for which we 
 will pay the highest prices in cash."^^ Talbott began his 
 publicity in 1848 with these words: "The subscriber wishes 
 to purchase 100 negroes, for which he will pay the highest 
 cash prices. Can always be found at the Louisville 
 Hotel. "^^ Two years later he was still advertising, but had 
 ceased placing any limit on the number to be bought and 
 had moved his quarters to the Hotel O'Rain.^^ Thomas 
 Powell also began in 1848 with this stock phraseology— 
 "Persons having negroes for sale can find a purchaser at 
 the highest cash prices by calling on the subscriber, on Sixth 
 Street, between Main and Market, adjoining H. Duncan's 
 stable.""^ This advertisement ran continually for a period 
 
 32 Louisville Weekly Journal, July 30, 18-15. 
 
 33 Ibid., July 19, 1848. 
 ^'ilbid., August 14, 1850. 
 ^^Ihid., August 2, 1848. 
 
The Development op Slavery 21 
 
 of two years. John Matting] 3- evidently came from Mis- 
 souri in the same year, and remained nntil 1852, when he 
 returned to St. Louis to ply his trade.^" While he was in 
 Louisville he ran an advertisement in the Journal after this 
 fashion: ''The undersigned wishes to purchase 100 negroes 
 both men and women, for which he will pay the higliest cash 
 prices. Those who have negroes for sale would do well to 
 call on him at the Gait House. "^^ 
 
 It is noticeable that none of the Louisville directories for 
 this period mention any slave dealers. This failure may 
 have been due merely to the fact that there were so few 
 traders in the city and that they were more or less transient 
 residents. On the other hand, public opinion apparently 
 never acknowledged that there were any real citizens of the 
 city engaged in the slave trade. Beginning in 1840 the 
 Louisville Journal published a weekly paper called Louis- 
 ville Prices Current. In 1855 this was succeeded by the 
 Commercial Revieiu and Louisville Prices Current, which 
 was published by the Louisville Chamber of Commerce. 
 These two j^apers devoted themselves exclusively to the 
 commercial transactions of the city and gave price quota- 
 tions weekly for every conceivable kind of goods in the 
 market together with the volume of sales. Strange to say, 
 there has not been found a single issue of either of these 
 papers, which mentions the selling price of slaves or anj'' 
 transaction in Negroes. If there was a trade in slaves 
 which, was regarded purely as a commercial enterprise, as 
 some would have us think, then it is very hard to under- 
 stand why these splendid trade papers did not contain any 
 account of the business. 
 
 There were some Louisville business men who bought 
 and sold slaves as only one of the branches of their com- 
 mercial activities. This would account to some extent for 
 the failure to list traders in the local directories for it is 
 noticeable that such men never called themselves slave 
 dealers. As early as the year 1825 John Stickney estab- 
 
 36 St. Louis Daily Times, October 14, 1852. 
 
 3^ Louisville Daily Journal, November 23, 1848. 
 
22 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 lislied the Louisville Intelligence Office on Main Street, 
 vrliieli -was a sort of labor and real estate exchange. Ho 
 advertised that he sold books; had money to loan; houses 
 for rent and sale; horses and Negroes for sale and hire; 
 carriages for sale; conducted a labor exchange, and recom- 
 mended the best boarding houses. ^^ A year later J. C. 
 Gentry opened the "AVestern Horse Market" at the corner 
 of Market and Fourth Streets. He advertised that he con- 
 ducted a livery stable, and also sold on commission, at 
 public or private sale, horses, carriages, cattle, wagons and 
 slaves; and that he would conduct an auction on Wednes- 
 days and Saturdays. ^^ A similar case was that of A. C. 
 Scott, who in 1854 opened a real estate and land office but 
 who stated in the press that he not only bought and sold 
 land and rented houses but that he would sell and hire 
 slaves. ■^'^' Consequently Scott was listed as a real estate and 
 land agent in the local directories. It is impossible to de- 
 termine how many of these occasional slave dealers there 
 were, but in so far as available material shows these three 
 were the only ones to announce their trade publicly. 
 
 It would appear from all the evidence at hand that while 
 Kentucky furnished many slaves for the southern market 
 there was no general internal slave trade, as a commercial 
 enter|orise. There were in Louisville, however, a few heart- 
 less business men who took advantage of the decreasing 
 value of slave labor in Kentucky and the rising prices of 
 slaves in the far South. In this respect, Kentucky became 
 a field of supply for the slave markets of the lower South. 
 
 Unfortunately there are no statistics available by which 
 the niinibor of slaves sent south can be computed. The 
 most comprehensive anti-slavery publication on the internal 
 slave trade was unable to decide with certainty what pro- 
 portion of slaves for the southern market was furnished by 
 each of the so-called breeding States. The author of 
 Slavery and Internal Slave Trade in the United States 
 
 3» LoimvUlc Public Advertiser, November 2, 1825. 
 
 so Ibid., September 13, 1826. 
 
 ^i Louisville Daily Times, March 1, 18o4. 
 
The Development of Slavery 23 
 
 estimated that 80,000 slaves were annually exported from 
 seven States to the South. He gave no figures that were 
 not his own estimates. He ranked the seven States, how- 
 ever, in the order of the number of slaves which he thought 
 they furnished as follows: Virginia, Maryland, North Caro- 
 lina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Delaware."*^ 
 
 Martin estimates that Kentucky sent on the average 
 about 5,000 slaves to the southern market.'*- Again this 
 must be considered purely conjectural. It is reasonable to 
 suppose that during the last two decades of the slavery era 
 there were few slaves imported into Kentucky that were 
 intended for the purely Kentucky market. What Negroes 
 came into Kentucky were for the most part on their way 
 to the more profitable southern trade. The average death 
 rate among the slaves during this period was 1.9 per one 
 hundred and the birth rate was 3.2, or an excess of births 
 over deaths of 1.1 per hundred. This would make the 
 annual natural increase among the slave population about 
 2,000 per year. Comparing this with the growth of the 
 slave group from 1840 to 1850 we find that the increase of 
 slaves was much more. But it was during the next decade 
 that the slave trade reached its height and here we find that 
 the slave i^opulation increased 14,502, whereas the natural 
 increase during that period should have been 23,190. Hence 
 the slaves failed to reach even their natural increase by a 
 deficiency of 8,688. Taken literally that would mean that 
 during the ten-year period that number of slaves were ex- 
 ported from Kentucky. But it is reasonable to suppose 
 that many more than that were sent to the South. With 
 the exception of the last decade, however, the slave popu- 
 lation of Kentucky increased faster than the mere natural 
 increase of the Negroes. The law would not permit of any 
 importation of slaves intended for Kentucky, so the export 
 of purely Kentuclr^^ slaves appears never to have been 
 prominent except during the decade from 1850 to 1860. 
 
 The selling price of slaves naturally presents itself at 
 
 41 Slavery and Internal Slave Trade in the TJ. S., p. 12. 
 
 42 Martin, Asa E., Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky, p. 89. 
 
24 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 this poiut. Ill Kentucky tliesc records are very few be- 
 cause the tax books in jiractically all the counties of the 
 State have been destroyed. AVe have no accurate state- 
 ments extant before about the year 1855. The prices which 
 we have obtained are quotations from the auction of slaves 
 of estates to settle the interests of the heirs. On January 
 court day, in 1855, there were sold in the settlement of 
 estates in Bourbon, Fayette, Clark and Franklin Counties 
 Negro men who brought $1,260, $1,175, $1,070, $1,378, 
 $1,295, $1,015 and $1,505.^^ The county commissioner of 
 Harrison auctioned the slaves of the deceased George Kirk 
 Patrick with the following prices received: 
 
 America 40 years of age T 
 
 l'^^ l'-'^'' °!'^'' \ all for $1,600 • 
 
 Eliza 4 years of age ' 
 
 Brown 6 months of age J 
 
 Peter 23 years of age $1,290 
 
 Emanuel 24 years of age 750 
 
 Tom 16 years of age 1,015 
 
 Ann 14 years of age 775 
 
 Emma 12 years of age 865 
 
 Sarah 26 years of age 350*4 
 
 The county commissioner at Henderson received the 
 following prices for slaves in the settlement of several 
 estates on January 28, 1858:^^ 
 
 Ruth 33 years of age $ 800 
 
 Willis 59 years of age 475 
 
 George 35 years of age 1,200 
 
 Delphy 80 years of age 75 
 
 Leila 65 years of age 282 
 
 Clarissa 24 years of age 1,131 
 
 Andrew 19 years of age 1,500 
 
 Susan 17 years of age 470 
 
 Jennie 17 years of age 1,100 
 
 Cupid 85 years of age 74 
 
 Eliza 32 years of age 500 
 
 Bell 41 years of age 1,000 
 
 <3 Collins, Jlistory of Kentucly, Vol. 1, p. 74. 
 
 <* Cynlhiana News, January 10, 1858. 
 
 *'- Henderson Weekly Commercial, January 29, 1858. 
 
The Development of Slavery 25 
 
 This sale is most significant for the cases of ''Delphy," 80 
 years old, and ''Cupid," 85 years of age. It is difficult to 
 account for such a sale in any discussion of the slave trade, 
 but it does show the humanitarian side of Kentucky slavery. 
 Negroes at such an age had no economic value even if they 
 were given away, because the expense of their maintenance 
 was more than the value of any possible labor they could 
 perform. 
 
 At Georgetown in December of the same year we have 
 this record r^*^ 
 
 Griffin 45 years of age $ 640 
 
 Mary 14 years of age 1,060 
 
 Ellen 12 years of age 800 
 
 Elizabeth .... 11 years of age 406 (one-eyed) 
 
 Sanford 9 years of age 700 
 
 Arabel 10 years of age 690 
 
 Adam 41 years of age 700 
 
 Bettie 3 years of age 260 
 
 Aaron 28 years of age 1,191 
 
 Sam 25 years of age 1,350 
 
 The auction of the slaves of the estate of Spencer C. 
 Graves at Lexington in April, 1859, brought these prices :^^ 
 
 John 18 years of age $1,500 
 
 Dick 21 years of age 1,400 
 
 Jerry 38 years of age 700 
 
 Major 50 years of age 480 
 
 Charles 31 years of age 1,155 
 
 John Jr 18 years of age 1,140 
 
 Billy 31 years of age 1,100 
 
 Isabella 40 years, with 3 children, ages 
 
 11, 5 and 2 1,610 
 
 Eebeeca 30 years, with 3 children, ages 
 
 11, 6 and 4 2,410 
 
 Lucy 18 years of age, with infant. . 1,280 
 
 Davidella 31 years of age 1,220 
 
 Mary Ann 31 years of age 835 
 
 Patience 18 years of age 1,350 
 
 Catharine 15 years of age 1,130 
 
 Such a series of prices would show beyond a reasonable 
 
 i6 Georgetown Gazette, December 23, 1858. 
 
 i~ WeeMy Free South (XeA;vport), April 29, 1859. 
 
26 Sla^-ery in Kextucky 
 
 doubt that the value of shaves was determined entirely by 
 the increasing demand for slaves in the lower South and was 
 in no way an indication of the value of slave labor within 
 Kentucky. As was pointed out earlier in this chapter, the 
 labor value of an agricultural slave in the State steadily 
 decreased after about the year 1830. 
 
 Was slavery profitable to the Kentucky planters? In 
 the many debates on the slavery question which took place 
 after 1830 no one ever stood out in the affirmative. The 
 only ones to discuss the economic side of the issue were 
 those in opposition to slavery. As has often been said of 
 the Kentucky situation, ''the program was to use negroes 
 to raise corn to feed hogs to feed negroes, who raised more 
 corn to feed more hogs." Tobacco was the largest crop 
 raised in the State and corn came next. Neither proved to 
 be peculiarly adapted to slave labor. There were few large 
 plantations in the State where it could be made advan- 
 tageous. "^AHiat Negro work there was to be done was never 
 confined to any i^articular kind of cultivation but was used 
 in the manner of farm labor today in the State. Squire 
 Turner, of Madison County, in the Constitutional Conven- 
 tion of 1849 made a careful summary of the existing eco- 
 nomic problems of slavery. ''There are," said he, "about 
 $61,000,000 worth of slave property in the state which pro- 
 duces less than three per cent profit on the capital invested, 
 or about half as much as the moneyed capital would yield. 
 There are about 200,000 slaves in Kentucky. Of these about 
 seventy-five per cent are superannuated, sick, women in 
 unfit condition for labor, and infants unable to work, who 
 yield no ])rofit. vShow me a man that has forty or fifty 
 slaves on his estate, and if there are ten out of that number 
 who are available and valuable, it is as much as you can 
 expect. But my calculation allows you to have seventy-five 
 per cent who are barely able to maintain themselves, to pay 
 for their own clothing, fuel, house room and doctor's bills. 
 Is there any gentleman who has a large number of slaves, 
 \\]\(> will say that they are any more profitable than tliat?"'^*' 
 
 <« Debates of the Convention of 1849, p. 73. 
 
The Development of Slaveky 27 
 
 No one in the convention answered tlie last question put 
 by Squire Turner. But regardless of such an economic 
 condition, not a single piece of remedial legislation was 
 passed and the members of the Constitutional Convention 
 added a provision to the Bill of Eights which rooted the 
 slavery system firmer than ever. That most admirable of 
 all southern characters, and at the same time the most diffi- 
 cult to understand, the Kentucky master, took little heed of 
 a question of dollars and cents when it interfered with his 
 moral and humanitarian sentiments. He had inherited, in 
 most cases, the slaves that were his. He knew well enough 
 that the system did not pay but supposing that he should 
 turn his slaves loose, what would become of them? What 
 could they do for a living? The experience of later years 
 proved that his apparently obstinate temperament was 
 mixed with a good deal of wisdom, for once the slaves were 
 set free their status was not to any great extent ameliorated 
 if they went abroad from the plantation where they had 
 lived from childhood. 
 
 There was a certain amount of profit in the labor of 
 able-bodied slaves but they only represented a fraction of 
 the Negroes whom the master was called upon to support. 
 The law compelled the owner to maintain his old and help- 
 less slaves and this represented the spirit of the large ma- 
 jority of the slaveholders. Those were rare cases indeed 
 when an owner was hailed into court for failing to provide 
 for an infimi member of his slave household. The true 
 Kentuckian never begrudged the expense that such support 
 incurred. One of the ablest lawyers of the State, Benjamin 
 Hardin, made the statement that ''if it were not for sup- 
 porting my slaves, I would never go near a courthouse."-*^ 
 
 Eev. Stuart Eobinson, speaking before the Kentucky 
 Colonization Society in 1849, gave another viewpoint of the 
 economic value of the slave. ''The increase of slaves in 
 Kentuck^^" said he, "has hardly reached three thousand 
 annually for eighteen years past. The increase since 1840 
 has been 27,653— the increase for the year just closed 2,921. 
 
 *9 Little, L, P., Ben Hardin, his Times and Contemporaries, p. 544. 
 
28 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 In twenty-six counties, embracing one fourth of the slave 
 population— some of them the largest slave-holding coun- 
 ties—there has been an actual decrease in the last year of 
 881 slaves. In twelve other counties the increase has been 
 only twenty-three. There are ten counties in the State, 
 which contain one third of all the slave population of Ken- 
 tucl\y; in these ten counties, the increase of slaves for five 
 years jiast has been 2,728— an increase of less than one per 
 cent per annum. Nor is this slow increase of slavery to 
 be attributed to any stagnation or decline of public pros- 
 perity, for in the meantime the state has been growing in 
 population and wealth as heretofore. During these five 
 years the taxable property of the Commonwealth has in- 
 creased in value more than seventy-six millions. Now this 
 decrease of slaves while the other property of the common- 
 wealth is increasing must arise from one of three causes— 
 and in either case the inference is the same as to the fate 
 of slavery in Kentucky. (1) Is it because the climate is 
 unhealthy to the African? If so then African labor cannot 
 continue. (2) Is it owing to emigration? Then something 
 is wrong in the system of labor, that causes the emigration 
 of our people— for no finer soil— no more desirable resi- 
 dence can be found in the world. (3) Or is it owing to the 
 domestic slave trade? Then for some reason slave labor 
 is less profitable here than elsewhere, and must soon be 
 given up."^° 
 
 These figures quoted by the speaker on the slave popu- 
 lation for year by year are available in the auditor's tax 
 books for the years 1840 to 1859 :^^ 
 
 1840 164,817 1847 189,549 1854 200,181 
 
 1841 168,853 1848 192,470 1855 202,790 
 
 1842 171,035 1849 19r,,n0 1856 201,160 
 
 1843 176,107 1850 190,847 1857 201,590 
 
 1844 178,837 1851 196,336 1858 207,559 
 
 1845 182,742 1852 200,867 1859 208,625 
 
 1846 185,582 1853 200,015 
 
 f-o Presbyterian TTcrald, April 12, 1849. 
 
 r^i Collected Documents, 3847, pp. 581-583; 1853, pp. 401-403; 1800, pp. 
 241-246. 
 
The Development of Slavery 29 
 
 The very small growth shown here would barely account 
 for the natural increase among the slaves by virtue of the 
 high birth rate. The mortality rates were about the same 
 for slaves as for whites. The relative decline was un- 
 doubtedly due to the rising prices for slaves which were 
 sent to the South and the consequent decreasing value of a 
 slave's labor to the Kentuckian. He knew beyond a doubt 
 that the time would eventually come when he would have 
 to part with his slave and that portion of the holders who 
 were not averse to selling their chattels did so during this 
 period. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 The Legal Status of Slaveky 
 
 Slavery in its more economic form naturally spread to 
 the Kentucky district as the western frontier of Virginia 
 became settled. Of the 293,427 slaves which were held in 
 the State of Virginia in the year 1790, however, only 11,830 
 were in the district of Kentuclc}^, which at that time had a 
 total population of 73,077. Few thought, however, of dis- 
 puting the rights of the institution in the newly created 
 State. The final convention which met to form a constitu- 
 tion was held at Danville, beginning on April 2, 1792, and 
 in the course of its proceedings it was apparent that there 
 was no fundamental division among the delegates regard- 
 ing any of the proposed provisions with the exception of the 
 one dealing with slavery. Virginia had stipulated in giving 
 permission for the formation of the new State that slavery 
 as an established institution should not be disturbed, and 
 this policy had the support of a majority of the members 
 of the constitutional convention. George Nichols, a native 
 of the Old Dominion, was the leader of the assembly and 
 had charge of most of the work which was done and natu- 
 rally was most interested in carrying out the wishes of his 
 native State in the formation of the new document. The 
 only serious opponent was David Kice, a noted Presbyterian 
 minister, but, having resigned on April 11, he was not 
 present at the time when the slavery issue came up for final 
 settlement. 
 
 A separate vote was taken on Article IX, the slavery 
 section, which passed 26 to 19. It was finally provided that 
 
 The legislature shall liave no power to pass laws for the emanci- 
 pation of slaves without the consent of their owners, or without 
 paying their o\vncrs, previous to such emancipation, a full equiva- 
 lent in money, for the slaves emancipated ; they shall have no power 
 
 30 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 31 
 
 to prevent immigrants to this state, from bringing with them such 
 persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United 
 States, so long as any person of the same age or description shall 
 be continued in slavery by the laws of this state : that they shall 
 pass laws to permit the owners of slaves to emancipate them, saving 
 the rights of creditors, and preventing them from becoming a 
 charge to the county in which they reside; they shall have full 
 power to prevent slaves from being brought into this state as mer- 
 chandise; they shall have full power to prevent any slave being 
 brought into this state from a foreign country, and to prevent 
 those from being brought into this state, who have been since the 
 first of January, 1789, or may hereafter be imported into any of 
 the United States from a foreign country. And they shall have 
 full power to pass such laws as may be necessary to oblige the own- 
 ers of slaves to treat them with humanity, to provide for them 
 necessary clothes and provisions, to abstain from all injuries to 
 them extending to life or limb, and in case of their neglect or re- 
 fusal to comply with the directions of such laws, to have such slave 
 or slaves sold for the benefit of their owner or owners.^ 
 
 In any discussion of the slavery question in Kentucky 
 in its historical aspects this article of the first constitution 
 is fundamental. It is evident that even at that early day 
 the difficulty of the slavery problem was already in the 
 minds of the people in spite of many other apparently more 
 pressing issues. The article itself remained practically 
 intact throughout the existence of slavery in the State. 
 AVere there ever in later years gathered within the con- 
 fines of the State anybody of men who had a better grasp of 
 the future? The single instance of the recommendation 
 that the legislature should pass laws permitting the eman- 
 cipation of slaves only under the provision that they should 
 be guaranteed from becoming a public charge to the county 
 shows the comprehension of a difficulty that could not at 
 such an early date have developed to any great degree, but 
 which in later decades was a formidable problem. We may 
 well say with John Mason Brown, however, that ''the sys- 
 tem of slavery thus contemplated was designed to be as 
 
 iLittelVs Laics, 1: 32. 
 
32 Slavery in Kextucky 
 
 mild, as Imman, aud as much protected from traffic evils as 
 possible, but it was to be emphatically perpetual, for no 
 emancipation could be had without the assent of each par- 
 ticular owner of each individual slave. "^ 
 
 The session of the State assembly which met in No- 
 vember, 1792, only attempted to carry out the constitutional 
 provision prohibiting commercial transactions with slaves. 
 Xo person was permitted to buy of, or sell to, any slave, any 
 manner of thing whatsoever without a written permit de- 
 scriptive of the article under the penalty of four times the 
 value of the thing bought or sold. The jurisdiction of such 
 cases was given to the county court, if they concerned values 
 of more than five pounds. The slave was to receive ten 
 lashes, which by the standards of those days was a meager 
 punishment for any offense.^ "Wlienever possible the slave 
 was not brought into consideration as an offender. The 
 theory seems to have been that the slave was better off when 
 left alone. It was only when some unscrupulous outsider 
 came in to use the slave either as a victim or as an object of 
 j-jrofit that it was necessary to draw the strings tighter on 
 the Negro, not because of any inherent tendency to crime so 
 much as to keep the slave from becoming unruly when in 
 the power of a superior influence. 
 
 It was not until the session of 1798 that the legislature 
 drew up the fundamental slave code which was to carry out 
 all the recommendations of the constitutional convention 
 and which remained the basis of all legal action throughout 
 the entire period of slavery. Among the early acts of the 
 State had been the temporary adoption of the statutes of 
 Virginia on the treatment of slaves and slavery problems, 
 which were then in force."* These remained as a slave code 
 for Kentucky until the enactment in 1798 of these new laws, 
 which contained forty-three articles and involved almost 
 every question that could come up for legal consideration 
 in connection with the institution. The experience of six 
 
 2 Brown, .Tohn Mason, The Political Beginnings of Kentiidnj, p. 229, 
 ^TAttfU's Laws, 1: AL 
 * Hid., 1: IGl. 
 
The Legal Status op Slaveey 33 
 
 years as a separate State had served to show that many 
 existing provisions of the Virginia code were not readily 
 adapted to the rapidly growing State, and then too there 
 was a decided tendency to ameliorate the condition of the 
 slave as much as possible. In Kentucky they were not then, 
 at least, confronted with such a large mass of slaves that 
 they could not meet problems in a much easier manner than 
 in the Old Dominion. 
 
 In the beginning, it was naturally found necessary to 
 place some restrictions on the slave and his movements. 
 He was not allowed to leave his master's plantation without 
 written permission and if he did go away, any person could 
 apprehend the offender and take him before a justice of the 
 peace, who was empowered to order the infliction of stripes 
 at his discretion. Furthermore, he was not to wander off 
 to any other plantation without the written permission of 
 his owner, with the provision in this instance that he was 
 not to be taken before a justice of the peace, but before his 
 owner, who was entitled to inflict ten lashes upon the of- 
 fender. Should the slave be found carrying any powder, 
 shot, a gun, club, or any weapon he could be apprehended by 
 any free person and taken before a justice and a much 
 severer penalty exacted in the form of thirty-nine lashes, 
 ''well laid on, on the bare back."^ It is clear that this law 
 was drawn up to keep the slave from becoming a public 
 menace and not as a sign of absolute restriction on the 
 servant, for it was further provided in Section 6 that in 
 case the slave lived in a frontier community he could go to 
 the local justice of the peace and secure a permit to keep 
 and use guns, powder, shot and other weapons for either 
 offensive or defensive purposes. This pennission was to 
 be indorsed by any free Negro, mulatto or Indian and did 
 not necessarily involve the approval of the owner of the 
 slave. 
 
 It was declared unlawful for slaves to engage in riots, 
 unlawful assemblies, in trespasses or in seditious speech and, 
 if so accused, they were to be taken before the local justice 
 
 sLitteU's Laws, 2: 113. 
 
34 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 who was to punish them at his discretion. But the Negroes 
 tliemselves were not to be considered as the onlj" guilty 
 ones. In order to prevent any such disorderly meetings no 
 owner of slaves was to be allowed to permit any slave not 
 belonging to him to remain on his plantation for more than 
 four hours at any one time under a nominal penalty to such 
 owner of $2 ; but, if he allowed more than five such slaves 
 to assemble on his property, he was to be fined more 
 severely. If such a group were brought together by the 
 written permission of the owner and for business reasons, 
 however, there was involved no offense whatever.*' It was 
 realized that oftentimes the chief leaders in the unlawful 
 meetings of slaves were free Negroes and sympathetic 
 whites. Were any such to be found present they were to be 
 arrested and if found guilty when tried before a justice of 
 the peace, should be fined 15 shillings, to be paid, not to the 
 court, but to the informer and if the money was not forth- 
 coming the court was to have twenty lashes inflicted— no 
 matter whether the con\^cted be white or black. Inasmuch 
 as the degree of punishment of the slaves for being present 
 at such a meeting was not specified it would seem that the 
 legislature meant that the free persons involved should be 
 treated more severely than slaves by the court. 
 
 The law of 1792 regarding trading with slaves had not 
 proved to be effective, for in many cases the owner for a 
 stipulated wage paid by the slave had permitted him to go at 
 large and engage in trade as if he were a free man. The 
 legislature found that this encouraged the slaves to commit 
 thefts and engage in various evil practices and naturally 
 censured the owner. A fine of $50 was to be paid by the 
 master for each offending slave and no punishment whatever 
 was to be given the latter. But should the servant go so 
 far as to hire himself out, he would be imprisoned by order 
 of the court and, at the next session of the county court, 
 he would be sold. One fourth of the money thus re- 
 ceived was to be applied to the county funds and 5 per 
 cent was to be given to the sheriff and the owner was to 
 
 n LiltcU's Laws, 2: lU. 
 
The Legal. Status of Slavery 35 
 
 receive the remaining 70 per cent. Here too the slave was 
 not punished and his condition of servitude was not chan^:c(l. 
 It was merely a change of owners. Again the ol'fonding 
 owner was the victim and for his carelessness he was de- 
 prived of 30 per cent of the money value of his slave." 
 
 The leading Kentucky case bearing on slaves engaged in 
 trade is that of Bryant vs. Sheely (5 Dana, 530). Five of 
 the main points are worth mentioning here : 
 
 1. To buy or receive any article from a slave, without the con- 
 sent of his master, in writing, specifying the article, is a highly 
 penal offense. 
 
 2. A sale made by a slave, without such written consent, is void, 
 and does not divest the master of his property ; he may sue for, and 
 recover it; or he may waive his right to the specific thing, affirm 
 the sale, and recover the price or value, if it was not paid to the 
 slave, 
 
 3. A general permission to a slave to go at large and trade for 
 himself as a free man, is contrary to public policy, and a violation 
 of a penal statute. The owner or master of a slave could maintain 
 no action for any claim acquired by a slave while acting under 
 such illegal license. 
 
 4. But a slave may be permitted by his master to buy or sell 
 particular articles, and any form of consent or permission given by 
 the master, or his assent after the fact, will give validity to the 
 sale — though the purchaser may be liable to the penalty, if the con- 
 sent be not in writing. 
 
 5. A slave, being authorized by his master to sell any particu- 
 lar thing, becomes the agent of his master for that purpose; and 
 from the authority to sell, an authority to transfer the property, 
 and to fix and receive the price must be inferred; but the slave 
 cannot exercise or receive an authority to maintain any action in 
 relation to it ; the right of action for the price belongs to the master, 
 and if he sues, that fact itself is sufficient evidence that he author- 
 ized or approved and confirmed the sale. 
 
 Unlike the more southerty States, Kentucky did not leave 
 the slave helpless in the courts. If a slave were charged 
 with a capital crime he was brought before the court of 
 quarter sessions, which was composed of the various county 
 
 T Liitell's Laws, 2: 116-117. 
 
36 Slateky in Iventucky 
 
 jiistices of the peace. They were to constitute a court of 
 oyer and terminer. But they alone were not to decide the 
 fate of the Negro, for the sheriff was required to empanel a 
 jury of twelve men from among the bystanders, who were to 
 constitute the trial jury. It was explicitly stated that legal 
 evidence in such a case would be the confession of the 
 offender, the oath of one or more credible witnesses, or such 
 testimony of Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians as should seem 
 convincing to the court. When a slave was called upon to 
 testify in such a case, the court, the witness ''not being a 
 Christian," found it necessary to administer the following 
 charge that he might be under the greater obligation to 
 declare the truth: ''You are brought hither as a witness, and 
 by the direction of the law I am to tell you, before you give 
 your evidence, that you must tell the truth and nothing but 
 the truth, and that if it be found hereafter that you tell a 
 lie, and give false testimony in this matter, you must, for so 
 doing, receive thirty-nine lashes on your bare back, well 
 laid on, at the common whipping post."^ 
 
 Section 22 of the law of 1798 provided that the master 
 or owner of any slave might appear in court at a trial of his 
 servant and "make what just defense he can for such 
 slave." The only restriction was that such defense should 
 not interfere with the form of the trial. Naturally the 
 liberally disposed slaveholders interpreted this to mean that 
 they could employ counsel to defend their Negroes and il; 
 remained a disputed question down to 1806, when the legis- 
 lature made the provisions more specific. By this new law 
 it was provided that it was not only the pri^dlege but the 
 duty of the owner of a slave who was being prosecuted to 
 emjiloy an attorney to defend him. The owner neglecting 
 to do so the court must assign counsel to defend the slave 
 and the costs thereby incurred were to be charged to the 
 owner. The fee for defense was not to exceed $200 and if 
 not forthcoming the court was empowered to recover the 
 amount in the manner of any other debt of similar amount. 
 
 ^Littell's Laws, 2: 117-118. 
 
The Legal Status op Slavery 37 
 
 It was plainly the intention of the legislature to provide a 
 just trial for any slave, for they even went so far as to 
 enact that the lawyer appointed by the court for the prisoner 
 should ''defend such slave as in cases of free persons prose- 
 cuted for felony by the laws of this state."" 
 
 When the slave was convicted of an offense which was 
 punishable by death but which was within the benefit of 
 clergy the capital penalty was not pronounced, but the 
 otTender was burnt in the hand or inflicted with any other 
 corporal penalty at the discretion of the court. Should the 
 criminal be sentenced to suffer death, thirty days were to 
 elapse before the execution, except where it was a case of 
 conspiracy, insurrection or rebellion. When the court had 
 decided to sentence the slave to the death penalty a valua- 
 tion of the Negro was made. This statement was to be 
 turned over to the State auditor of public accounts who was 
 required to issue a warrant on the treasury for the amount 
 in favor of the owner of the convicted party. The owner on 
 his part was to turn over to the treasurer the certificate of 
 the clerk of the court showing that the slave had been con- 
 demned and the statement of the sheriff that the offender 
 had been executed or had died before execution.^ "^ 
 
 This matter of the papnent to the owner of the value of 
 the executed slave appears never to have been questioned to 
 any extent even by the abolitionists in the legislature until 
 the session of 1830 when a bill was introduced for the repeal 
 of the law. The bill was lost but in the course of the debate 
 it was stated that while Kentuclrj'^ contained over 160,000 
 slaves onty about one fifth of the tax-paying whites were 
 slaveholders and that $68,000 had already been paid out of 
 the State treasury as indemnity for slaves executed. After 
 the defeat of this bill there was oft"ered a substitute which 
 proposed that a tax of one fourth of one per cent should 
 be levied upon the value of all slaves in the State for the 
 creation of a fund out of which to make such disbursements, 
 but this was likewise lost.^^ 
 
 oLittell's Laws, 3: 403. 
 
 ^olbid., 2: 117-118. 
 
 ■i-^Niles' Begister, February 2, 1830. 
 
3S SLA^'ERY IX Kextucky 
 
 Until 1811 there were no special enactments on slave 
 crimes and their punishments. The court had, therefore, 
 more or less range in the exactment of penalties but the 
 legislature of 1811 passed during the first fortnight of its 
 session a specific law governing slave crimes. Only four 
 offenses were to be regarded as punishable by death: (1) 
 conspiracy and rebellion, (2) administering poison with 
 intent to kill, (3) voluntary manslaughter and (4) rape of a 
 white woman. If any slaves were to be found guiltj' of con- 
 sulting or advising the murder of any one, every such con- 
 sultation was to constitute an offense and be punishable by 
 any number of stripes not exceeding one hundred. ^^ 
 
 As time went on the list of capital crimes was increased 
 as a natural result of the growth of the slave population and 
 their growing state of unrest after the incoming of the anti- 
 slavery propaganda. By the close of the slavery era in 
 Kentucky there were eleven offenses for which slaves 
 should suffer death: (1) murder, (2) arson, (3) rape of a 
 white woman, (4) robbery, (5) burglary, (6) conspiracy, 
 (7) administering poison with intent to kill, (8) man- 
 slaughter, (9) attempting to commit rape on a white woman, 
 (10) shooting at a white person with intent to kill, and (11) 
 wounding a white person with intent to kill. It will readih' 
 be seen that from a practical standpoint these eleven of- 
 fenses can be narrowed down to eight. The severity of the 
 slave code can be shown by comparison of the capital crimes 
 for white persons at the same time. These were four in 
 number, (1) murder, (2) carnal abuse of a female under 
 ten years of age, (3) wilful buniing of the penitentiary and 
 (4) being an accessory to the fact.'^ 
 
 Virginia had early enacted that slaves should be con- 
 sidered as real estate in the settlement of inheritances. But 
 the growing tendency to look upon the slaves in all things 
 else as personal chattels led to such legal and popular con- 
 fusion that the Virginia assembly often observed that they 
 were "real estate in some respects, personal in others, and 
 
 i^LittcU'a Laws, 4: 223-224. 
 
 13 Stroud, Laws relating to Slavery, p. 8G. 
 
 LittcU & Swigert, 2: 1066-9; 1060^. 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 39 
 
 both in others." Regardless of such legal complexity it 
 was not until 1793 that it was enacted that ''all negro and 
 mulatto slaves in all courts of judicature shall be held and 
 adjudged to be personal estate." 
 
 In drawing up the slave code of 1798 Kentucky disre- 
 garded the legal experience of Virginia and her more re- 
 cent remedial legislation and enacted that "all negro, 
 mulatto or Indian slaves, in all courts of judicature and 
 other places within this commonwealth, shall be held, taken 
 and adjudged to be real estate, and shall descend to the heirs 
 and widows of persons departing this life, as lands are 
 directed to descend." It was further provided, however, 
 that "all such slaves shall be liable to the papnent of debts, 
 and may be taken by execution for that end, as other 
 chattels, or personal estate may be."^'* 
 
 Such a law coupled with the legal precedents of Virginia 
 served to intensify the mixed propert}^ conception of the 
 slave. The confusion, however, was purely legal, for slaves 
 were held in all other respects as personalty; but in cases 
 of inheritance and the probation of wills the Kentucky 
 Court of Appeals was often called upon to define clearly the 
 legal status of the Negro in bondage. The first important 
 decision was handed down in 1824 in the case of Chinn and 
 wife vs. Eespass, in which it was pointed out that while 
 slaves were by law made real estate for the purpose of de- 
 scent and dower, yet they had in law many of the attributes 
 of personal estate. They would pass by a nuncupative will, 
 and lands would not; they could be limited in a grant or 
 devise no otherwise than personal chattels; and personal 
 actions might be brought to recover the possession of them. 
 
 14 It would perhaps be well to point out here the general common-law differ- 
 ence between the treatment of real and personal estate in a will. The title of 
 the personal property of the deceased is vested in the executor and he holds it 
 for the payment of debts and distribution according to the will of the testator. 
 On the other hand the real estate vests in the devisees or heirs and does not go 
 to the administrator, unless by statute enactment, which was in part true in 
 Kentucky, in the case above, where the slaves, although real estate, were held 
 liable for the debts of their master. Littell's Laws, 2: 120. 
 
40 Sla^-ery IX Kentucky 
 
 Furthermore ''they were in their nature personal estate, 
 being moveable property, and as such miglit attend the 
 person of the proprietor wherever he went; and in practice 
 they were so considered by the people in general. "^^ 
 
 Conversely, the court was often called upon to interpret 
 the phrase ''personal estate" in wills and contracts, where 
 it appeared without oluj other restrictive expression or 
 provision, and it consistently held that the term should be 
 construed as embracing slaves.^*' Gradually the personal 
 property conception began to secure even legal precedence 
 over that of real estate when the two interpretations came 
 into close conflict. This was accomplished by placing more 
 stress on the proviso in the original slave code, which placed 
 slaves in the hands of the administrator as assets for the 
 payment of debts. This led to increasing power for the 
 executor who could even defeat the title of the heirs, though 
 the property may have been specifically devised. Hence it 
 was not surprising that in the Eevised Statutes of 1852 it 
 was provided that slaves should thereafter be deemed and 
 held as personal estate. Coming after all doubt of the 
 personalty of slaves had been removed by the decisions of 
 the highest tribunal in the State, this law meant little more 
 than the repeal of the old statute making slaves real estate. 
 
 The wonder is that Kentucky should have chosen to hold 
 to an antiquated legal conception for fifty years after Vir- 
 ginia had proved its fallacy by her experience in the eigh- 
 teenth century. AVhile it did little harm, it had few ad- 
 vantages. The existence of the theory was chiefly notice- 
 able in the frequent legal battles over technicalities in the 
 settlement of estates. In the popular mind slaves were 
 always considered personal property, and the spirit of the 
 slave code itself embodied that conception as regarded all 
 things save the question of inheritance. 
 
 With respect to the liberty of the slaves the code of 
 
 ■i'T. B. Monroe's Beport I., 23. 
 in Beatty vs. Judy, 1 Dana, 101. 
 riumpton vs. Cook, 2 A. K. Marshall, 450, 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 11 
 
 1798 clearly shows that the existing type of slavery was 
 purely rural, for the restrictions on slaves concerned only 
 the plantation Negroes. Strictly understood, the slave was 
 not to leave the farm of his owner without a pass from his 
 master, the main purpose being to keep the Negroes from 
 congregating on any one farm. Later when emissaries from 
 the North became unusually active the rights and privileges 
 of the slaves were further restricted. This change was due 
 to the current belief that these foreign individuals were bent 
 upon stirring up strife among the slaves and inciting them 
 to insurrection. Once started such a scheme would have 
 resulted in anarchy especially in the towns. The real curb- 
 ing provisions were not started until along in the thirties 
 when these outside forces had begun to make their appear- 
 ance in the urban communities.^"^ 
 
 In some parts of the State were instituted mounted 
 patrols, who went about at night and watched the movement 
 of slaves. They were to apprehend any servant who was 
 caught away from his home plantation without a pass from 
 his master. ^^ Such an institution was based on good Negro 
 psychology, for his fear of the spirits of night was well 
 known. Citizens of that time have told us many tales of 
 the dread which the slave had of meeting these night raiders 
 whom they termed "patter-rollers" and how they came to 
 sing of them in true Negro fashion : 
 
 Over the fence and through the paster, 
 Run, nigger, run, oh, run a little faster, 
 
 Run, nigger, run, 
 The patter-roller ketch you. 
 
 Such a system of county patrols did not prove to be suffi- 
 cient as the slave population grew and the towns became 
 larger and more attractive to the country slave. The legis- 
 lature of 1834 in drawing up a law concerning tavern keepers 
 had this problem clearly in mind when they provided that 
 no person should sell, give or loan any spirituous liquors to 
 
 iTRothert, History of Muhlenburg County, p. 343. 
 18 Young, B. H., History of Jessamine County, p. 89. 
 
42 Sla\"eby in Kentucky 
 
 slaves, other than his own, nnder a penalty of $10 for each 
 offense. Furthermore, if the olfender was a licensed liquor 
 dealer, he should have his license taken away from him for 
 the term of two years.^" That even this measure did not 
 prove effective enough to curb the evil of Negroes congre- 
 gating in the towns is shown by the further provision passed 
 March 6, 1850, to increase the fine to $50 for each offense.^*' 
 A still further extension was that of February 27, 1856, 
 which provided that free Negroes were to be included in the 
 restriction unless they presented a certificate from "some 
 white person of respectable character." No slaves or free 
 Negroes were to be employed in the selling or distribution 
 of liquor nor were they to be allowed to visit or even loaf 
 around any place where intoxicants w^ere kept for sale.^^ 
 The session of 1858 made the force of the law more explicit 
 by defining very clearly the jurisdiction in such cases.^- 
 
 Not only the State authorities but the towns as well 
 were active in the measures adopted to meet the growing 
 problem. The best available sample of the many provisions 
 which the town councils drew up is this one which was 
 passed by the trustees of Henderson in 1840 : 
 
 It shall be and is hereby made, the duty of the Town Sergeant 
 or either of his assistants, to punish with any number of lashes not 
 exceeding ten, all or any negro slave or slaves who may be found 
 in any grog shop, grocery or other place where spirituous liquors 
 are retailed in said town, or who may be found on the streets of 
 said to\Ya. after ten o'clock at night, unless it shall appear to the 
 said Town Sergeant, or assistant, that said negro slave or slaves, 
 are acting under the orders of his, her or their master or mistress, 
 and it shall further be the duty of the Town Sergeant, or either of 
 his assistants, to enter into any grog shop, grocery or other place 
 where spirituous liquors are retailed, in said town, whenever he 
 shall be informed that any negro slave or slaves are collected 
 therein. Provided, said Town Sergeant, or assistant, can enter 
 the same peaceably and without force. -^ 
 
 "Session Laws, 1834, p. 726. 
 20 Ibid., 1850, p. 51. 
 ^iJbid., 1856, Vol. 1, pp. 42-44. 
 iilbid., 1858, Vol. 1, pp. 47-48. 
 » Starling, p. 290. 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 43 
 
 This town regulation offers perhaps another proof of 
 the oft-repeated statement regarding the slave laws of Ken- 
 tucky that while they appeared severe on the statute books 
 they were always mild in the enforcement. The regulation 
 of the movement of slaves in the towns was always subject 
 to the local conditions. Beginning about 1850 there was a 
 growing feeling in some of the more thickly populated sec- 
 tions of the State that the type of Negro slave who sought 
 to frequent the village saloons would sooner or later start 
 an insurrection. But no such uprising ever occurred and 
 the fear of such seems to have been due to the current ani- 
 mosity towards the activities of the abolitionists, which was 
 prevalent throughout the State. 
 
 In the course of time it was considered necessary to treat 
 more seriously also the importation of slaves. The advisa- 
 bility of preventing the importation of bondmen had been 
 foreseen in Kentucky from the experience of the mother 
 State of Virginia which had enacted a stringent law in 1778 
 imposing a penalty of one thousand pounds and the for- 
 feiture of the slave upon the importer of any into that com- 
 monwealth. The ninth article of the Kentucky Constitu- 
 tion of 1792 had provided that the legislature ''shall have 
 full power to prevent slaves being brought into this common- 
 wealth as merchandise; they shall have full power to pre- 
 vent any slave being brought into this state from a foreign 
 country, and to prevent those from being brought into this 
 state, who have been since the first of January, 1789, or may 
 hereafter be imported into any of the United States from a 
 foreign country."-^ 
 
 The session of the State assembly in 1794 drew up a law 
 concerning the importation and emancipation of slaves but 
 it was largely a mere modification of the law of the State 
 of Virginia. It was not until the adoption of the slave code 
 of 1798 that the question was firmly settled by a more def- 
 inite statement. By article 25 of that act it was provided 
 "that no slave or slaves shall be imported into this state 
 
 ziLittell's Laws, 1: 32. 
 
44 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 from any foreign conntry, nor shall any slave who has been 
 imported into the United States from any foreign country 
 since the first day of January, 1789, or may hereafter be 
 imported into the United States from any foreign country 
 under the penalty of $300." 
 
 Tliis was merely carrying out the provisions of the 
 constitution. Section 26 provided that "no slave or slaves 
 shall be imported into this state as merchandise, and 
 any person offending herein, shall frofeit and pay the 
 sum of $300 for each slave so imported, to be recov- 
 ered by action of debt or information, in any court hav- 
 ing cognizance of the same, one half to the prosecutor, 
 the other half to the use of the commonwealth." More 
 significant was the proviso that "this act shall not extend to 
 prevent any citizen of this state bringing for his own use, 
 provided, they have not been brought into the United States 
 from any foreign country since January 1, 1789; nor shall 
 it be construed to prevent persons emigrating to this state 
 bringing their slaves with them, but either a citizen of this 
 state or persons emigrating to this state may bring slaves 
 not prohibited by this act."^^ 
 
 An act of 1814 amended the above by i^rohibiting the 
 importation of slaves by any of the emigrants if they 
 did not intend to settle in Kentucky.-'^ An attempt was 
 made by a law of February 8, 1815, to remedy some of 
 the defects which had been found. The legal penalty 
 for importation was increased to $600 for each slave 
 imported and a fine of $200 was added for every per- 
 son buying or selling such slave. No indictment was to 
 be subject to a shorter limitation than five years and once 
 so accused no person was to be discharged or acquitted 
 unless he could produce evidence to show that within sixty 
 days of his arrival in Kentucky he had deposited the follow- 
 ing oath, duly signed, in the county clerk's office where he 
 
 resides : "I, , do swear that my removal 
 
 to the state of Kentucky was with the intention of becoming 
 
 suLittcll's Laws, 2: 110. 
 2c7i,d., 5: 293. 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 45 
 
 a citizen thereof, and that I have brought no slave or slaves 
 to this state, with the intention of selling them."^^ 
 
 It is evident from all contemporary discussions of the 
 question of importation that it was the firm conviction that 
 in order to do justice to the slave and the institution as a 
 whole within the State it was necessary to prevent the in- 
 fusion of any foreign slave element. Once such a policy 
 had been carried out to a successful conclusion, they would 
 have been confronted only with a purely domestic type of 
 slavery and its increase. With such an ideal condition, for 
 those times, the institution eventually would have been 
 easily handled. But these early lawmakers, while no doubt 
 honest in their intentions, did not have the wisdom that was 
 tempered with experience, and the unscrupulous slave 
 traders found further defects in the law and took advantage 
 of them. A careful examination of the law of 1794, the 
 codification of 1798, and the amendments of 1814 and 1815 
 will show that the whole theory of non-importation is 
 summed up in the word intent. It was the intent with which 
 the slaves were introduced, and to this alone the penalty 
 attached. They were not to be imported as merchandise but 
 every citizen could import slaves for his own use. Once 
 these slaves were within the State there was no penalty pro- 
 vided if they were sold. There was nothing to prevent a 
 man from selling what slaves he had imported and later 
 going without the confines of the State and bringing in 
 more. If he were brought before the court, he would claim 
 that he had not intended to sell them when they were brought 
 in, and no one could place a penalty on his intentions. It 
 seems that there were other violators of the spirit of the 
 law, who never sold any of the slaves but brought them into 
 the State in large numbers and then hired them out for such 
 long terms as 99 years.^s The fundamental idea of the law 
 had been to place a curb on the increase of the slave popula- 
 tion by importation and these acts were in direct opposi- 
 tion to the intention of the enactments. 
 
 27 7&id!., 5: 435-437. 
 
 28 Barre, W, L., Speeches and Writings of Thomas F. Marshall, p. 115. 
 
46 Slaveky in Kentucky 
 
 An index of the inefficiency of the existing provisions re- 
 garding importation can be found in the figures on the 
 growth of the slave population during this period wlien it 
 is borne in mind that legally slaves could not be imported, 
 except for personal use, after the year 1794. The slave 
 population in 1790 had been 11,830 and by 1800 had in- 
 creased to 40,343 or at the rate of 241.02 per cent; in 1810 
 there were 80,561 slaves or an increase of 99.69 per cent ; in 
 1820 there were 126,732, a gain of 57.31 per cent; and by 
 1830 they had increased 30.36 per cent to a total of 165,213. 
 During the same period there was a great increase in the 
 white population but it was always from 20 per cent to 40 
 per cent below that of the slaves. It appears that the law 
 prohibiting importation was not as effective as it should 
 have been. "While none of the statesmen appear to have 
 figured from the statistical viewpoint there was no end of 
 discussion regarding the necessity of extending the law to 
 include more than the question of intent at the time of 
 importation. 
 
 The avowed resolution of Kentucky to deal with the 
 slavery question in the most humane manner and to stop 
 any unscrupulous dealing in slaves for the mere sake of 
 profit is nowhere more clearly shown than in the firm action 
 which was taken not only in the court room but in the legis- 
 lative halls when it was found that advantage had been 
 taken of the letter of the law at the expense of its spirit. 
 On February 2, 1833, the legislature passed a law prohibit- 
 ing all importation of slaves even for personal use. The 
 only exception provided in this case was that emigrants 
 were allowed to bring in slaves, if they took the oath that 
 had been provided in the law of 1815. The evil mentioned 
 above brought about by hiring slaves for excessively long 
 teniis was prohibited by declaring illegal any contract which 
 extended beyond one year and exacting a penalty of $600 
 for each offense. This law of 1833 was destined to be the 
 crux of many a heated argument for the remainder of the 
 .slavery period. Many a candidate for office during the 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 47 
 
 next thirty years rose to victory or fell in defeat because 
 of his position with regard to this one statute of the State. 
 It was the briefest of all the enactments on the slavery ques- 
 tion but it was by far the most important and far-reaching 
 provision that the legislature ever enacted in connection 
 with the institution.^^ 
 
 It is noticeable that this measure was not brought about 
 in any sense by the activities of the abolitionists, for they 
 had not at that time made their appearance in the State. 
 It was an honest endeavor on the part of the native popula- 
 tion, slaveholding as well as non-slaveholding, to carry out 
 the spirit of their State constitution which had been adopted 
 back in 1792. Thomas F. Marshall, who later was the 
 leader of the Lexington group which removed Cassius M. 
 Clay's True American to Cincinnati, has borne testimony to 
 the fact that the slaveholding element voted for the law of 
 1833. "At the time of the passage of this law," said he, 
 "the sect known by the title of 'abolitionists' had not made 
 their appearance. And, as I was sworn then upon the con- 
 stitution of my country, by all the obligations of that oath, 
 I affirm now that I do not believe that the principles and 
 designs ascribed to that party were in the contemplation 
 of any human being who voted for the law. I was myself 
 not only never an abolitionist, but never an emancipationist 
 upon any plan which I ever heard proposed. "^"^ 
 
 But the question was not settled for all time, for with 
 the coming of the abolitionist element there was a general 
 tendency throughout the State to enact stricter laws govern- 
 ing slaves. Many who had voted for the enactment began 
 to cry for a repeal of the law, but it was not until the session 
 of 1841 that it was seriously debated in the general assembly. 
 
 29 Section 1 of the law 1833 read: "Each and every person or persons who 
 shall hereafter import into this state any slave or slaves, or who shall sell or 
 buy, or contract for the sale or purchase, for a longer term than one year, of 
 the service of any such slave or slaves, knowing the same to have been imported, 
 shall forfeit and pay $600 for each slave so imported, sold, or bought, or whose 
 service has been so contracted for; recoverable by indictment of a grand jury 
 or any action of debt, in the name of the Commonwealth in any circuit court, 
 where the offenders may be found." Session Laws* 1833, pp. 258-261. 
 
 30 Barre, W. L., p. 116. 
 
48 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Then after a long and ardent discussion in tlie House of 
 Representatives a vote was taken on the ninth of January— 
 with 34 in favor of the repeal and 53 against it. Never 
 within the previous decade had a bill before the House pro- 
 duced such i:»opular interest. ^^ It came up in the Senate 
 at the session of 1843 but after another warm debate it 
 failed by a vote of 14 to 21. Sentiment for the repeal con- 
 tinued to grow and in 1849 the law was amended so as ''no 
 longer to jDrohibit persons from purchasing and bringing 
 into the State slaves for their own use."^^ This changed 
 the situation back to what it was before 1833, for it will be 
 recalled that the main feature of the law of 1833 compared 
 with that of 1815 was the prohibition of importation even 
 for personal use. It could easily have been predicted that 
 such an amendment would pass, for the legislature of 1847 
 had passed 27 distinct resolutions granting to as many indi- 
 viduals the right to import slaves for personal use. The 
 session of 1848 made 24 similar provisions. 
 
 This apjDarently radical swing towards the side of the 
 slave owner in 1849 was more than likely brought about by 
 the very intense campaign which was carried on by the 
 emancipationists. Such a movement served to unite the 
 slave forces against any attack upon the institution. This 
 tendency was shown not only in the halls of the State legis- 
 lature but in the constitutional convention which met later 
 in the same year. Although the qbolitionists had looked 
 forward to some advanced constitutional provisions on 
 emancipation and the. inclusion of the law of 1833 in the 
 organic law of the State they were astounded to be met 
 with the virtual repeal of that statute by the legislature. 
 On the other hand the constitutional convention not only 
 rejected bodily all the reform measures but added to the 
 Bill of Rights this extraordinary amendment: "The right of 
 property is before and higher than any constitutional sanc- 
 tion, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and 
 its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of 
 the owner of any property whatsoever." 
 
 aiJVifcs' Begistcr, January 23, 1841. 
 32 Collins, Vol, 1, p. 83. 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 49 
 
 The slave trader once more had the courage to appear 
 in the State. Richard Henry Collins in an editorial in the 
 Maysville Eagle, November 6, 1849, gives us some vivid 
 evidence of the effect which the repeal of the law of 1833 
 had had in a few weeks' time. ''A remarkably forcible and 
 practical argument in favor of incorporating the negro law 
 of 1833 into the new constitution reached this city in bodily 
 shape on Sunday, per the steamer Herman from Charleston, 
 Virginia. Fortj'-four negroes — men, women and children 
 —of whom seventeen men had handcuffs on one hand and 
 were chained together, two and two, passed through this 
 city for the interior of the State, under charge of two 
 regular traders. We opine that few who saw the spectacle 
 would hereafter say aught against the readoption of the 
 anti-importation act of 1833." Such scenes as this were 
 the result of the passage of an innocent-looking measure 
 which allowed citizens to import slaves for their own use, 
 but which could really be made to include almost any influx 
 of slaves. 
 
 No further change in the importation laws was made 
 until the crisis immediately preceding the Civil War, when 
 practically all opposition was removed and the law of 1833 
 was abolished in its entirety.^^ Explanations of the sudden 
 turn of mind are not hard to find for the enactment was 
 passed amid the turmoil and chaos brought on by an im- 
 pending war and the radical slaveholders found it easy to 
 get votes for their side in a last vain endeavor to save the 
 institution, not so much from an economic standpoint as 
 from a matter of principle. The last chapter in the legal 
 history of the importation problem in Kentucky, however, 
 had not yet been written. After three years of the armed 
 conflict between the North and the South, Kentucky, which 
 had remained loyal to the Union and fought against the 
 slave iDower of the South, reenacted on February 2, 1864, 
 the old law of 1798 on the prohibition of the importation of 
 slaves. ^^ The wording was somewhat different, but the 
 
 33 Session Laws, 1860, Vol. 1, p. 104. 
 
 34 Ibid., 1864, pp. 70-72. 
 
50 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 essential provisions were the same. Coming at such a 
 time, it never had any significance in the slavery problem 
 in the State, but it is interesting as one of the last vain 
 el¥orts of the institution before it was mustered out of the 
 State by an amendment to the federal constitution, which 
 was passed without the assent of the State legislature of 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Xo less serious than the question of importation was the 
 problem of the fugitive slave. This has been treated many 
 times and every discussion of it has involved much of what 
 transpired in Kentucky or on its borders. It is not the 
 purpose here to repeat any of that story because it belongs 
 rather to the anti-slavery field, and, furthermore, has been 
 recently very well treated by A. E. Martin in his Anti- 
 slavery Movement in Kentuclxy. "We are here concerned 
 with the legal phase of the fugitive problem as it existed in 
 Kentucky throughout this period, as an internal question; 
 in the relation between the State and other States; and 
 between the State and the federal authorities. In so far 
 as it relates to the law within the State such a discussion 
 naturally divides itself into two phases — those measures 
 which affected the fugitive slave himself, and those which 
 were directed towards conspirators who might have brought 
 about the escape of slaves. The former group of laws were 
 enacted, for the most part, in the early days of statehood, 
 for a runaway slave was a natural evil in any condition of 
 servitude. The latter group of measures were passed in 
 the later days of the institution when the anti-slavery propa- 
 gandists came in from the North, for until then there were 
 no cases of enticement. A large majority of those who 
 were placed on trial for conspiracy in the history of slavery 
 in Kentucky proved to be outsiders who had come into the 
 State after 1835. The citizens of the commonwealth who 
 wore opposed to the institution were satisfied to confine 
 themselves to mere words advocating the emancipation of 
 slaves. 
 
 The State early adopted the slave code of Virginia in 
 regard to the treatment of runaway slaves just as it did in 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 61 
 
 regard to the general legal rights of the bonded Negro but 
 provided more drastic regulations in 1798. Any person 
 who suspected a Negro of being a runaway slave could 
 take him before a justice of the peace, and swear to his 
 belief in the guilt of the accused. Being provided with a 
 certificate from the justice where he found the shave, the 
 apprehender could then take the fugitive back to the owner 
 and might collect ten shillings as a reward and an additional 
 shilling for each mile of travel necessary in bringinir the 
 slave to the master. If the money should not be paid, the 
 person entitled to it could recover the sum in any court of 
 record in the State upon the production of his certificate of 
 apprehension as legal evidence.^^ 
 
 In many cases the runaway could not be identified as the 
 property of any particular owner, so provision was made 
 for the commitment of the offender to the county jail. The 
 keeper was forthwith to post a bulletin on the courthouse 
 with a complete description of the Negro. If at the end of 
 two months no claimant appeared the sheriff was to publish 
 an advertisement in the Lexington Gazette for three con- 
 secutive months so that the news of capture would reach a 
 larger public. In the meantime the sheriff was authorized 
 to hire out the fugitive and the wages thus received were to 
 pay for the reward of the captor and the expenses incurred 
 by the county officials. If the owner appeared during the 
 period and proved his property, he could have the slave 
 at once in spite of any labor contract, providing he would 
 pay any excess of expenses over wages received. But often 
 the master never appeared and if a year had expired since 
 the last advertisement had been published in the Gazette, 
 the sheriff could sell the slave and place the proceeds of the 
 sale plus the wages received over the expenses, in the county 
 treasury. This sum was credited to the unknown owner, 
 for if he should appear at any future time the county would 
 reimburse him for his loss, otherwise the fund reverted to 
 the county. ^^ 
 
 35Litteirs Laics, 2: 5-6. 
 36 Ibid., 2 : 5-6. 
 
52 Sla\t:ey in ICentucky 
 
 This legal code for the ai^prehension of runaway slaves 
 remained practically unchanged throughout the period of 
 slavery. The only amendments which were ever made were 
 those for the increase of the reward to the captor and it is 
 significant that the first of these changes did not come until 
 more than a generation later in 1835. Then the compensa- 
 tion was divided into three classes: for those captured in 
 their own county, $10; in another county, $20; out of the 
 State, $30.^" Just three years later it was found necessary 
 to increase this by the following interesting law: "The com- 
 pensation for apprehending fugitive slaves taken without 
 this commonwealth, and in a State where slavery is not 
 tolerated by law, shall be one hundred dollars, on the de- 
 livery to the owner at his residence within this common- 
 wealth, and seventy-five dollars if lodged in the jail of any 
 county in this commonwealth, and the owner be notified so 
 as to be able to reclaim the slave. "^^ There were no more 
 advances until a law of March 3, 1860, increased the reward 
 to one hundred and fifty dollars if the slave were caught 
 outside the State and brought back to the home county; 
 one hundred and twenty-five dollars if caught outside the 
 State and brought back to any county in Kentucky; and 
 twenty dollars if caught anywhere in the home county. 
 
 The trend of these laws, from the viewpoint of the re- 
 wards alone, shows the increasing importance of the fugi- 
 tive problem to the slaveholding group. It is noticeable 
 that from the year 1798 until 1835 there was not sufficient 
 pressure upon the State legislature to increase the reward 
 to the captor of a runaway. It is further evident from the 
 scarcity of contemporary advertisements that there were 
 comparatively few Negroes who ventured forth from the 
 neighborhood of their masters. But with the rise of the 
 anti-slavery movement in the North and the growth of aboli- 
 tion sentiment as expressed by the apostles of Negro free- 
 dom who had come from across the Ohio, the slaves tended 
 to run away in ever-increasing numbers. This was soon 
 
 87 Session Laws, 1835, pp. 82-83. 
 as/btd., 1838, p. 158. 
 
The LeG/VL Status of Slavery 53 
 
 followed by a more rigid policy of apprehension upon the 
 part of the Kentucky legal authorities, apparent in tlic in 
 creasing reward. 
 
 Not all cases of fugitives were to be reached by a mere 
 system of capture and reward. Rarely did a slave make 
 his escape into a free State without the aid of some one in 
 sympathy with him. Hence the need for legal machinery to 
 punish those who assisted runaways. From a chronological 
 point of view the laws governing such cases divide them- 
 selves into two parts; in the early days thej^ refer to those 
 who would help a slave who had already escaped; in the 
 later period they were directed towards those who induced 
 slaves to leave their home plantations. 
 
 Whichever of the free States he tried to reach it was 
 necessary for the Negro to cross the Ohio River to get to 
 his haven of refuge. If the Kentucky authorities could 
 prevent him from crossing the stream on the northern and 
 western boundary, they could prevent any slave from 
 making a successful escape. Consequently the legislature 
 as early as 1823 attempted to solve the problem by passing 
 a law forbidding masters of vessels and others from em- 
 ploying and removing Negroes out of the State.^'^ This 
 act prevented runaways from securing work on a steamboat 
 with the specific purjDOse of leaving once they were on free 
 soil. But as usual this enactment was not effective, be- 
 cause there was a loop-hole in it. The State assembly in 
 1831, therefore, provided that no ferryman on the Ohio 
 River should transport slaves across from Kentucky. No 
 other person, not owning or keeping a ferry, was to be 
 permitted to set slaves over, or to loan them boats or water- 
 craft. Slaves could only cross the river when they had the 
 written consent of their masters. Each and every owner 
 of a ferry was required to give bond in the sum of $3,000 to 
 carry out the spirit of the law; and for every violation he 
 was subject to a fine of $200.-*'^ 
 
 39 Session Laws, 1S23, p. 178. 
 ioibid., 1831-2, pp. 54^55. 
 
54 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Not content with their previous efforts the general as- 
 sembly of 1838 went still further and prohibited slaves from 
 going as passengers on mail stages or coaches anywhere 
 witliin the State, except upon tlie written request of their 
 owners, or in the master's company. The liability for the 
 enforcement of the law rested upon the stage proprietors, 
 who were to be fined $100 for each slave illegally trans- 
 ported.'*^ 
 
 No stringent laws were made against the enticement of 
 slaves to run away until 1830 when the abolitionists first 
 began to appear. Until that time there seems to have been 
 no need for any legal enactment regarding the question. 
 The only trouble previously had been with the whites and 
 free Negroes who aided a slave already on his way to the 
 North. It was in response to the popular demand that on 
 January 28, 1830, the State legislature provided severe 
 l)enalties for any person found guilty of (1) enticing a slave 
 to leave his owner, (2) furnishing a forged paper of free- 
 dom, (3) assisting a slave to escape out of the State, (4) 
 enticing a slave to run away, or (5) concealing a runaway 
 slave. Should a person be suspected of any one of these 
 offenses and not be found guilty, he was to give security for 
 his good behavior to avoid all accusation in the future. ^- 
 
 The most interesting legal case based on this law was 
 that of Delia Webster, a young lady from Vermont, who was 
 tried in the Fayette Circuit Court in December, 1844, for 
 the enticement of a Negro slave boy from Lexington. The 
 details of the trial show that the court was just and fair in 
 spite of the fact that both Miss Webster and her copartner, 
 Calvin Fairbank, were not citizens of the State and had 
 furthermore used all kinds of deceit to accomplish their 
 l)uri)0se. For the sake of aiding one Negro slave boy to 
 reach freedom they went to the expense and trouble to 
 feign an elopement to Ohio via Maysville, but the Lexing- 
 ton authorities caught them as they were coming back on 
 the Lexington Pike near Paris. At the trial it was shown 
 
 41 Session Laws, 1838, p. l.^S. 
 *^Ihid., 1830, I)].. 173-175. 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 55 
 
 that Fairbank was in Kentucky for no other reason than 
 to induce slaves to escape to the North and that Miss 
 "Webster had come to Lexington as a school teacher merely 
 as a cloak for her abolitionist work. The evidence offered 
 by the prosecution was damaging in the extreme. The de- 
 fense put forth no data for her side at all, evidently pre- 
 ferring to be hailed as a martyr to the cause for which she 
 stood. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty and she 
 was sentenced to serve two years in the State penitentiary.-*'' 
 The young accomplice, Calvin Fairbank, proved to be 
 the most persistent abolitionist the Kentucky authorities 
 ever encountered. He pleaded guilty to the indictment as 
 charged and was sentenced to serve 15 years in the peni- 
 tentiary, to which he was taken February 18, 1845, Evi- 
 dently convinced that he had been punished sufficiently 
 Governor John J. Crittenden pardoned him August 23, 
 184:9, on condition that he leave the State at once." But 
 such an ardent young enthusiast for the cause of Negro 
 freedom soon found that there were other slaves who were 
 in need of his aid and on November 3, 1851, he came across 
 from Jeffersonville to Louisville under the cover of night 
 and "kidnapped" a young mulatto woman who had been 
 doomed to be sold at auction."*^ Presumably in the hope of 
 rescuing other slaves he remained in the vicinity for several 
 days until on the morning of November 9 he was arrested 
 by the Kentucky authorities. Fairbank was placed in jail 
 pending his trial, which took place in the following March, 
 when he was again sentenced to serve 15 years at hard labor 
 in the State penitentiary. He began his term March 9, 
 1852."*^ This time he was not so fortunate in an early re- 
 lease. The chief executives of the State from time to time 
 refused to pardon him. In April, 1864, Governor Bram- 
 lette was called to Washington by President Lincoln for a 
 
 43 Western Law Journal, 2: 232-235 (best report of the trial). 
 Niles' Register, December 21, 1844. 
 
 Webster, Delia A., Kentuclcy Jurisprudence, pp. 1-84. 
 
 44 Fairbank, How the Way was Prepared, pp. 53, 57. 
 
 45 Ibid., p. 85. 
 i^Ibid., p. 103. 
 
56 SL.VVERY IN Kentucky 
 
 conference and Richard T. Jacobs, the Lieutenant-Governor, 
 became the acting Governor. This son-in-law of Tliomas 
 H. Benton had taken more or less pity on Fairbank, for he 
 had stated to the prisoner that if he ever became the chief 
 executive he would release him. The opportunity thus 
 being presented for the first time, Jacob pardoned Fairbank 
 on April 15, 1864, after a continuous imprisonment of 
 twelve years. Such was the experience in Kentucky of an 
 ardent northern abolitionist who boasted that he had 
 "liberated forty-seven slaves from hell."^^ 
 
 The systematic stealing of slaves from Kentucky had 
 begun about 184-1 and at the time of the Webster and Fair- 
 bank trial was at its height. This movement was one of 
 the results growing out of the animosity created by another 
 legal case which occurred in 1838 — that of the Rev. John B. 
 Mahan of Brown County, Ohio. This Methodist minister, 
 although living in the State of Ohio, was indicted by the 
 grand jury of Mason County, Kentucky, for having aided 
 in the escape of certain slaves. Governor Clark, of Ken- 
 tucky, then issued a requisition on the Governor of Ohio for 
 Mahan as a "fugitive from justice." Upon receipt of the 
 demand, the chief executive of Ohio immediately issued a 
 warrant for the arrest of the minister. A short time later 
 he became convinced that this step had been too hasty, be- 
 cause Mahan had never been in Kentucky. His offense had 
 merely consisted in helping runaways along the "under- 
 ground railroad," once tliey were on free soil. 
 
 Hence, Governor Vance sent a special messenger to the 
 chief executive of Kentucky redemanding the alleged fugi- 
 tive from justice. Governor Clark made this very cordial 
 and diplomatic reply: 
 
 The 7)Osition assiinied by you in relation to the fact of Mahan 
 liaving never been within the limits of Kentucky is clearly correct, 
 and if upon the legal investigation of the case it be I'ouiid true, he 
 will doubtless be acquitted. I feel great solicitude that this citizen 
 of your state, who has been arrested and brouglit to Kentucky, 
 
 <7 Fairbank, pp. 141, 149. 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 57 
 
 upon my requisition, shall receive ample and full justice, and that, 
 if upon legal investigation he be found innocent of the crime al- 
 leged against him, he shall be released and set at liberty. I will, 
 therefore, address a letter to the judge and commonwealth attorney 
 of the Mason Circuit, communicating to them the substance of your 
 letter, and the evidence which you have transmitted to me." 
 
 The efforts of the Governor of Ohio were eventually suc- 
 cessful, for in spite of his slaveholding sympathies Governor 
 Clark wrote to the judge of the Mason Circuit and the latter 
 charged the jury in no uncertain terms regarding the juris- 
 diction in the case. After a trial of six days Mahan was 
 acquitted. 
 
 The importance of this case does not rest in the trial 
 and its events but rather in the reactions which it had upon 
 the Kentucky populace. No one doubted that Mahan was 
 guilty of aiding slaves; but it was seen that he had been 
 shrewd enough to confine his activities to the State of Ohio, 
 where the Kentucky authorities had no jurisdiction. In 
 his opening message to the State legislature, which met the 
 next month after the acquittal of Mahan, Governor Clark 
 voiced the sentiment of a large majority of Kentuckians. 
 Bear in mind that these words came from the same man 
 who a month before had advised the Circuit judge of the 
 illegality of the Mahan indictment. 
 
 Some of the abolitionists of an adjoining state, not contented 
 with the mere promulgation of opinions and views calculated to 
 excite a feeling of disaffection among our slave population, and to 
 render this description of property insecure in the hands of its 
 proprietors, have extended their operations so far as to mingle per- 
 sonally with our slaves, to enter into arrangements with them, and 
 to afford them the means and facilities to escape from their owners. 
 This flagitious conduct is not to be tolerated — it must be checked 
 in its origin by the adoption of efficient and energetic measures, or 
 it will, in all human probability, lead to results greatly to be depre- 
 cated by every friend to law and order. This demon-like spirit 
 that rages uncontrolled by law, or sense of moral right, must be 
 
 48 American Anti-slavery Society Report, 1839, p. 90. 
 
58 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 overcome — it must be subdued; its action in the state should be 
 prohibited under such penalties as will effectually curb its lawless- 
 ness and disarm its power.'*" 
 
 in pursuance of this and similar recommendations the 
 State legislature early in 1839 despatched a delegation of 
 members to the general assembly of Ohio then meeting at 
 Columbus. These men were charged to secure a law in 
 Ohio for the better security of Kentucky fugitive slave 
 property. The Kentucky officials had always been con- 
 fronted with the problem of recovering runaways captured 
 in Ohio, even when they personally knew the captive. The 
 old law of 1807 in Ohio was never lax in the enforcement, 
 l)ut the ])lea of habeas corpus was habitually used for the 
 defendant and, furthermore, it often happened that the 
 necessary proofs of ownership were not in evidence. These 
 facts coupled with the publicity of the Mahan trial brought 
 about the peculiar legislative commission from Kentucky. 
 
 Here was a delegation from a slave commonwealth sent 
 to a free State to demand a rigorous fugitive slave law for 
 their own benefit. The Kentucky committee went even 
 further and suggested the provisions of the proposed enact- 
 ment—and the remarkable thing was that they actually suc- 
 ceeded. Although Ohio was known to be the home of anti- 
 slavery interests the law passed without any difficulty. By 
 its provisions a slave owner or his agent could appear 
 before any judge, justice or mayor, who was authorized to 
 issue a warrant to any sheriff in Ohio calling upon him to 
 arrest the fugitive and bring him before any judge in the 
 county where caught. Upon proof of his ownership to the 
 court the owner was entitled to a certificate for removal. A 
 heavy fine and imi)risonment were the penalty for any 
 interference with the execution of either the warrant or the 
 removal of the slave. The vote on this measure in the 
 House of Representatives was 53 to 15. There has been 
 made an analysis of this roll call, which shows that the 
 opposition all came from northern Ohio— whereas those in 
 
 *o American Anti-slavery Society Jxcport, 1839, pp. 93-94. 
 
The Legal Status op Slavery 59 
 
 the southern part of the State voted for it because they were 
 not inclined to allow any disturbance of the friendly com- 
 mercial relationship which they had with their neighbor 
 State to the south. Moreover, they objected to their locality 
 being used as a place of refuge for unfortunate Negroes.'^'* 
 
 Henceforth Ohio became a veritable hunting ground for 
 fugitive slaves, but the wiser of the Negroes and the aboli- 
 tionists diverted their efforts to other fields of escape, espe- 
 cially through Indiana and Illinois. The legal authorities 
 at this time began to realize that their hope lay in the enact- 
 ment of a federal law but no definite steps were taken until 
 after the affair of Francis Troutman at Marshall, Michigan, 
 in January, 1847. Troutman came from Kentucky to 
 Michigan to bring back six runaways that had been located 
 at Marshall. When he had found them and was about to 
 take them before a magistrate for identification, a crowd of 
 citizens of the town put in their appearance and threatened 
 injury to Troutman and his three Kentucky companions. 
 Although the latter were acting in accordance with the law 
 the mob would not let them proceed in any manner— not 
 even to appear before the magistrate— but demanded that 
 they leave town within two hours. In the meantime they 
 were all four arrested, tried and found guilty of trespass. ^^ 
 T\'Tien these events were reported back to Kentucky mass 
 meetings were held throughout the State in protest against 
 the Michigan action. The State legislature drew up a 
 resolution calling upon Congress to enact a new fugitive 
 slave law.^^- The Senate referred the petition to the Com- 
 mittee on Judiciary and they later reported a new fugitive 
 slave bill which was read twice and then pigeonholed. The 
 same action was repeated at the next session in 1849. 
 
 The general feeling in Kentucky was intensified just at 
 this time by a decision of the United States Supreme Court 
 in the case of Jones vs. Van Zandt, which had been pending 
 in various courts for five years. In April, 1842, John Van 
 
 50 Chaddock, F. E., Ohio before 1850, p. 86. 
 
 siMcMaster, History of the United States, \o\. 7: 262-263. 
 
 52 Senate Document No. 19, 30th Congress, 1st Session. 
 
60 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Zandt, a former Kentnckian, then living in Springdale just 
 north of Cincinnati, was caught in the act of aiding nine 
 fugitive shives to escape, and one of them got away even 
 from the slave catchers. Consequently AMiarton Jones, the 
 Kentucky owner, brought suit against Van Zandt in the 
 U. S. Circuit Court under the federal fugitive slave act of 
 1793 for $500 for concealing and harboring a fugitive slave. 
 The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of 
 $1,200 as damages on two other counts in addition to the 
 penalty of $500 for concealing and harboring. Salmon P. 
 Chase was the lawyer for Van Zandt and in a violent at- 
 tack on the law 1793 he appealed to the U. S. Supreme 
 Court on the grounds that this statute was repugnant to the 
 Constitution of the United States and to the sixth article 
 of the Ordinance of 1787. Van Zandt in the appeal had the 
 advantage of the services of William H. Sew^ard in addition 
 to Chase while Jones was represented by Senator More- 
 head, of Kentucky. Justice Levi Woodbury in rendering 
 the decision of the court sustained all the judgments against 
 Van Zandt and denied that the law of 1793 was opposed to 
 either the Constitution or the Ordinance of 1787.^^ 
 
 At last the people of Kentucky had secured a firm ruling 
 from the highest judicial authority on the force of the exist- 
 ing laws. Cold reason in the light of that day, apart from 
 all anti-slavery propaganda, justified them in making these 
 demands. Henceforth, there was no doubt about the 
 legality of their position — it was a question merely of the 
 illegal opposition to the return of fugitives from the States 
 to the North. The Troutman case and many others, how- 
 ever, had served as an index of northern sentiment in the 
 matter, for the troubles of the Kentucky slaveholder were just 
 beginning. A year later, in 1848, a requisition was issued 
 on the Governor of Ohio for the return of fifteen persons 
 charged with aiding in the escape of slaves. Imagine the 
 feeling in Kentucky when Governor Bell of Ohio positively 
 refused to give these persons up, stating that the laws of 
 
 83 5 Howard's Reports, 215-232. 
 
The Legal. Status of Slavery G3 
 
 Ohio did not recognize man as property. It was apparently 
 a political move on his part, for there was no question of 
 the property concejDtion of slavery involved whatsoever. 
 He acted in direct opposition to the laws of his State en- 
 acted in 1839 and to the federal fugitive slave law of 1793. 
 
 After two decades of struggle the abolitionists had come 
 into their own and it was almost impossible to recover 
 slaves who had run away in spite of the legal machinery 
 that had been set up. Furthermore, the more extreme 
 abolitionists had disregarded all law, orders and rights of 
 private property and had even gone so far as to proclaim 
 that there was a '4iigher law than the Constitution." 
 Against such a powerful foe the forces of all parties in 
 Kentucky united in a firm stand, demanding more stringent 
 measures. The Supreme Court had decided that the exist- 
 ing law was sufficient to recover fugitives and to demand 
 and secure damages for the interference with that right. 
 With the coming of new conditions, however, it was realized 
 on all sides that new and most extreme measures were 
 necessary. 
 
 The existing circumstances are well shown by the atti- 
 tude of Henry Clay, senator from Kentucky as well as 
 author of the Compromise of 1850. Noted for his leanings 
 towards the North, throughout his public career of more 
 than half a century, and as far back as 1798 the advocate of 
 gradual emancipation in Kentucky, he felt called upon in 
 this crisis to express the irritation of his own people : 
 
 I have very little doubt, indeed, that the extent of loss to the 
 state of Kentucky, in consequence of the escape of her slaves is 
 greater, at least in proportion to the total number of slaves that 
 are held within that commonwealth, even than in Virginia. I know 
 full well, and so does the honorable senator from Ohio know, that 
 it is at the utmost hazard and insecurity to life itself, that a Ken- 
 tuckian can cross the river and go into the interior to take back 
 his fugitive slave from whence he fled. Recently an example oc- 
 curred even in the city of Cincinnati in respect to one of our most 
 respectable citizens. Not having visited Ohio at all, but Coving- 
 ton, on the opposite side of the river, a little slave of his escaped 
 
60 
 
 Slavery ix Kentucky 
 
 over to Cincinnati. He pursued it; he found it in the house in 
 which it was concealed ; he took it out, and it was rescued by the 
 violence and force of a negro mob from his possession — the police 
 of the city standing by, and either unwilling or unable to afford 
 the assistance which was requisite to enable him to recover his 
 property. 
 
 Upon this subject I do think that we have just and serious cause 
 of complaint against the free states. I think they fail in fulfilling 
 a great obligation, and the failure is precisely upon one of those 
 subjects which in its nature is the most irritating and inflaming to 
 those who live in the slave states.'* 
 
 The Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 was superseded by that 
 of 1850 by a sort of political bargaining on the other 
 measures of the Compromise. The letter of the new law 
 was not much different from the one of 1793— the chief 
 changes being in the exaction of severer penalties and 
 the transfer of jurisdiction to the federal courts. But 
 even if members from the North did vote for the new 
 provision there was no public sentiment in the North back 
 of its enforcement. Everyone in Kentucl^ was heartily 
 in favor of it, but that mattered little. The effectiveness 
 of any fugitive slave law depended upon the spirit in which 
 it was met in the North, for it was there that the law was to 
 be applied. It remained for a more or less forgotten deci- 
 sion of the Supreme Court in 1861 to show the greatest 
 weakness of all laws for the recovery of runaway slaves in 
 the North. 
 
 In October, 1859, the Woodford County (Kentucky) 
 grand jury returned an indictment against "Willis Lago, a 
 free Negro, charging him with the seduction and entice- 
 ment of Charlotte, a Negro slave, from her owner, C. W. 
 Nickols. A copy of this indictment certified and authenti- 
 cated according to the federal law was presented to the 
 Governor of Ohio by the authorized agent of the Governor 
 of Kentucky and the arrest and delivery of the fugitive 
 from justice demanded. The Governor of Ohio referred the 
 matter to the Attorney-General of the State and upon his 
 
 1* Colton, Rccd and ifcKinlcy, Worls of Tfcnry Clay, Vol. 3: 329. 
 
The Legal Status of Slaveky G3 
 
 advice the chief executive refused to deliver up the Negro. 
 The Supreme Court having original jurisdiction in suits 
 between two States, the demand for a mandamus to compel 
 the Governor of Ohio to deliver Lago to the Kentucky 
 authorities was heard by that body in a suit under the title 
 of Kentucky vs. Dennison (the Governor of Ohio). The 
 decision of the court was rendered by Chief Justice Taney 
 and it contained five important statements: (1) **It was the 
 duty of the executive authority of Ohio upon the demand 
 made by the Governor of Kentucky, and the production of 
 the indictment, duly certified to cause Lago to be delivered 
 up to the agent of the Governor of Kentucky, who was ap- 
 pointed to demand and receive him." (2) ''The duty of 
 the Governor of Ohio was merely ministerial, and he had no 
 right to exercise any discretionary power as to the nature 
 or character of the crime charged in the indictment." 
 (3) "The word 'duty' in the act of 1793 means the moral 
 obligation of the state to perform the compact, in the Con- 
 stitution, when Congress had, by that act, regulated the 
 mode in which the duty should be performed." (4) "But 
 Congress cannot coerce a state officer, as such, to jjerform 
 any duty by act of Congress. The state officer may per- 
 form if he thinks proper, and it may be a moral duty to 
 perform it. But if he refuses, no law of Congress can 
 compel him." (5) "The Governor of Ohio cannot, through 
 the judiciary or any other department of the general govern- 
 ment, be compelled to deliver up Lago; and upon that 
 ground only this motion for a mandamus is overruled, "^^ 
 
 This decision came as a fitting climax to the legal history 
 of the fugitive slave problem as it concerned Kentucky. 
 Such an interpretation placed by the highest judicial author- 
 ity upon an act of Congress which had stood throughout the 
 slavery era in Kentucky showed beyond any doubt whatever 
 that the legal battle over slavery questions was at an end. 
 If any solution was to be found in the future it would not 
 be in the legislative halls nor in the court room. 
 
 55 24 Howard's Reports, 109-110. 
 
64 Sla^'ery in Kentucky 
 
 Emancipation was an important question closely con- 
 nected with that of the fugitive. This was one of the prob- 
 lems to be discnssed in the Constitutional Convention of 
 1792. There were some few members who were in favor 
 of immediate liberation and others inclined towards a 
 scheme of gradual release of the Negro from bondage. 
 But, as has been shown in the early part of this chapter, the 
 group in favor of the existing institution easily dominated 
 the convention and drew up the famous article IX, which 
 remained without change throughout the slavery era as a 
 part of the fundamental constitutional law. It is significant 
 that it was provided that the legislature should have no 
 power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without 
 the consent of their owners, or without paying their owners, 
 previous to such emancipation, a full equivalent in money, 
 for the slaves so emancipated: that the legislature should 
 not pass laws to permit the owners of slaves to emancipate 
 them, saving the rights of creditors, and preventing them 
 from becoming a charge to the counties in which they 
 resided. 
 
 From a purely objective viewpoint it is doubtful if a 
 fairer legal guide for the institution of slavery in relation 
 to the rights of emancipation could have been drawn up. 
 On one side, it prevented the State authorities from depriv- 
 ing a slaveholder of his property without due compensation. 
 On the other hand, no unscrupulous master was to free his 
 old and invalid slaves and thereby inflict the burden of 
 their support upon the community as a whole. But this 
 constitutional provision had no legal force in itself. It was 
 to serve as a guide for the enactment of statute laws later. 
 
 The State assembly on December 17, 179-4-, proceeded to 
 the enactment of the first emancipation law of the State. 
 The contents of Article IX of the Constitution were care- 
 fully followed and the detailed legal code of emancipation 
 laid down in these words: 
 
 It sliall be lawful for any person by his or her last will and 
 testament, or by any otlicr instrument in writing, under his or her 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 65 
 
 hand and seal, attested and proved in the county court by two wit- 
 nesses, or acknowledged by the party in the court of the county 
 where he or she resides, to emancipate or set free his or her slave or 
 slaves: who shall thereupon be entirely and fully discharged from 
 the performance of any contract entered into during scrvitu.le, 
 and enjoy as full freedom as if they had been born free. And the 
 said court shall have full power to demand bond and sufficient 
 security of the emancipator, his or her executors or administrators, 
 as the case may be, for the maintenance of any slave or slaves that 
 may be aged or infirm, either of body or mind, to prevent their 
 becoming chargeable to the county. And every slave so emanci- 
 pated shall have a certificate of freedom from the clerk of such 
 court on parchment with the county seal affixed thereto, for which 
 the clerk shall charge the emancipator five shillings; saving, how- 
 ever, the rights of creditors and every person or persons "bodies 
 politic and corporate, except the heirs or legal representatives of 
 the person so emancipating their slaves,'*' 
 
 This law remained throughout the slavery period in 
 Kentucky and the only changes which were ever made in it 
 were in the minor details to untangle some legal ambjoni- 
 ties. The law of 1823, however, is important in showing 
 the discrepancies of the original provisions. By this 
 amendment it was enacted that when the countv courts re- 
 ceived proof or acknowledgment of a deed of emancipation, 
 or of a will emancipating slaves, they were to note on their 
 record a description of any such slaves. The certificate of 
 freedom which was given to the Negro was also to contain 
 this description and no other certificate was to be issued 
 except on the presentation of proof that the first one had 
 been lost or when such was required for use as evidence in 
 some suit. If any slave thus liberated was found to have 
 presented his certificate to another still held in bondage 
 with a design of freeing him, the emancipated slave was to 
 suffer severe penalties.'^" These added provisions appar- 
 ently came to fill all the gaps in the previous law and no 
 further amendments of importance were needed to make the 
 laws of emancipation run smoothly. 
 
 ^^Littell's Lmvs, 2: 246-247. 
 07 Session Laws, 1S23, p. 563. 
 
66 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Of all the many slavery cases wliicli were brought before 
 the Court of Appeals in the next thirty years it is interest- 
 ing to note that nearly all of them concerned themselves 
 more or less with the question of freedom. The very fact 
 that they reached the highest court is also conclusive evi- 
 dence that the law was not quite as clear as one would at first 
 suppose. Close study of the findings of the court will show 
 that the judiciary was always consistent in its interpreta- 
 tion of the law and that most of the cases were carried up 
 from the lower courts because of disputes between the heirs 
 of an estate and the administrator as to their precedence in 
 the matter of slaves. This part of the controversy con- 
 cerned itself with the property conception of the slave, 
 whether he was real or personal estate, which was discussed 
 earlier in this chapter. The purely emancipation cases 
 before the Court of Appeals divide themselves into three 
 parts: (1) those which concerned the interpretation of the 
 statute law, (2) those suits for freedom which were based on 
 the question of residence and (3) those which involved 
 persons detained as slaves. 
 
 Most of the first class of cases concerned themselves with 
 the emancipation of slaves by will. The number of slave- 
 holders who freed their Negroes during their own lifetime 
 seems to have been very small. On the other hand, from 
 a study of the slave cases in court it appears to have been 
 a very common thing for an owner to provide for the free- 
 dom of his slaves in his will. The right of a master to dis- 
 pose of his own property was beyond dispute, but, as is 
 often the case, the heirs were seldom satisfied and they 
 brought the will into court on one or more technical grounds 
 in an attempt to break the document which freed so much 
 valuable property. The court in every case held that the 
 right of the owner was absolute and that if by the letter 
 of his will his slaves were freed, that right was subject to 
 IK) dispute. Furthermore, when the Negroes were thus 
 emancipated they did not pass to the personal representa- 
 tives of the deceased, as assets. They passed by will just 
 as land, and the devise took effect at the doatli of the 
 
The Legal Status of Slavery 67 
 
 testator, whether it be a devise to the slave, of his freedom, 
 or of the slave, to another. The servant, thus affected, had 
 only to appear before the county court and establish his 
 emancipation. This accomplished, it was the duty of the 
 court to give him a certificate of freedom without the con- 
 sent of the representatives of the emancipator.^'^ The right 
 of disposal rested with the owner, who could emancipate by 
 act, or by will, and he who denied the right or placed any 
 claim against it was compelled to show the prohibition.'*" 
 
 While the owner had absolute powers of disposal of his 
 own slaves he could not draw up a will of prospective free- 
 dom which would hold in spite of the rights of his heirs. 
 If a master desired to be very lenient with his servants, he 
 had to make their freedom absolute and in writing. This 
 was well brought out in the case of an apparently kind- 
 hearted Kentucky slaveholder who provided in his will that 
 his slaves were to select their own master without regard 
 to price. They chose as their future owner a man who did 
 not need them, but who offered to take them at about half 
 their real value. The court held that in such a case the 
 executor was not bound to accept the offer, since the in- 
 terests of those entitled to the proceeds of the sale, as well 
 as the desire and comfort of the slaves, were to be re- 
 garded.*'*^ Another owner had the right idea, but defeated 
 his own intentions by willing all his forty slaves to the Ken- 
 tucky Colonization Society. The court held that such an 
 act by no means freed the slaves and that by the laws of 
 the State until they were free they could be hired out and 
 the proceeds considered as a part of the estate.''^ 
 
 As in all border States there were many legal battles for 
 freedom, which involved the question of residence on free 
 soil. These cases were largely concerned with the question 
 of the right of a citizen of Kentucky to pass through a free 
 State on business or pleasure attended by his slaves or 
 
 58 Black vs. Meaux, 4 Dana, 189. 
 
 59 Susan vs. Ladd, 6 Dana, 30. 
 
 GO Hopkins vs. Morgan 's executor, 3 Dana, 17. 
 
 61 Isaac et al. vs. Graves' executor, 16 Ben Monroe, 365. 
 
68 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 sen'ants witlioiit losing his right of ownership over such 
 slaves. The principle involved was early considered in the 
 Kentucky Court of Appeals and faithfulh^ carried out in 
 succeeding generations, viz.: that a "fixed residence" or 
 being domiciled in a non-slaveholding State would operate 
 to release the slave from the power of the master; but that 
 the transient passing or sojourning therein had no such 
 effect. In an early case in 1820 involving a suit for free- 
 dom the court held that a person of color from Kentucky 
 who was permitted to reside in a free State could prosecute 
 his right to freedom in any other State. It was held to be 
 a vested right to freedom, which existed wherever he went.°- 
 In another instance an owner permitted his slave to go at 
 large for twenty years, but the court held that that alone did 
 not give him freedom. Still under this liberty of move- 
 ment the slave went off into a free State to reside and the 
 court held that the Negro was then free because his right 
 grew out of the law of the free State and not out of that 
 in which the owner resided.''^ An owner permitted his slave 
 to go to Pennsylvania and remain there for a longer period 
 than six months, with a knowledge of the law passed in 
 that State in 1780, and the Kentuclv^' Court of Appeals held 
 that the slave was entitled to his freedom and that even if 
 the slave had returned to Kentucky his right could be as- 
 serted there just as well as in Pennsylvania.^'^ But should 
 a slave go with his master to a free State and later return 
 to Kentucky with him, whatever status he had then was to 
 be determined by the law of Kentucky and not by the rule 
 of any State where the slave might have been.*'"' The fact 
 that a slave stayed in New York for three months before his 
 return to Kentucky, his owner knowing he was there, and 
 making no effort to bring him away, did not give to such 
 slave a right to freedom."" A slaveholder sent one of his 
 
 02Bankin vs. Lylia, 2 A. K. Marshall, 4G7. 
 C3 lo Ben Monroe, 328. 
 n< 14 Ibid., 355. 
 CB12 Ihid., 542. 
 «o4 Metcalfe, 231. 
 
The LEG.iL Status of Slavery 69 
 
 servants over into Illinois to cut some wood for a few weeks 
 and later the latter brought suit for freedom on the grounds 
 of residence in a free State but the court denied any such 
 right, since the slave returned to his master in Kentuckj- 
 voluntarily.''^ 
 
 If an emancipated Negro for any reason was held in 
 slavery and later established his right to freedom in court, 
 he could not recover compensation for his services or 
 damages for his detention, unless he could prove that he was 
 held under full knowledge of his right or with good reason 
 to believe him free. If pending his suit for freedom he 
 should be hired out by order of the court, the net hire was 
 to be awarded to him if he succeeded.^^ 
 
 The actual number of manumissions which took ])lace in 
 Kentucky will no doubt never be known. Among the few 
 statistics are those of the federal census for 1850 and 1860 
 and they include only the figures for the one census year. 
 According to this source in 1850 only 152 slaves were volun- 
 tarily set free in the State or one slave out of every 1,388, 
 a percentage of only .072; and in 1860 there were 176 
 Negroes recorded as freed or one out of every 1,281 slaves, 
 a percentage of only .078. We can easily assume from the 
 accounts which we have from papers of that time that these 
 numbers were far short of those that were really set free by 
 their masters. It was the custom of many owners who were 
 about to free their slaves to take them to Cincinnati and 
 there have them set free in the Probate Court. 
 
 Early in 1859, forty-nine slaves from Fayette County, 
 mostly women and children, were brought to Cincinnati and 
 set free and later sent to a colony of emancipated Negroes 
 in Green County, Ohio.'''^ In March of the same year 
 Eobert Barnet of Lincoln County, Kentucky appeared with 
 eighteen slaves— a father, mother, nine children and three 
 grandchildren and another woman and four boys, who were 
 all emancipated in the Cincinnati Probate Court. Before 
 
 GTii Ben Monroe, 210. 
 
 68 4 Dana, 589, 7 Dana, 360. 
 
 69 American Anti-Slavery Society Heport, 1859, p. 79. 
 
70 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 crossing the Ohio, wliile in Coving-ton, he was offered $20,- 
 000 for all of them but he stated that he would refuse even 
 $50,000.'^' In January, 18G0, AVilliam McGinnis, of Bour- 
 bon County, appeared with fourteen slaves before the same 
 probate court and set them all free."^ 
 
 The law of Kentucky plainly provided that no slave was 
 to be emancipated unless bond were given that he would 
 immediately leave the State. Hence it was but natural that 
 a master who intended setting his slaves free should take 
 them as slaves to a free State and there give them their 
 freedom, thus satisfying his own conscience and at the same 
 time removing any future legal trouble that might ensue on 
 account of his former slaves being found in the State of 
 Kentucky. For this reason it would seem that a large num- 
 ber of the kind-hearted slaveholders who freed their slaves 
 did so outside the bounds of Kentucky and thus that State 
 was deprived of the credit for many emancipations which 
 took place voluntarilj^ at the hands of her own slaveholders. 
 
 70 Weekly Free South (Newport), March 4, 1859. 
 
 "1 American Anti-Slavery Society Heport, I860, p. 44. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Social Status of the Slave 
 
 ^ As many of the slave regulations were enacted to deal 
 with extreme eases and some of them were not generally 
 enforced, it is necessary to consider also the social status of 
 the blacks to determine exactly what the institution was in 
 Kentucky. In this commonwealth slavery was decidedly 
 patriarchal. The slave was not such an unfortunate crea- 
 ture as some have pictured him. He usually had set apart 
 for himself and his family a house which was located near 
 the master's mansion. While this home may have been a 
 rude cabin made of small logs, with a roof covered with 
 splits and an earthern floor, likely as not the master's son 
 was attending school a few weeks in the year in a neighbor- 
 ing log cabin which boasted of no more luxuries than the 
 humble slave dwelling. The servant and his family were 
 well fed and had plenty of domestic cloth for all necessary 
 wearing apparel. 
 
 The kind of clothing which the Kentucky slave had can 
 be seen best by a study of the runaway slave advertisements 
 where a description of apparel was often essential to the 
 apprehension of the Negro. ''Billy" in 1803 ran away from 
 his owner in Lexington and took such a variety of clothing 
 with him that the master was unable to give a description of 
 them.^ ''Jack," running away from his owner in Mercer 
 County, had on when he left and took with him "one pale 
 blue jeans coat, one gray jeans coat, and an old linsey coat; 
 one pair of cloth pantaloons, one pair of jeans, and one of 
 linen. "2 "Thenton," when leaving his master in Warren 
 County, took with him "a new black smooth fur hat, a 
 yellow woollen jeans frock coat, more than half worn ; three 
 
 1 Lexington Gazette, August 23, 1803. 
 *Lomsville Puilic Advertiser, July 10, 1S24. 
 
 71 
 
72 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 shirts, two of coarse cotton and one entirely new, the third a 
 bleached domestic and new; one blanket; one pair of 
 pantaloons, of cotton and flax."^ ''Jarret," from Leitch- 
 field, wore when he left **a smooth black Russia hat" and 
 took with him ''a pair of buckskin saddle bags . . . and a 
 great deal of clothing, to wit: one brown jeans frock coat, 
 and pantaloons of the same; also, a brown jeans overcoat, 
 with large pockets in the side ; a new dark colored overcoat, 
 two pair blue cloth pantaloons, and an old silver watch."* 
 The clothing of ''Esau," from Meade County, was described 
 as ''brown jeans pants, black cassinet pants, blue cloth 
 pants, three fine shirts, one black silk vest and one green 
 vest, one brown jeans frock coat, one pale blue coat, velvet 
 collar; coarse shoes and black hat."^ "Stewart" left hii 
 master in Bullitt County dressed in typical Negro attire— 
 "a black luster coat, made sack fashion, and a pair of snuff 
 colored cassinet pantaloons; also, a black fur hat with low 
 crown and broad brim, and vest with purple dots on it."*^ 
 "George," living in Marion County, had an outfit of 
 "Brown jeans frock coat (skirt lined with home-made 
 flannel dyed with madder), a pair of new black and yellow 
 twilled negro jeans pantaloons, white socks, factory shirt 
 with linen bosom, and black wool hat."^ An owner adver- 
 tising in 1852 stated that his slave "Andy" had three suits 
 of clothes with him when he ran away.^ It is perfectly 
 evident from the reading of these slave advertisements that 
 the male Xegroes were as substantially clothed as any mem- 
 bers of their race could expect to be at that time even in a 
 state of freedom. The surplus clothing as described above 
 was all a part of the slave's own property and not taken 
 fi'om the master's wardrobe. There were many cases of 
 theft but they need not be considered in this discussion. 
 A large majority of all runaway slaves were men and 
 
 8 Louisville Weekly Journal, October 15, 1845. 
 *Ibid., October 22, 1845. 
 5 Ibid., September 27, 1848. 
 '-■Ibid., May 16, 1849. 
 
 7 Ibid., December 10, 1851. 
 
 8 Ibid., December 22, 1852. 
 
The Social, Status of the Slave 73 
 
 even when advertisements dealt with female fugitives it 
 was only on rare occasions that the owner attempted to give 
 a description of the clothing which was worn. Will Morton 
 in 1806 gave a list of *'Letty's" clothing as "two or three 
 white muslin dresses, one of fancy chintz, salmon colored 
 linsey petticoat, white yarn stockings, and good shoos, with 
 sundry other clothing of good quality.'"^ At such an early 
 date in the history of Kentucky slavery the apparel of this 
 young slave woman compares very favorably with that 
 which was worn by the white people. 
 
 In sickness the slaves were cared for by the same physi- 
 cian who looked after the master and his family and should 
 occasion demand assistance any member of the owner's 
 household might be found nursing a sick Negro. There 
 was no limit to the supply of fuel for the winter, for the 
 slaves had the right to cut timber for their own use any- 
 where in the woods of the estate.^'' 
 
 As in Virginia, the slave was permitted to have a little 
 "truck-patch" of half an acre or more, where he could raise 
 any crop that he desired. In Kentucky these small plots of 
 ground were nearly always filled with sweet potatoes, 
 tobacco and watermelons. The soil was not only conducive 
 to their cultivation but they were the three favorite agri- 
 cultural products for personal consumption. These par- 
 ticular crops needed little cultivation once they were planted 
 and such as was necessary could easily be done on Satur- 
 day afternoons, when the slave was at leisure. 
 
 Historians have reminded us that in most of the 
 Southern States there was a tendency for the more energetic 
 of the slaves to work for pay during their idle hours and 
 thus eventually secure a sufficient surplus to buy their own 
 freedom. In Kentucky such cases were veiy rare, ^fost 
 Negroes seem to have been content with their condition in 
 such bondage as existed in the State. There were many 
 cases in which a Negro refused to purchase his freedom 
 
 9 Lexington Gazette, April 12, 1806. 
 
 10 The best contemporary treatment of this subject in general is by Dr. R. 
 J. Spurr — the sole printed text being in Perrin's History of Bourbon County, 
 pp. 5^60. 
 
~^ Sl.w^eey in Kentucky 
 
 altliougli lie bad the necessary amount of money. George 
 Brown, the famous Xcgro author of Recollections of an 
 Ex-slave, published in the Winchester Democrat, has given 
 us some experiences which testify to the feeling existing 
 between master and slave. In 1857 his mistress was offered 
 $2,100 for George, but when talking the matter over with 
 him she found that he had serious objections to the pro- 
 spective purchaser. She showed an interest in Brown's 
 welfare by refusing to sell him. In later years wiien free- 
 dom was within his grasp for the asking, Brown ''bought 
 himself" for $1,000 because, as he says in his own words, 
 it was not honorable for him to "swindle his young mistress 
 out of her slave." Such was the example of a Kentucky- 
 slave who purchased his own freedom, not for his own 
 benefit, but for that of his mistress. 
 
 Another factor entered into this question. In the later 
 years, once a slave secured his liberty, he was immediately 
 required to leave the State and if such a one had lived all 
 his life in Kentucky, he would naturally hesitate to depart 
 into an unknown region. Many of the slaves did earn con- 
 siderable money by cobbling shoes, cutting wood, and 
 making brooms, but most of them showed little tendency 
 to save their earnings for any future deliverance from bond- 
 age. They were more concerned then — as they often are 
 even yet— with the pleasures of the day. More often they 
 were to be found wasting their spare change on whisky, a 
 problem which grew greater for the master with passing 
 years. 
 
 In addition to the regular Saturday afternoon and 
 Sunday off every week the slaves were given several other 
 holidays throughout the year, the most extensive being at 
 Christmas time. At Easter they were allowed two or three 
 days rest and when an election was being held there was no 
 work done outside of the regular chores. The general elec- 
 tion day in those times was the first Monday in August and 
 it was the custom for most of the slaves throughout the 
 "penny-royal" and "])luegrass" to journey to the county 
 seat, where they would all congregate and have a general 
 
The Social Status of the Slave 75 
 
 frolic in accordance with Negro standards of a good time. 
 In the later years of slavery the towns had established suffi- 
 cient control of the Negroes gathering in their jurisdiction 
 so that the drink evil was more or less mitigated. The fear 
 of the law was a great incentive to their proper conduct on 
 those rare occasions when they had a whole day in town to 
 themselves without any tasks to perform for their master. 
 As Rothert has well observed, however, the slave sometimes 
 did have to care for his drunken owner and take him home. 
 To the student acquainted with Kentucky history and social 
 conditions such a brief statement suggests a wealth of ma- 
 terial on the local type of slavery. 
 
 That ardent abolitionist from across the sea, James Silk 
 Buclringham, has recorded a characteristic picture of the 
 Kentucky slave at rest and in gala attire : 
 
 ""We remained at Henderson the greater part of the day, it being 
 a holiday with the negro slaves on the estate, so that it was difficult 
 to get the requisite number of hands to complete the landing in a 
 short time. Some of the female slaves were very gaily dressed, and 
 many of them in good taste, with white muslin gowns, blue and 
 pink waists, ribbons, silk handkerchiefs or scarfs, straw bonnets, 
 and a reticule for the pocket handkerchief held on the arm. In 
 talking with them, and inquiring the reason of the holiday, one 
 said she believed it was Easter, another said it was AVhitsuntide, 
 and a third thought it was midsummer. They were chiefly the 
 household slaves, who are always better treated, better dressed, 
 and more indulgent than the field laborers. The men who were 
 employed in landing the cargo appeared to be more cheerful in 
 their general aspect and behavior than the field slaves I have seen 
 at the South : and there is no doubt that in Kentucky their condi- 
 tion is very much better than in most other states, their work 
 lighter, their food and clothing better, and their treatment more 
 kind and humane. "^^ 
 
 Legally, there were no marriages among the slaves. 
 They were not citizens, but property. The men were urged 
 to take their "wives" from among the women of the home 
 estate, if a suitable companion could be found. But if not 
 
 11 Buckingham, Eastern and Western States, Vol. 3 : 41. 
 
70 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 they eventually secured one in the neighborhood and the 
 master usually allowed the slave a pass to see his wife every 
 night in the week. AVhile such a cohabitation was not 
 exactly a legal affair most of them were held as sacred as 
 those more legalized unions among the master class. Many 
 masters paid an unconscious tribute to these unions. When 
 there ran away a slave who had a wife living in the neigh- 
 borhood or even at a great distance the owner would make 
 mention of the exact locality of the wife in order that people 
 in that region would be on the lookout for the fugitive. 
 J. C. Bucklin in 1824 did not give much of a description of 
 David, who had left his master, but he very carefully stated 
 that he had a ''wife and children at William Shirley's, about 
 16 miles from this place, on the Westport Eoad."^^ An 
 owner in Fayette county after giving a detailed picture of 
 ''Arthur" added that "Capt. Peter Poindexter, eight miles 
 from Lexington owns his wife, and I expect that he will be 
 in that neighborhood."^^ A more extreme example was 
 that of "Dick," a Lexington slave who ran away to New 
 Orleans, the owner thought, because "he has a wife living 
 in that city, and he has been heard to say frequently that 
 he was determined to go to New Orleans."^'* Such cases 
 as this were the logical consequence of the slavery system. 
 They existed in Kentucky just as in any other slave State, 
 but they were few compared with those slaves unions that 
 were never broken. 
 
 It was to the economic as well as humanitarian interest 
 of the master to have spnpathy with the peace and content- 
 ment of his servant. Thus most of them took care that the 
 family relationships of the slaves should not be disturbed. 
 Oftentimes when the owner of either a husband or a wife 
 was on the point of moving out of the county the masters 
 would get together and make a trade which would obviate 
 any disruption of the slave family. Under such conditions 
 a man would part with a servant who otherwise could not 
 
 12 Louisville Public Advertiser, August 11, 1824. 
 
 13 Lexington Gazette, June 14, 1803. 
 
 1* Lexington Intelligencer, July 7, 1838. 
 
The Social Status of the Slave 77 
 
 have been bought at any price. Such a situation was pos- 
 sible only in a State where the personal interest in a slave 
 and his welfare took precedence over merely his economic 
 value to the owner.^^ 
 
 Charles Stewart in My Life as a Slave has given us his 
 own experiences of home life and marriage among slaves in 
 Kentucky. He lived in Paris and was engaged in handling 
 race horses. Soon after coming from Virginia to Ken- 
 tucky he fell in love with a young mulatto girl, who was the 
 property of a Mr. Eobertson, who gave his consent to their 
 marriage, promising never to part them by his own free 
 will. In his own dialect Stewart dictated his story. "So 
 I married her, an' tuk her to a little house I had fixed up 
 near de stables, an' she clear-starched an' sewed an' 'broid- 
 ered an' wukked wid de hand-loom, an' made more pretty 
 things dan I could count. She paid her marster, en course, 
 reg'lar, so much a month fur her hire, but, lor', she neber 
 touched her airnin's fur dat. I had plenty of money to hire 
 as many wives as I wanted, but dis one was de onliest one 
 I eber did want, an' so it was easy enough." After two 
 years his wife became very sick and died and the grief of 
 the Negro man was touching in the extreme. ''She was 
 jes' as fond o' me as I was of her, an' it did 'pear hard luck 
 to lose her jes' as I was makin' up my mind to buy her out 
 and out, only en course, it was a fortunate thing I hadn't 
 bought her, as long as she had to die, kase den I would ha' 
 lost her an' de money too. Arter she was in de ground it 
 jes' 'peared to me like ebery^thing was different; I tuk a 
 dislikement to Paris, an' I didn't feel like goin' home to 
 Virginny." His master agreed to let him go wherever ho 
 liked if he could find an owner to suit him and finally 
 Stewart went to Louisiana after an interview with Senator 
 Porter of that State. He was to stay six months to see 
 how he liked it and then if agreeable he was to stay there. 
 He must have been a rather unusual Negro, for his selling 
 price was finally fixed at $3,500.^*^ 
 
 15 Perrin (Bourbon County), P- 60. 
 
 ■^^Jlarper's Magazine, October, 1884, pp. 730-738. 
 
78 Slavery ix Kentucky 
 
 But life among the slaves of Kentucky was not by any 
 means a path of roses. Many anti-slavery leaders attested 
 to this fact. The most trustworthy statement that was ever 
 made on this general subject was that embodied in the 
 pamphlet of the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky in 1835 
 advocating gradual emancipation. The following brief 
 extracts are most significant: 
 
 "The system produces general licentiousness among the slaves. 
 Marriage, as a civil ordinance, they cannot enjoy. Until slavery 
 waxeth old, and tendeth to decay, there cannot be any legal recog- 
 nition of the marriage rite, or the enforcement of its consequent 
 duties. For, all the regulations on this subject would limit the 
 master's absolute right of property in the slaves. In his disposal 
 of them he could no longer be at liberty to consult merely his own 
 interest . . . their present quasi-marriages are continually voided 
 (at the master's pleasure). . . . They are in this way brought to 
 consider their matrimonial alliances as things not binding, and act 
 accordingly. We are then assured by the most unquestionable tes- 
 timonj' that licentiousness is the necessary result of our system. 
 
 One would infer from this observation of apparently fair- 
 minded men that slave unions were not very sacred affairs 
 and that any disruption of them would amount to little, but 
 in the same document these Presbyterian preachers give a 
 back-handed compliment to the stability, at least in tempera- 
 ment, of the average slave marriage. 
 
 "Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, 
 are torn asunder and permitted to see each other no more. These 
 acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and 
 agony often witnessed on such occasions proclaim with a trumpet 
 tongue, the iniquity of our system. There is not a neighborhood 
 where these heartrending scenes are not displayed; there is not a 
 village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled 
 outcasts, whose mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by 
 force, from all that their hearts hold dear." 
 
 It is strange that these two opposing views should appear 
 in the same pamphlet, but nevertheless they are both un- 
 doubtedly true pictures of slavery in Kentucky. It is 
 
The Social Status of ttie Slave 79 
 
 merely a question as to which of the two represented the 
 majority of cases. Licentiousness there was, l)nt it was cer- 
 tainly very much less among the slaves of Kentucky than 
 in the far South. Slave unions were treated with more 
 respect by the masters of Kentucky than in most slave 
 States. As has been pointed out in a previous chapter, the 
 very fact that the few instances of inhuman separation of 
 slave families produced such a storm of public disapproval 
 shows that it was not a very general practice in the State. 
 
 From the legal standpoint the slave had no rights or 
 privileges in the attainment of even a meager education. 
 On the other hand Kentucky was the only slave State, with 
 the exception of Maryland and Tennessee, which never 
 passed any laws forbidding the instruction of slaves. Thus 
 no penalty was attached to Negro education, neither was 
 any encouragement given. Those slaves who learned to 
 read were the servants of masters who because of consci- 
 entious scruples taught them how to read the Bible. Few 
 slaves ever learned to write, for they might then be tempted 
 to serve as unofficial disjDensers of passes in the owner's 
 name. The general objection to any reasonable amount of 
 education was the tendency towards dissatisfaction with 
 the servile status thereby aroused. If the slave could learn 
 to read well, it was feared that he would become a victim of 
 the ''filthy" abolitionist literature, which through the re- 
 sultant effect upon the Negroes would have produced no 
 end of trouble to the slavery system. Hence, for the most 
 part, the Kentucky slave remained in blissful ignorance, 
 and well for him as such and the institution he represented 
 that his learning was no greater.^'^ 
 
 Out of a collection of some three hundred and fifty run- 
 away slave advertisements concerning Kentucky slaves the 
 author has found 71 cases in which mention was made that 
 the Negro could read and 37 instances in which he could 
 write. The latter cases are all included in the former 
 
 17 Clarke, Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke, p. 104. 
 Eothert, History of MuhUnburg County, p. ]04. 
 Perrin (Bourbon County), p. 60. 
 
80 Slavery ix Kentucky 
 
 classification also. On that basis a little over ten per cent 
 of the slaves could read and write and about twenty per 
 cent could read but were unable to write. There are, how- 
 ever, two strong reasons against any such general con- 
 clusion. In the first place, the more a slave learned the 
 more liable he was to become dissatisfied and run away; and 
 secondly, the careful mention which was made in advertise- 
 ments of the Negro's ability to read or write would tend to 
 show that it was more or less an unusual accomplishment. 
 
 Taking up the question of the education of slaves in the 
 State, the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky said in 1834 
 that ''Slavery dooms thousands of human beings to hope- 
 less ignorance ... if slaves are educated it must involve 
 some outlay upon the part of the master. ... It is incon- 
 sistent with our knowledge of human nature to suppose that 
 he will do this for them. The present state of instruction 
 among this race remains exactly what we might . . . natu- 
 rally anticipate. Throughout the whole land (State), so 
 far as we can learn, there is but one school in which, during 
 the week, slaves can be taught. The light of three or four 
 Sabbath schools is seen glimmering through the darkness 
 that covers the black population of the whole State. Here 
 and there a family is found where humanity and religion 
 impel the master, mistress or children to the laborious task 
 of private instruction."^^ 
 
 It should be added in this connection that the same state- 
 ment would hold true of the free Negro population of Ken- 
 tucky at the same period. Until long after the Civil War 
 there was no provision made for their education other than 
 that of individual enterprise. The public education of the 
 whites was not on a plane comparable to that of any of the 
 Nortliern States until after the reconstruction period, and 
 even then Kentucky lagged behind for years. 
 
 The church and its influence for the betterment of society 
 under the slavery system was more effective than the school. 
 The chief religious paper of the State was the Preshyteriayi 
 Tlrrald and one of its most persistent pleas was that the 
 
 1^ Address to the Fcople of Kcniuclcy, p. 8. 
 
The Social Status of thk Slave 81 
 
 proper religious iustniction of the Negro servant class 
 would answer most of the objections to the institution. 
 "The most formidable weapon in the hands of the aboli- 
 tionist," said the editor, ''is the indifference which ho 
 charges to the Christian slaveholder toward the spiritual 
 welfare of the slave under his control. Disarm him of this 
 weapon, and you have done much to render him power- 
 less. "^» 
 
 Eeligious instruction in families of Christian habits of 
 life, however, was not so sadly neglected. The household 
 servants were usually brought to the house during the 
 family worship and the scriptures were not merely read to 
 them but explained. No restrictions were ever placed on 
 church attendance either by law or by custom. Many slaves 
 united with the white churches and throughout the State 
 today one may find any number of old churches whose records 
 still show several of these Negroes on the church rolls. 
 Most of them are very kindly remembered for their good 
 moral character and abiding faith. Such a condition was 
 not so prevalent among the agricultural slaves, except 
 where they were few in numbers. Even here, however, the 
 religious instinct was not suppressed in any manner. Their 
 religion at the most was a very crude imitation of the 
 worship of their masters. They were not confined to the 
 rear seats of the white churches for their attendance at 
 Sunday services. They could hold their own meetings in 
 schoolhouses and vacant church edifices. 
 
 It was these distinctively slave gatherings that gave rise 
 to one of the most interesting of all Negro characters— the 
 preacher. Tradition and story have related many a charm- 
 ing picture of this quaint representative of Negro faith, 
 but imfortunately few life stories of any of them have ever 
 been preserved. In nearly all the county histories we find 
 mention of several of these Negro exhorters who seemintrly 
 were men of some degree of intelligence. The majority of 
 them were apparently themselves slaves, subject to the will 
 
 ^0 Presbyterian Herald, April 16, 1S46. See especially tbe editorial anil 
 articles in the issue of October 4, 1849. 
 
82 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 of their masters, and while the restrictions on their move- 
 ments were very hix, they seldom if ever spoke beyond the 
 borders of their home county.^^ 
 
 One of the famous Negro preachers of the early nine- 
 teenth-centnry South was Josiah Henson. From 1825 to 
 1828 he was a slave in Daviess County, Kentucky, and in his 
 autobiography he has given us a picture of the circum- 
 stances under which he became a slave preacher. ''In Ken- 
 tucky," said he, ''the opportunities of attending on the 
 preaching of whites, as well as of blacks, were more numer- 
 ous; and partly attended by them, and the campmeetings 
 which occurred from time to time, and partly from study- 
 ing carefully my own heart, and observing the developments 
 of character around me, in all the stations of life which I 
 could watch, I became better acquainted with those religious 
 feelings which are deeply implanted in the breast of every 
 human being, and learnt by practice how best to arouse 
 them, and keep them excited, and in general to produce 
 some good religious impressions on the igTiorant and 
 thoughtless community by which I was surrounded. . . . 
 I cannot but derive some satisfaction, too, from the proofs 
 I have had that my services have been acceptable to those 
 to whom they have been rendered. In the course of the 
 three years from 1825 to 1828 I availed myself of all the 
 opportunities of improvement which occurred and was ad- 
 mitted as a preacher by a conference of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. "^^ 
 
 In Ballard County there was another interesting ex- 
 horter. Advertising for his Negro Jack who had run away 
 in 1850, C. B. Young pointed out that although he was a 
 slave and the property of the "subscriber" he was a well- 
 educated Baptist preacher and in the pursuit of his voca- 
 tion he was well known by '-'many of the citizens of Pa- 
 ducah, McCracken County, and also by citizens of Hickman 
 and Fulton Counties, and is thought by many to be a free 
 man. "22 
 
 2" Rothort, JTistorif of ilnhlcnhurg County, p. 340. 
 
 21 Ilenj-on, Life of Josiah Jlcnaon, pp. 26-27. 
 
 22 Louisville Weekly Journal, March 27, 1S50. 
 
The Social Status of the Si^vve 83 
 
 The only credentials which the Nep^ro preacher carried, 
 according to his own testimony, came directly from the 
 Lord. His education was only of a sufficient character to 
 enable him to read the Bible and line out the words of the 
 hymns. His creed was never the creation of any school 
 of theology. It was usually an original interpretation of 
 supernatural phenomena varying widely even in one indi- 
 vidual from time to time. Convinced of his supernatural 
 calling, he felt inferior to no one in the power of exegesis. 
 As long as he held his balance and remained on terra firma 
 his followers believed in him as he believed in himself. But 
 as Lucius Little has well said: ''Once in a while a colored 
 preacher lost his influence with his congregation by drink- 
 ing too deeply of the Pierian spring. Too much learning 
 raised him out of their orbit. They fell on stony ground." 
 Strange, yet how true, that the more ignorant a slave 
 minister was, the more power of influence for good he had 
 among his fellow human beings.-^ 
 
 James Lane Allen has given us a splendid little sketch 
 of three of these native characters whom he evidently knew 
 in his younger days : 
 
 ''One of these negro preachers was allowed by his master to fill 
 a distant appointment. Belated once, and returning home after 
 the hour forbidden for slaves to be abroad, he was caught by the 
 patrol and cruelly whipped. As the blows fell, his words were, 
 "Jesus Christ suffered for righteousness' sake; so kin I." 
 
 Another was recommended for deacon's orders and actually 
 ordained. When liberty came, he refused to be free, and continued 
 to work in his master's family until his death. With considerable 
 knowledge of the Bible and a fluent tongue, he would nevertheless 
 sometimes grow confused while preaching and lose his train of 
 thought. At these embarrassing junctures it was his wont sud- 
 denly to call out at the top of his voice, "Saul, Saul. Why per- 
 secutest thou me?" The effect upon his hearers was electrifying: 
 — as none but a very highly favored being could be thought worthy 
 of enjoying this persecution. He thus converted his loss of mind 
 into spiritual reputation. 
 
 23 Little, L. P., Ben Hardin, his Times end Contemporaries, pp. 5-14-545. 
 
84 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 A third named Peter Cotton, united the vocations of exhorter 
 and wood-ehopper. He united them literally, for one moment 
 Peter might be seen standing on his log chopping away, and the 
 next kneeling down beside it praying. He got his mistress to make 
 him a long jeans coat and on the ample tails of it to embroider, by 
 his direction, sundry texts of scripture, such as " Come unto Me, 
 all ye that are heavy laden." Thus literally clothed with right- 
 eousness, Peter went from cabin to cabin, preaching the Word. 
 Well for him if that other Peter could have seen him. ' '-* 
 
 One of the dominant features of sucli a type of religion 
 among the Negroes was the resulting prevalence of super- 
 stition. It almost seems that in their ignorance they 
 adopted every form of supernatural fear that was ever 
 known among our ancestors. But if it had ended there 
 the matter would not have been so important socially. In 
 their constant association with white children they brought 
 their fears of ^'ghost-hauntings" and other fantastic ideas 
 into the minds of the very young. The peculiarity of the 
 Xegro slave as compared with the other superstitious races 
 was his own sinister imaginative productions. They re- 
 lated none of the valuable tales of ancient mythology, but 
 rather did they fill the earth with goblins, witches and 
 ghosts — the result of their own dreams and fancies.^" 
 
 The many stories of this sort which a ''mammy" related 
 to a child a half century ago can be reproduced by the old 
 man of the twentieth century and the effect of the old ideas 
 of magic is still with him. The prevalence of superstitious 
 ideas in Kentucky today might easily be traced back to the 
 associations of slavery times. But such a weakness may 
 not always have done harm; not every child was so influ- 
 enced. The natural play of the Negro instinct was worth 
 much to his peace and contentment. Here again Shaler 
 has given us a rather unique observation from his own 
 experience: 
 
 2* Allen, .Tames Lane, Blue Grass Kcgion of Kcntucly, pp. 77-78. 
 25 Hobcrtson 's Autohiograyhy, pp. 124-125. 
 
The Social Status of the Slave 85 
 
 "The only movements of the spirit in the religions field that I 
 can remember came from two sources: my mother's sinking. . . . 
 The other spiritual influence came from the negroes. A number of 
 them used to meet at night to talk religion beneath a shed which 
 lay open to the northern sky. One of them, well named "Old 
 Daniel, ' ' had a fervid imagination and excellent descriptive powers. 
 He would picture the coming of the great angel as if it were before 
 his eyes; the path of light shooting down from about the North 
 star, — the majesty of his train. Then the rolling of the heavens 
 "like a scroll" — I did not know what this process was like, but it 
 seemed vaguely fine — and then the burning up of the world. I 
 was always greatly moved when hearing these exhortations which 
 must indeed have been rather wonderful things, but they made no 
 permanent impression upon me. In fact I regarded them as * nig- 
 ger talk." '^^ 
 
 The patriarchal character of slavery as it existed in 
 Kentucky is best shown in the relationship which generally 
 existed between the master and his slave. The pioneers 
 who brought their slaves with them from Virginia en- 
 countered many dangers not only in crossing the moun- 
 tains but after they had settled in the new State. Many 
 were the times when the slave proved himself a hero and 
 even encountered death in order to protect the master and 
 his family. Tradition and history have handed down many 
 of these stories to us, but the most famous of all, as well as 
 the best authenticated, was the experience of Monk Estill, 
 who was the slave of Colonel James Estill, of Madison 
 County. In a struggle with the Indians in 1782 in the 
 region where Mount Sterling is now located Monk cried out 
 to his master in the thick of the fray: ''Don't give way, 
 Marse Jim ; there 's only twenty-five of the Injuns and you 
 can whip them." Colonel Estill was killed and Monk was 
 taken prisoner but he soon managed to escape, and after 
 joining his comrades carried one of the wounded men 
 twenty-five miles. The young master was so grateful to 
 Monk that he gave him his freedom and kept him in the 
 best of comfort the rest of his life. This was the experi- 
 
 26 Shaler's Autobiography, pp. 57-58. 
 
86 Sla\t:ry in Kentucky 
 
 ence of what is supposed to have been the first slave in the 
 district of Kentucky.-" 
 
 Xot only was the slave on a par with his master when 
 it came to facing dangers but even in the field of sports he 
 had as pleasant an outing as his overlord. While the one 
 may have spent the day in fox hunting or deer driving, when 
 nightfall came the Negro was apt to emerge from his 
 quarters followed by his faithful dog in search of possum 
 or coon. While the master may have enjoyed a feast of 
 venison at his table the Negro was just as well satisfied with 
 the less valuable but savory game that graced his own meal. 
 
 With the exception of the house servants most of the 
 slaves of the State were employed in agricultural pursuits, 
 but, as we have seen elsewhere, even here they were not to be 
 found in large droves as in the States of the South. There 
 were only a few big landed estates which were cultivated by 
 the owners under their own supervision and in the large 
 majority of cases the field slaves worked side by side with 
 the whites. Often an owner's circumstances compelled him 
 to labor in the fields with his slaves and when doing so he 
 rarely demanded more of them than he did himself. Such 
 a condition was not only true in the early days when thero 
 were few slaves but it extended throughout the slavery era.-^ 
 The stories of the mildness of the institution in Kentucky 
 which reached the North were little accredited by the radical 
 element, wliieh could never see any virtue in servile labor. 
 Perhaps the most zealous abolitionist who visited the State 
 was J. W. Buckingham, who wrote in 18-40 that the "condi- 
 tion of the Negroes, as to food, clothing, and light labor 
 struck me as being better in Kentucky than in any other 
 State. "-^ AMiile traveling in the heart of the slave section 
 of the State between Frankfort and Louisville he saw many 
 instances of black and white laborers, slave and free, work- 
 ing side by side in tlie same field.^*^ 
 
 27 Collins, History of Kcniuclcy, Vol. 2, pp. 634-636. 
 
 28 Cotterill, History of Pioneer Kentuclcy, p. 245. 
 
 Little, L. P., Ben Hardin, his Times and Contemporaries, p. 543. 
 21' Buckingham, Eastern and Western States, Vol. 3: 7-8. 
 30 Op. cit., Vol. 3 : 8. 
 
The Social. Status of the Sla\tb 87 
 
 The relation between the owner and the household type 
 of slave was of a more intimate nature and the master was 
 careful to pick only the best of the Negroes. In such an 
 environment we see the picture of the Kentucky gentleman 
 of song and story, and the Negro in all the best that tradi- 
 tion has related of him. The latter became identified with 
 the family of the master in sentiment and feeling. Under 
 ordinary circumstances he had nothing to worry about, and 
 with no cares pressing upon him, he became as happy as any 
 Negro ever was. If the crops failed, or the owner became 
 bankrupt he had none of the anxiety of his master, although 
 he may have displayed the greatest sympathy with the exist- 
 ing condition. It was his duty to give only his labor to his 
 master and in return he was sheltered, clothed and sup- 
 ported when sick or too old to labor ; and at last when his 
 eai-thly toils were over, he was given a Christian burial. 
 The humble affection which the slave had for his master in 
 conjunction with the extreme confidence which he held for 
 the outcome of all pecuniary troubles is shown by instances 
 in the life history of every slaveholding family. No matter 
 what might be the circumstances and conditions of the estate 
 the slave could go on in his daily work without any fears or 
 cares, except for the one great cloud that in the event of a 
 disruption of the estate through a legal process he might 
 be sold to satisfy his master's creditors. 
 
 From our present viewpoint the treatment may have 
 been at times rather harsh but we must be careful to judge 
 it from the general standard of those times. It has been 
 pointed out that it would bear ''favorable comparison with 
 the treatment of the white sailors in the British and Ameri- 
 can navies of the same period. "^^ The slave code allowed 
 a much severer policy than was generally carried out, for 
 it must be considered that the law was made to fit the worst 
 cases, where such action was justifiable. Often the attitude 
 of the master appeared harsher than it was really meant to 
 be. It may have been merely a display of authority on his 
 
 31 Little, L. P., Ben Ilardin, his Times and Contemporaries, pp. 541-2. 
 
88 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 part when be reprimanded a servant who had really com- 
 mitted only a minor indiseretion.^- 
 
 There were naturally other scenes in which the treat- 
 ment of slaves would not appear in such a favorable light. 
 The chronically bad master, however, was at all times and 
 under all circumstances under the ban of a just public senti- 
 ment. Should, by chance, a slave under such a one secure 
 vengeance on his heartless overlord, the general feeling of 
 the community was on the side of the slave. Strange to 
 say, it was very often true that persons who had known little 
 concerning slavery until they came to Kentucky, as soon as 
 they had accumulated a sufficient surplus, became the 
 owners of slaves and proved to be the hardest task- 
 masters.^3 Much light is thrown on this situation by Shaler. 
 
 32 A typical example of this has been related by one of Kentucky's dis- 
 tinguished sons: 
 
 "In the households ^here I was intimate the slaves were about on the same 
 footing as the other members of the family; they were subjected to sudden ex- 
 plosions of the master's temper much as were his children. I well remember a 
 frequent scene in my grandfather's house, where it was the custom that I 
 should go every Sunday afternoon for counsel and instruction. They were at 
 first somewhat fearsome occasions for a little lad thus to be alone with an aged 
 and stately grandfather. I soon won his interest, in some measure by my fears, 
 and came greatly to enjoy the intercourse, for he knew how to talk to a boy, 
 and we became, in a way, boys together, in our sense of the funny side of 
 things. It was the custom, too, for him to divide the session of three or four 
 hours with a brief nap taken in his chair. . . . 
 
 "As his rooms were near the negro quarter he would make ready for his 
 siesta by sending forth the servantman who waited on him, bidding him tell the 
 people that they were to keep quiet during the performance. I can see him 
 now with his pig-tail hanging down behind the back of the easy chair and a 
 handkerchief over his face as he courted slumber. For a minute or two it 
 would be still, then the hidden varlets would bo as noisy as before. Then the 
 pig-tail would begin to twitch, and he would mutter: 'Jim, tell those people 
 tl'.ey must be still. ' Again a minute of quiet, and once more the jabbering and 
 shouting. Now with a leap he would clutch his long walking-stick and charge 
 the crowd in the quarter, laying about him with amazing nimbleness, until all 
 the offenders were run to their holes. Back he would come from his excursion 
 and settle himself to sleep. I could see that his rage was merely on the surface 
 ond that he had used it for a corrective, for he evidently took care not to hurt 
 anyone." Shaler 's Autobiography, p. 37. 
 
 33 Little, L. P., Jicn Hardin, his Times avd Contemporaries, p. 543. 
 
The Social Status of the Slave 89 
 
 ''There is a common opinion," said he, ''that the shives of 
 the Southern households were subjected in various ways to 
 brutal treatment. Such, in my experience, was not the 
 case. Though the custom of using the whip on white chil- 
 dren was common enough, I never saw a negro deliberately 
 punished in that way until 1862, when, in military service, I 
 stayed at night at the house of a friend. This old man, 
 long a widower, had recently married a woman from the 
 state of Maine, who had been the governess of his children. 
 In the early morning I heard a tumult in the back yard, and 
 on looking out saw a negro man, his arms tied up to a limb 
 of a tree, while the vigorous matron was administering on 
 his back with a cowhide whip. At breakfast I learned that 
 the man had well deserved the flogging, but it struck me 
 as curious that in the only instance of the kind that I had 
 known the punishment was from the hands of a Northern 
 woman. "2^ Shaler lived in Campbell County in the ex- 
 treme northern section of the State, where there were only 
 a few slaves and the treatment was milder perhaps than in 
 any other part of Kentuck5\ 
 
 The general attitude is best shown by the two laws 
 passed in 1816 and 1830. It had always been considered 
 that the slave, being the property of his owner, it remained 
 for him and for him alone to serve as the disciplinarian of 
 the Negro. The increasing abuse of this right by outsiders 
 led to a law in 1815 giving the owners a power of action 
 against persons abusing their slaves, and in February, 1816, 
 the provisions were made more specific. If any person 
 should "whip, strike or otherwise abuse the slave of 
 another" without the owner's consent, the latter could re- 
 cover damages in any circuit court in the commonwealth — 
 regardless of whether or not the punishment so inflicted 
 injured the ability of the slave to render service to his 
 master.^^ 
 
 Some of the contemporary comment would seem to imply 
 that the theory of the law was based on the property con- 
 
 34 Shaler 's Autobiography, pp. 36-37. 
 35Littell's Laws, Vol. 5: 578-579. 
 
90 Slavery ix Kentucky 
 
 ception of the slave aud not upon humanitarian motives. 
 In other words, it was perfectly proper to punish any slave 
 as one saw fit as long as one did not interfere with the 
 property value of the servant. Fearon, while visiting the 
 State in 1818, came across an example of this kind and after 
 telling the story of the punishment makes this comment: 
 ''It appears that this boy (the one who had been whipped) 
 was the property of a regular slave-dealer, who was then 
 absent at Natchez with a cargo. Mr. Lawe's humanity fell 
 lamentably in my estimation when he stated, that 'whipping 
 niggers, if they were his own, was perfectly right, and they 
 perhaps deserved it ; but what made him mad was, that the 
 boy was left under his care by a friend, and he did not like 
 to have a friend's property injured.' "^^ The conduct ob- 
 served by Fearon was clearly in violation of the law of 
 1816, unless the absent master had given over his rights in 
 full to the man Lawe, who administered the punishment. 
 It may have been the spirit of the laws of Kentuclqr that 
 Lawe had in mind when he spoke to Fearon. On the other 
 hand, it could easily be given the interpretation which 
 Fearon made. The trend of public opinion was more and 
 more in the interest of justice for the slave as the law of 
 1830 shows : 
 
 If any owner of a slave shall treat such slave cruelly, so as in 
 the opinion of the jury, to endanger the life or limb of such slave, 
 or shall not supply his slave with sufficient food or raiment, it shall 
 and may be lawful for any person acquainted with the fact or facts, 
 to state and set forth in a petition to the Circuit Court, the facts, 
 or any of them aforesaid, of which the defendant hath been guilty, 
 and pray that such slave or slaves may be taken from the posses- 
 sion of the owner, and sold for the benefit of such owner, agreeably 
 to the 7th article of the Constitution." 
 
 In accordance with this law, if a jury of twelve men 
 were convinced that a master treated his slave cruelly, or 
 failed to provide him the proper food and clothing* the 
 
 8" Fearon, Sketches in America, p. 241. 
 8' Session Laws, 1830, p. 174. 
 
The Social Status of the Slave 91 
 
 slave would be sold into better hands and the master would 
 have to pay the costs of the suit. Most assuredly tliero was 
 no place in the eyes of the law for an inhuman slaveholder. 
 Not only was such a one a criminal in the eyes of the courts 
 but he was socially ostracized in the ordinary circles of the 
 community.^^ 
 
 Two instances of this kind in Lexington will sliow the 
 public feeling. In 1837 Mrs. Turner, the wife of a wealthy 
 Lexington judge, was accused of inhuman cruelty. Her own 
 husband was the chief complainant, stating that ''that 
 woman has been the cause of the death of six of my servants 
 by her severities." The trial caused intense excitement 
 among the people of Lexington, more so perhaps for the 
 reason that the defendant was a member of a prominent 
 Boston familj^ and her husband was a former judge of the 
 criminal court in New Orleans. The court proceedings 
 were brought to an end when the woman was pronounced 
 insane and placed in the asylum.^^ 
 
 Early in 1839 a Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell were tried in Lex- 
 ington for the inhuman treatment of a female slave servant. 
 The indignation of the citizens of Lexington is apparent 
 from the publicity that was given to the proceedings in the 
 local papers. A Dr. Constant testified that he saw Mrs. 
 Maxwell whipping the Negro severel.y, without being par- 
 ticular whether she struck her in the face or not. The lac- 
 erations had brought blood in considerable quantities for he 
 had found some on the steps. He had noticed previously 
 that the slave had been thinly clad and was barefooted even 
 in cold weather. During the previous months he had noticed 
 several scars on her and at one time she had had one eye 
 tied up for a week. A Mr. Winters was once passing along 
 the street and saw one of the boys whipping the slave girl 
 with a cowhide. Whenever she turned her face to him he 
 would hit her across the face either with the butt end or 
 small end of the whip to make her turn around square to the 
 lash, in order that he might get a fair blow at her. A Mr. 
 
 3s Blanchard and Eiee, Debate on Slavery, p. 135. 
 s^ American Slavery As It Is, p. 87. 
 
92 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Say bad noticed several wounds on her person, chiefly 
 bruises, Capt. Porter, the keeper of the workhouse, thought 
 the injuries on ]\Iilly's person were very bad, some of them 
 appeared to be burns, and some were bruises or stripes 
 from a cowhide whip. The trial was held amidst a turmoil 
 of resentment against the defendants and there was ap- 
 parently no one in sympathy with them whatever.^"' 
 
 Any discussion of the relationships in slavery times 
 would be incomplete without adding the characterization of 
 the Kentucky master as drawn by a celebrated author who 
 was born in the heart of the bluegrass and was thoroughly 
 familiar with the tyi3e: 
 
 "The good in nature is irrepressible. Slavery, evil as it was^ 
 when looked at from the remoteness of human history as it is to 
 be, will be judged an institution that gave development to a cer- 
 tain noble type of character. 
 
 "Along with other social forces peculiar to the age, it produced 
 in Kentucky a kind of farmer the like of which will never appear 
 again. He had the aristocratic virtues: highest notions of per- 
 sonal liberty and personal honor, a fine especial scorn of anything 
 that was little, mean, cowardly. As an agriculturist he was not 
 driving or merciless or grasping; the rapid amassing of wealth was 
 not among his passions, the contention of splendid living not among 
 his thorns. To a certain carelessness of riches he added a certain 
 profuseness of expenditure; and indulgent towards his own pleas- 
 ures, towards others, his equals or dependents, he bore himself with 
 a spirit of kindness and magnanimity. Intolerani of tyranny, he 
 was no tyrant. To say of such a man, as Jefferson said of every 
 slave-holder, that he lived in the perpetual exercise of the most 
 boisterous passions and unremitting despotism, and in the exaction 
 of the most degrading submission, was to pronounce judgment 
 hasty and unfair. 
 
 "Rather did Mrs. Stowe, while not blind to his faults, discern his 
 virtues when she made him, embarrassed by death, exclaim: "If 
 anybody had said to me that I should sell Tom down sonth to one 
 of those rascally traders, I should have said, *Is thy sen'ant a dog 
 that he should do this thing?' "" 
 
 •«> Lexington Reporter, January I'y, 1S.39. 
 
 <» Allen, James Lane, Blue Grass Jtegion of Kentucky, pp. 07-68. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Public Opinion Regarding Emancipation and 
 Colonization 
 
 Although the facts herein set forth indicate that slavery 
 in Kentucky was a comparatively mild form of servitude it 
 is not the aim here to leave the impression that the anti- 
 slavery element found no grounds for attacking the institu- 
 tion. On the contrary, there were various elements that 
 devised schemes for exterminating the institution. This 
 was especially true of the churches, which represented more 
 than any other one force the sentiment of the State on the 
 subject of emancipation. The three prominent Protestant 
 denominations of the State were the Presbyterians, the Bap- 
 tists, and the Methodists. The only one of the three which 
 maintained a general continuous policy throughout the early 
 nineteenth century on the question of slavery was the Pres- 
 byterian. 
 
 It was on the eve of the first Constitutional Convention 
 of 1792 that David Rice, at that time the leader of the Pres- 
 byterians in Kentucky, published a pamphlet under the 
 nom-de-plume of philanthropos entitled Slavery Inconsist- 
 ent witli Justice and Good Policy. While the author went 
 into the general evils of slavery, such as the lack of protec- 
 tion to female chastity, lack of religious and moral instruc- 
 tion, and the comparative unproductiveness of slave labor, 
 he was not one of those violent opponents of the institution, 
 who would abolish the whole system without any construc- 
 tive measures. A large part of his treatise was devoted to 
 the supposed sanction of the scriptures and his own evidence 
 that the same source was against rather than in favor of the 
 system then in vogue. It was but natural that Rice should 
 recommend that the convention should put an end to slavery 
 in Kentucky in view of his firm opinions in the matter, but 
 he had a clear vision of the future and he expressed his con- 
 
 93 
 
94 Slaveky IX Kentucky 
 
 \nction that "a gradual emaucipation onlj' can be advis- 
 able." He summed up bis ideas in this sentence: *'Tbe 
 legislature, if tbey judged it expedient, would prevent the 
 importation of any more slaves; tbey would enact tbat all 
 born after sucb a date should be free ; be qualified by proper 
 education to make useful citizens, and be actually freed at a 
 proper age."^ lie put these ideas forth as a citizen of Ken- 
 tucky who was interested in its welfare and as a prospective 
 member of the constitutional convention. When that body 
 assembled at Danville he did not hesitate to voice his views 
 again but the forces of slavery were dominant and the 
 majority enacted the famous article IX, which determined 
 the slave code of the State until the institution was abolished 
 by the 13th amendment to the federal constitution. The 
 significance of the attitude of David Eice lies in the fact that 
 as early as the year 1792 he put forth the idea of gradual 
 emancipation, a policy far in advance of his age but which 
 in the course of time was held by a large number of the fair- 
 minded statesmen of Kentucky. 
 
 . In 1794 the Transylvania Presbytery, which was the gov- 
 erning body of that sect at that time for the whole State, 
 passed a resolution asking that slaves should be instructed 
 to read the Bible, having in view the sole idea that when 
 freedom did come to them they would be prepared for it.^ 
 The same body in 1796 expressed the following fair-minded 
 attitude in the form of a resolution : 
 
 Although the Presbytery are fully convinced of the great evil 
 of slavery, yet they view the final remedy as alone belonging to the 
 civil powers; and also do not think that they have sufficient author- 
 ity from the word of God to make it a term of Christian com- 
 munion. They, therefore, leave it to the consciences of the brethren 
 to act as they may think proper; earnestly recommending to the 
 people under their care to emancipate such of their slaves as they 
 may think fit subjects of liberty; and that they also take every 
 possible measure, by teacliing their young slaves to read and give 
 them such other instruction as may be in tlioir power, to prepare 
 
 1 Davidson, TTistory of the Treshyicrian Church in Eentucl-y, p. 336. 
 
 2 Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, Vol. 1, p. 147. 
 
Public Opinion 95 
 
 them for the enjoyment of liberty, an event which they contemplate 
 with the greatest pleasure, and which, they hope, will be accom- 
 plished as soon as the nature of things will admit.^ 
 
 In tlie year 1797 the same organization decided that slavery 
 was a moral evil but on the question of whether those per- 
 sons holding slaves were guilty of a moral evil they decided 
 in the negative. As to what persons were guilty they were 
 unable to decide and the matter was postponed for future 
 action.'* 
 
 As early as 1800 the West Lexington Presbytery pointed 
 to the trouble and division which slavery was likely to cause 
 among the churches, but they were unable to come to any 
 decision upon the exclusion of slaveholding members from 
 church privileges and in a letter to the Synod of Virginia 
 they asked for the judgment of higher ecclesiastical author- 
 ities.^ In 1802 the same body decided on a policy of non- 
 interference with the rights of the slaveholding members of 
 the church.*' 
 
 Beginning in 1823 the Synod of Kentucky advocated the 
 cause of the American Colonization Society. Their general 
 attitude on the slavery question was an open one as late as 
 the year 1833 when they adopted a resolution to the effect 
 that ''inasmuch as in the judgment of the Synod it is inex- 
 pedient to come to any decision on the very difficult and 
 delicate question of slavery as it is within our bounds; 
 therefore, resolved, that the whole matter be indefinitely 
 postponed."^ The vote on this resolution stood 41 to 36. 
 
 The enactment of the law of 1833 forbidding the impor- 
 tation of slaves into Kentucky seems to have induced the 
 Synod to take a step in advance, for when they next met in 
 1834 at Danville they adopted by the decisive vote of 56 to 7 
 a resolution calling for the appointment of a committee of 
 ten to draw up a plan for the instruction and future emanci- 
 
 3 Minutes of Transylvania Freshytery, Vol. 2, pp. 102-3. 
 
 4 lUd., Vol. 2, pp. 163, 224. 
 
 ^Minutes W. Lexington Freslytery, Vol. 1, p. 38. 
 
 ^llkl., p. 81. 
 
 7 Minutes of Kentucly Synod, Vol, 5, pp. 28, 31. 
 
96 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 l^ation of slaves in the State.^ The following year this com- 
 mittee published a 64-page pamphlet entitled "xVn Address 
 to the Presbyterians of Kentucky proposing a plan for the 
 instruction and emancipation of their slaves." Many edi- 
 tions of this work were published throughout the country 
 even as late as 1862 when it was issued by the United Pres- 
 byterian Board of Publication in Pittsburgh. It was her- 
 alded throughout the northern section of the United States 
 as a very able document and was regarded all the more 
 valuable because it was published in a slaveholding State. 
 The major portion of the pamphlet was taken up with the 
 general arguments setting forth the evils of the slavery 
 system but in the last few pages they set down their plan 
 for the gradual emancipation of the slaves in Kentucky — 
 the most able contribution towards a reconstruction of the 
 existing social system in the State which had been made up 
 to that time. 
 
 ''The plan, then, which we propose is, for the master to 
 retain during a limited jieriod, and with regard to the wel- 
 fare of the slave, that authority which he before held, in 
 perpetuity, and solely for his own interest. Let the full 
 liberty of the slave be secured against all contingencies, by 
 a recorded deed of emancipation, to take effect at a speci- 
 fied time. In the meanwhile, let the servant be treated with 
 kindness — let all those things which degrade him be re- 
 moved — let him enjoy means of instruction, let his moral 
 and religious improvement be sought— let his prospects be 
 presented before him, to stimulate him to acquire those 
 habits of foresight, economy, industry, activity, skill and 
 integrity, wliich will fit him for using well the liberty he is 
 soon to enjoy." The actual plan of potential freedom was 
 stated briefly in these words: ''(1) We would recommend 
 that all slaves now under 20 years of age, and all those yet 
 to be born in our possession, be emancipated as they sev- 
 erally reach their 25th year. (2) We recommend that deeds 
 of emancipation be drawn up, and recorded in our respec- 
 tive county courts, specifying the slaves whom we are about 
 
 8 Minutes of EenUtcly Synod, Vol. 5, pp. 50-52. 
 
Public Opinion 97 
 
 to emancipate, and the age at wliich each is to be free. (3) 
 We recommend that our slaves be instructed in the common 
 elementary branches of education. (4) We recommend that 
 strenuous and persevering efforts be made to induce them 
 to attend upon the ordinary services of religion, both do- 
 mestic and public. (5) We recommend that great pains be 
 taken to teach them the Holy Scriptures ; and that, to effect 
 this the instrumentality of Sabbath Schools, wherever they 
 can beenjoyed, be united with that of domestic instruction."^ 
 
 This appeal was not to the officials of the State but to the 
 members of a particular religious body by its governing 
 organization. The success or failure of the plan depended 
 entirely upon the individual slaveholder's attitude in the 
 matter. The committee added this sentence by way of ex- 
 planation: ''These are measures which all ought to adopt; 
 and we know of no peculiarity of circumstances in the case 
 of any individual which can free him from culpability if he 
 neglects them."^*^ 
 
 The sentiments embodied in this appeal were not, how- 
 ever, any indication of the feeling among the slaveholding 
 Presbyterians of the State nor were they expressive of the 
 Synod itself, for that body never took any action upon the 
 address, it being the work of the committee of ten entirely.^ ^ 
 Davidson, writing in 1847, made the following comment on 
 the sentiment of the church people in Kentucky at that time. 
 *'In the morbid and feverish state of the public mind, it is 
 not to be concealed, that by some they (the Committee) 
 were considered as going to an unwarrantable and impru- 
 dent length. The northern abolitionists were waging a hot 
 crusade against slavery, sending out itinerant lecturers, and 
 loading the mails with inflammatory publications. Their 
 measures were marked with a fanatical virulence rarely ex- 
 hibited, and the people were exasperated beyond forbear- 
 ance . . . the effects were truly disastrous. The prospect of 
 emancipation was retarded for years. The laws bearing on 
 the slave population were made more stringent than ever, 
 
 9 Address to Presbyterians of Kentucly, pp. 33-34. 
 
 ■^oiiid., p. 34. 
 
 11 Davidsou, Ilistory of the Presbyterian Church in Ecntucl-y, p. 340. 
 
98 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 and their privileges were curtailed. In Kentucky, the re- 
 ligious meetings of the blacks were broken up or interrupted 
 and their Sabbatli schools dispersed. "^- 
 
 AVhen the subject of emancipation was under discussion 
 in the Kentucky SjTiod one of the elders arose and stated 
 that he owned one hundred slaves, nearly all of whom he 
 had inherited. Many of them were so old that they could 
 not provide for themselves, others were women and children 
 whom no one was willing to feed and clothe for their labor. 
 He stated emphatically that he had no desire to hold them 
 in bondage, but that he was willing to do whatever was best 
 for the slaves themselves. If he should free them, what 
 would become of the aged and the women and children? 
 Furthermore, it was a serious matter to give bond and 
 security for the support of so many slaves of different ages 
 and character. He could not send them out of the State, 
 for they were intermarried with the slaves of others; and 
 as to giving them wages, he could not, for they were eating 
 him up as it was. With a feeling of intense interest in the 
 slave and anxiety on his own behalf to do the right, he asked 
 his brethren of the S\Tiod, what he ought to do.^" The 
 position of this kind-hearted Kentucky slaveholder shows 
 more clearly than any other picture we could draw the diffi- 
 culties of emancipation in Kentucky even when one was 
 convinced of the evils of the slavery system. 
 
 The final word of the Presbyterian Church on the whole 
 subject of slavery was sounded at its General Assembly in 
 Cincinnati in 1845, when a resolution was adopted, as sub- 
 mitted by Nathan L. Rice, of Kentucky, stating that it was 
 not competent for the church to legislate where Christ and 
 his apostles had not legislated. ^Pliis, at least for the time 
 being, proved acceptable to the churches south of the Ohio 
 and avoided a breach in the Presbyterians such as had just 
 taken place among the Methodists and Baptists. 
 
 The Baptists as a State organization did not pursue a 
 policy similar to that of the Presbyterians. After the 
 
 12 Op. cit., p. 340. 
 
 13 Blanchard and Rice, Debate on Slavery, p. 88, 
 
Public Opinion 99 
 
 failure of the emancipationist campai<2:n in 1792 an<l a^^ain 
 at tlie constitutional convention in 1799 a few nienil)ers of 
 the Baptist Church began a movement for immediate aboli- 
 tion under the lead of several ministers— Tarront, Barrow, 
 Sutton, Holmes and others. The policy which they advo- 
 cated was not only one of immediate abolition but of non- 
 fellowship with the slaveholders within their own denomi- 
 nation. There was no general governing body for the 
 State, as the Baptists had several so-called associations 
 which covered only a few counties each. The trend of 
 opinion throughout the various commonwealth organiza- 
 tions was apparently against the position held by the eman- 
 cipationist group, for the latter in 1807 withdrew from the 
 regular organizations and established an association of 
 their own which they called the Licking Locust Association. 
 They were only able to muster the assent of twelve churches 
 to their newer group and soon died out in importance." 
 The real sentiment of the Baptists was no doubt much like 
 that of the Presbyterians, but these early advocates of Ne- 
 gro freedom in their own organization were entirely too 
 radical even for their own church membership. Had they 
 followed a course of action and policy more in keeping with 
 their own constituents they might have accomplished much 
 good, whereas, as it was, they only stirred up the feeling 
 within their own denomination to such an extent that there- 
 after little progress was made towards a policy of even 
 gradual emancipation of the slave. 
 
 Throughout the slavery era, however, the Baptists in the 
 State were divided into the ''regular" and the ''separa- 
 tists," the former being in favor of non-interference with 
 the question and the latter representing the advocates of 
 emancipation in one form or another. Both agreed that 
 slavery was an evil, but the regular grou]~) was unwilling to 
 make it the cause of the expulsion of a slaveholder from the 
 church. In May, 1845, a "Southern Baptist Convention" 
 was held at Augusta, Georgia. The meeting had been 
 hastily called and representatives were present only from 
 
 i-t Spencer, History of the Baptists in Kentucky, Vol. 1, p. 186. 
 
100 Slavery in Kextucky 
 
 Maryland, ISouth Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Ala- 
 bama, Louisiana, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia. 
 Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida were repre- 
 sented only by letters. The convention had been summoned 
 as a protest against the action of the ''Acting Board" of 
 the church in the country in refusing to consent to the ap- 
 pointment of a slaveholder to any field of foreign mis- 
 sionary labors. ^^ In June of the same year the Kentucky 
 Baptists for the most part withdrew from the northern 
 organization and pledged themselves to this newly formed 
 southern convention. The creed was not changed. It was 
 simply a matter of rebuke toward the northern section's 
 attitude on the slavery question.^^ 
 
 The Methodists had also struggled to find a peaceful 
 solution of the problem of harmonizing Christianity with 
 slavery. At the meeting of the General Conference of the 
 Methodist Church in 1845, several days were taken up in the 
 debate over the status of Bishop James Osgood Andrew, of 
 Kentucky. By inheritance and marriage he was a slave- 
 holder. Finally he was requested by a vote of 110 to 68 'Ho 
 desist from the exercise of the office of Bishop while this 
 impediment remained." The southerners in the convention 
 became unusually indignant, declaring that the infliction of 
 such a stigma upon Bishop Andrew would make it impossi- 
 ble for them to maintain the influence of Methodism in the 
 South.^" So they withdrew from the convention and in 
 May, 1845, held a convention of the Methodist churches of 
 the Southern States in Louisville. After a nineteen-days ' 
 session they decided to set up an organization of their own 
 to be known as the ''Methodist Episcopal Church South" 
 and to have their first meeting at Petersburg, Virginia, in 
 May, 1846.18 
 
 The Kentucky Methodist Conference met at Frankfort 
 on Sej^tember 17, 1845, and the entire attention of the meet- 
 ing was given over to the question of whether they would 
 
 ^uNilcs' Tiegister, May 24, 1845. 
 
 1" Ibid., June 28, 1845. 
 
 ^■t Ibid., June 8, 1844. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., May 17, 24, 31, 1845. 
 
Public Opinion 101 
 
 adhere to the general conference or woiihl jjlcdgc tliem- 
 selves to the newly formed soutliern organization. J>isliop 
 Andrew appeared at Frankfort at tlie crucial moment and 
 stated all the facts concerning himself and the action which 
 the Louisville Conference had taken as a result of the 
 trouble in the previous General Conference. By a vote of 
 146 to 5 they then declared that henceforth they would ad- 
 here to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and that all 
 proceedings, records and official acts would thereafter be in 
 the name of the ''Kentucky Conference of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church South. "^^ 
 
 At its annual conference in 1858 held in Ilopkinsville 
 the Louisville Conference held a very heated debate over 
 the rules of the church regarding slaveholders. Finally 
 they voted to expunge from the General Rules the one which 
 forbade ''the buying and selling of men, women and chil- 
 dren, with the intention to enslave them."-*^ The regula- 
 tion thus repealed, although it was a part of the rules of 
 Methodism, was just another indication of the sentiment in 
 Kentucky at that time to resent more and more the en- 
 croachments of the North on the slave system of the South 
 and to hang on to the institution with a grim determJnation. 
 But they were not willing to go to unwarrantable lengths, 
 for at the Kentucky Conference held in Germantown in 
 March, 1860, a proposition submitted by the sister confer- 
 ences to the South with a view to further altering the rules 
 on slavery was denied.-^ 
 
 The churches of Kentucky for the most part pursued a 
 policy of benevolent neutrality in the struggle which the 
 slave forces of the State were having with their neighbors 
 to the North. The Baptists and Methodists within the com- 
 monwealth officially never made any positive contribution 
 to the forces of either side, and they took no definite stand 
 until the whole southern division of their general national 
 organization withdrew from membership in the national 
 conventions and set up an organization of their own. When 
 
 i^Niles' Register, September 27, 1S45. 
 
 20 Collins, History of Kentucky, Vol. 1, p. 81. 
 
 21 Ihid., Vol. 1, p. 83. 
 
102 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 this much had beeu done both the Methodists and Baptists 
 of Kentucky pledged their allegiance to their respective 
 newly formed soutlieru conventions. On the other hand 
 the Presbyterians of the State maintained a policy that was 
 distinctively their own, separate and apart from any acts 
 of their national organization. They were the only religious 
 body in Kentucky to issue officially a constructive plan for 
 the betterment of social and economic conditions under 
 slavery. AVhen it came to the advocacy of even gradual 
 emancipation they were careful to state that the plan was 
 only published for the benefit of the slaveholding members 
 of their own religious body. The Presbyterians w^ent 
 further in their interference with the institution of slavery 
 in the State than any other religious body, but even they 
 were not willing to try to extend their home missionary field 
 beyond their own membershij). On the whole, the churches 
 in Kentucky merely followed the dictates of public opinion 
 on the subject of slavery, trying to pursue a policy of 
 neutrality as long as possible and then when it was no longer 
 feasible, most of them sided with the slaveholding group. 
 The northern section of none of these religious bodies, how- 
 ever, was driven out of the State. There were a good many 
 of the so-called ''northern" churches w^hich remained loyal 
 to the old national organizations. 
 
 The summary of the actions of the three principal re- 
 ligious bodies of the State shows that there was a growing 
 sentiment against the institution of slaverj^ Kentucky 
 being a slaveholding State, the significance of this attitude 
 was very important. ^Y[u\e it may be true that the majority 
 sentiment even among the churches was not in favor of the 
 elimination of slavery the very fact that even a minority 
 were coming to the front unmolested by violence and threats 
 and favoring tlie gradual elimination of the established in- 
 stitution revealed the general trend of public opinion among 
 the people of Kentuck\\ These measures were taken en- 
 tirely ujion their own initiative and were not prompted by 
 an outside anti-slavory influonco. 
 
 Any discussion of the evolution of public opinion in 
 
Public (J tin ion 103 
 
 Kentucky on tlie subject of eniancij)ation and of .slavery in 
 general would be inconij)lete without describing the attitude 
 of Henry Clay toward the institution in Kentucky. During 
 almost the entire i)eriod of slavery in Kentucky he was the 
 foremost citizen of the State and one of the principal slave- 
 holders. From those two viewpoints alone anything that he 
 had to say on the local type and problems of slavery is 
 valuable in this connection. 
 
 The general position of Clay on the subject of Negro 
 servitude has never been very widely understood. xVmong 
 the radical abolitionists of the North be was looked upon as 
 a friend of slavery for the sake of political advancement 
 and among the slaveholders in some parts of the South he 
 was regarded as almost a member of the Garrisonian group 
 of the enemies of slavery. To understand Clay's real posi- 
 tion we need only to consider his relation to the institution 
 as it existed in his native State. 
 
 Coming from Virginia to Lexington in 1797, Clay soon 
 found ample opportunities for a public career. He first 
 came into prominence as a writer on slavery in the columns 
 of the Lexington Gazette and the Kentucky Reporter. 
 When the constitutional convention of 1799 was called for 
 a revision of the fundamental law of the State Clay bent all 
 his efforts towards the adoption of a system of gradual 
 emancipation for the slaves of Kentucky. It was pointed 
 out that there were relatively few slaves in the State and 
 that a progressive plan of liberation would be much easier 
 than at any future time. 
 
 The consensus of opinion at the time was that the 
 emancipationists led by this young man from Virginia 
 would have been successful, had it not been for the interven- 
 ing excitement produced by the Alien and Sedition Laws 
 and the resulting famous Virginia and Kentucky Resolu- 
 tions of 1798. Clay threw himself heart and soul into the 
 newer campaign against the mistakes of the Federalists and 
 the former enthusiasm for the gradual freedom of the slaves 
 seems to have died down in his thought as well as among 
 the Kentucky people in general. Thus the constitutional 
 
104 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 convention of 1799 left the conditions of slavery as they 
 were. 
 
 In a speech delivered three decades later before the Ken- 
 tucky Colonization Society, Clay said in commenting on his 
 position in 1798: "More than thirty years ago, an attempt 
 was made, in this commonwealth, to adopt a system of grad- 
 ual emancipation, similar to tliat which the illustrious Frank- 
 lin had maiul}' contributed to introduce in 1780, in the state 
 founded by the benevolent Penn. And among the facts of 
 my life which I look back to with most satisfaction is that 
 of my having cooperated, with other zealous and intelligent 
 friends, to procure the establishment of that system in this 
 state. We were overpowered by numbers, but submitted to 
 the decision of the majority with that grace which the 
 minority in a republic should ever yield to that decision. I 
 have, nevertheless, never ceased, and shall never cease, to 
 regret a decision, the effects of which have been to place us 
 in the rear of our neighbors, who are exempt from slavery, 
 in the state of agriculture, the progress of manufactures, 
 the advance of improvements, and the general progress of 
 society. "2^ In his famous speech in the Senate on Aboli- 
 tion in 1839, referring further to his activities in 1798, Clay 
 stated that *'no one was rash enough to propose or think of 
 immediate abolition. No one was rash enough to think of 
 throwing loose upon the community, ignorant and unpre- 
 pared, the untutored slaves of the state. "^^ 
 
 Clay's private dealings with the institution were always 
 consistent with his political principles on the subject of 
 slavery. He bought many slaves during his lifetime hut he 
 never sold any.^^ Clay believed that the slaves should be 
 
 22 Schurz, Carl, Henry Clay, Vol. 1, p. 31. 
 
 23 Colton, Worl<s of Clay, Vol. 6, p. 153. 
 
 2'* His attitude was perhaps best shown when, on a visit to Richmond, 
 Indiana, in the fall of 1846, he was presented with a petition by a Quaker by 
 the name of Mendenhall asking him to liberate all the slaves he owned. Clay 
 made a rather lengthy speech to the gentleman on the general principles of the 
 question and then came down to the practical side of the problem: 
 
 ' ' Without any knowledge of the relation in which I stand to my slaves, 
 or their individual condition, you, Mr. Mendenhall, and your associates, who 
 have been active in getting up this petition, call upon me forthwith to liberate 
 
Public Opinion 103 
 
 freed, but at the same lime considered tlio diniculties at- 
 tendant upon instant emancipation. Amon^ the mass of the 
 slaveholders of the State, Clay was one of the very few 
 who held a perfectly consistent attitude on gradual eman- 
 ci]nitiou as was finally shown by his will.^^ 
 
 the whole of them. Now let mo tell you, that some half a dozen of them, from 
 age, decrepitude, or infirmity, are wholly unable to f^ain a livclihooil for them- 
 selves, and are a heavy charge upon me. Do you think that I should conform 
 to the dictates of humanity by ridding myself of that charge, and sending them 
 forth into the world with the boon of liberty, to end a wretched existence in 
 starvation? Another class is composed of helpless infants, with or without 
 improvident mothers. Do you believe as a Christian, that I should perform my 
 duty toward them by abandoning them to their fate? Then there is another 
 class who would not accept their freedom if I would give it to them. I have 
 for many years owned a slave that I wished would leave me, but ho would not. 
 What shall I do with that class?" 
 
 "What my treatment of my slaves is you can learn from Charles, who 
 accompanies me on this journey, and who has traveled with me over the greater 
 part of the United States, and in both the Canadas, and has had a thousand 
 opportunities, if he had chosen to embrace them, to leave me. Excuse me, Mr. 
 Mendenhall, for saying that my slaves are as well fed and clad, look as sleek 
 and hearty, and are quite as civil and respectful in their demeanor, and as 
 little disposed to wound the feelings of any one, as you are. ' ' 
 
 "I shall, Mr. Mendenhall, take your petition into respectful and deliberate 
 consideration; but before I come to a final decision, I should like to know what 
 you and your associates are willing to do for the slaves in my possession, if I 
 should think proper to liberate them. I own about fifty, who are probably worth 
 about fifteen thousand dollars. To turn them loose upon society without any 
 means of subsistence or support would be an act of cruelty. Are you willing 
 to raise and secure the payment of fifteen thousand dollars for their benefit, if 
 I should be induced to free them? The security of the payment of that sum 
 would materially lessen the obstacle in the way of their emancipation. ' ' — Col- 
 ton, Reed & McKinley, WorU of Eenry Clay, Vol. 6, pp. 388-390. 
 
 This sums up in Clay's own words his treatment of the slaves that were 
 under his control. It is not to be presumed in any case that general condi- 
 tions in the State were like this. There were obvious reasons why Clay couldn 't 
 get one or two of his slaves to accept freedom when he offered it, for they 
 realized that they were far better off under his own particular care than they 
 could ever hope to be under an absolutely free status in society. 
 
 25 So consistent was Clay in deed as well as words in spite of all that the 
 opposing forces had accomplished in the State of Kentucky that when he died 
 he left a will which did for his own slaves just what he would have had others 
 do in his lifetime. As long as he lived he refused to emancipate his sla%-es bub 
 when he passed away he left a written document, the following portion of 
 which forms the eminent climax to a career of continuous labors for the 
 eventual good of the Kentucky slave owners as well as the slaves themselves. 
 
lOG Slaveby in Kentucky 
 
 With a more radical policy than that of Henry Clay 
 the Kentucky Abolition Society had been established as 
 early as 1807, but its membership was composed largely 
 of Presbyterian and Baptist preachers who were not in 
 sympathy with the stand taken by the constitutional con- 
 vention of 1799. It was not until about 1830 that there 
 began in the State any real movement which was wide 
 enough in influence to be taken as an indication of the trend 
 of public opinion. It will be recalled that it was not until 
 1835 that the Presbyterian Synod was able to decide on a 
 plan of gradual emancipation. 
 
 It was in 1831 that some 48 slaveholders of Kentucky 
 met and declared themselves in favor of the gradual libera- 
 tion of the slaves.^" James G. Birney, who was at that time 
 living in Danville, took this statement of the slave owners 
 rather seriously and sent out an invitation to the prominent 
 
 "In the sale of any of my slaves, I direct that members of families shall 
 not be separated without their consent. 
 
 "My will is, and I aecordintrly direct, that the issue of all my female 
 slaves, which shall be born after the first day of January, 1850, shall be free 
 at the respective ages, of the males at twenty-eight, and of the females at 
 twenty-five; and that the three years next preceding their arrival at the age of 
 freedom, they shall be entitled to their hire or wages for those years, or of the 
 fair value of their services, to defray the expense of transporting them to one 
 of the African colonies and of furnishing them with an outfit on their arrival 
 there. 
 
 "And I further direct, that they be taught to read, to write, and to 
 cipher, and that they be sent to Africa. I further will and direct, that the 
 issue of any of the females, who are so to be entitled to their freedom, at the 
 age of twenty-five, shall be free at their birth, and that they be bound out as 
 apprentices to learn farming, or some useful trade, upon the condition also, of 
 being taught to read, to write, and to cipher. And I direct also, that the age 
 of twenty-one having been attained, they shall be sent to one of the African 
 colonies, to raise the necessary funds for which purpose, if they shall not have 
 previously earned them, they must be hired out for a sufficient length of time. 
 
 ' ' I require and enjoin my executors and descendants to pay particular at- 
 tention to the execution of this provision of my will. And if they should sell 
 any of the females who or whose issue are to be free, I especially desire them to 
 guard carefully the rights of such issue by all suitable stipulations and sanctions 
 in the contract of sale. But I hope that it may not be necessary to sell any such 
 persons who are to be entitled to their freedom, but that they may be retained 
 in the possession of some of my descendants." — Colton, Reed & McKinlcy, Vol. 
 3, p. 153. 
 
 20 Birney, William, James G. Birncy and his Timrs, p. 132. 
 
Public Opinion 107 
 
 men of the State to attend an emancipation convention on 
 December C, 1831. After several mouths of determincMl 
 effort Birney only succeeded in getting together nine men, 
 all slaveholders. It is evident from the writings of Birney 
 that he thought these men were all determined to free their 
 slaves and that whatever plan he should propose would be 
 accepted. But when the nine slaveholders began to talk 
 about the existing conditions in Kentucky Birney 's eyes 
 were opened. It was pointed out that those who advocated 
 immediate emancipation were coming more and more to be 
 victims of social ostracism. Furthermore, Birney learned 
 that there was among the prominent slaveholders of the 
 State a sort of secret organization which had been formed 
 to protect the constitutional rights of Kentucky slaveholders 
 against the encroachments of the people from the North. 
 James Gr. Birney was one of the most intelligent of the 
 Kentuckians who favored emancipation, but the ardent en- 
 thusiasm which he had hitherto held for the future of his 
 cause in Kentucky was decidedly cooled by this little gather- 
 ing of nine slaveholders. These men showed him a point of 
 view about which he had thought very little. Outside of the 
 new vision which this conference gave to Birney the only 
 result of the deliberations was that there was formed a 
 society of slaveholders which advocated the gradual eman- 
 cipation of the future offspring of slaves when they reached 
 the age of twenty-one.^^ 
 
 Soon after this episode Birney came out in opposition to 
 both gradual emancipation and colonization. The majority 
 of liberal-minded Kentuckians were coming more and more 
 to believe in these two propositions as the ultimate solution 
 of the slave problems of the State and once Birney came 
 out in opposition to them he was put down as a radical 
 abolitionist. In July, 1835, the feeling of the people of 
 Danville was aroused to the highest pitch and his anti- 
 slavery paper The Philanthropist was forced to suspend 
 publication when the local printer was bought out.-^ The 
 
 27 Birney, William, James G. Birney and his Times, p. 133. 
 
 28 Hid., p. 182. The interesting story of Birney and his troubles with 
 his fellow townsmen does not come within the scope of this investigation and 
 
108 Slavery- ix Kentucky 
 
 feeling of the people throughout the State, however, was 
 well shown by the fact that for the next two months Birney 
 made personal visits to Lexington, Frankfort and Louis- 
 ville in an attempt to get a printer to issue his newsjjaper. 
 He was entirely unsuccessful and on September 13 he wrote 
 to Gerrit Smith that he had determined to move to Cin- 
 cinnati.-^ "While the people of the State could not agree 
 witli Birney 's attitude on slavery they were the first to 
 admire his courage. George D. Prentice, the pro-slavery 
 editor of the Louisville Journal, had this comment to make: 
 
 "He is an enthusiastic, but, in our opinion, a visionary philan- 
 thropist, whose efforts, though well intended, are likely to be of no 
 real service to the cause of humanity. He at least shows, however, 
 that he has the courage to reside among the people whose institu- 
 tions he assails. He is not like William Lloyd Garrison living in 
 Massachusetts, and opening the battery upon the states five hun- 
 dred or one thousand miles off. He is not such a coward or fool 
 as to til ink of cannonading the South from the steeple of a New 
 England meeting house." 
 
 The climax of Birney 's career in Kentucky had been 
 reached in the early part of 1835 when he split with the 
 Kentucky Colonization Society. Judge Underwood in the 
 annual colonization address at Frankfort had attempted to 
 show that the only way to exterminate slavery in the State 
 was by African colonization. He advocated the expendi- 
 ture of $140,000 annually for the transportation of four 
 thousand Negroes between the ages of seventeen and twenty. 
 The plan if followed for fifty years he stated would rid the 
 State of all slaves.^*^ In a letter to Gerrit Smith on Jan- 
 uary 31, 1835, Birney voiced his opposition to the plan of 
 Judge Underwood and to any scheme of colonization. Thus 
 on another point he was to be classed as a radical abo- 
 litionist and his career of usefulness in Kentucky was at an 
 end. Tf he had chosen a more middle ground and aided 
 
 will ])(i found treated at length in "William Birney 's James G. Birnci/ and 
 nig Times. 
 
 20 Birney, William, James G. Birney and his Times, p. 185. 
 
 -^^Ihid., p. 155. 
 
Public Opinion Kid 
 
 the cause of colonization, he wonhl no doultt liavc acccjiii- 
 plished much good. As it was, he was forced to h'ave tlie 
 State after many threats and thereafter he stormed Die in- 
 stitution of slavery in his native State from a safe region 
 north of the Ohio River. From that lime on everything 
 that he uttered in opposition to slavery in Kentucky was met 
 with a strong current of opposition. Where Birney miglit 
 have accomplished much for his native State he really did 
 harm because he went beyond the point where the peo[)le 
 would listen to his advice. In September, 1834, he visited 
 Henry Clay and that most liberal of all Kentucky slave- 
 holders pointed out to Birney the error of his ways but the 
 latter showed no signs of listening to advice and thereafter 
 Clay and Birney were sworn political antagonists. Had 
 Birney joined with Clay at this time there might have been 
 a much brighter future in Kentucky for the cause of emanci- 
 pation. As it was, Birney never receded from his position 
 and when the Presbyterian Synod came out with its plan of 
 gradual emancipation Birney voiced his determined opposi- 
 tion to the scheme because it did not favor the immediate 
 liberation of the slaves.^^ With the advent of the abolition 
 movement most of the Kentucky masters who were in favor 
 of gradual emancipation receded from their position and 
 held on firmly to the existing institution. ^- 
 
 31 Birney, William, James G. Birney and his Times, p. l.'Se. 
 
 32 Quick to recognize this tendency, Clay referred to it in his Senate speech 
 of February 7, 1839: 
 
 "The proposition in Kentucky for gradual emancipation did not prevail, 
 but it was sustained by a large and respectable minority. That minority had 
 increased, and was increasing, until the abolitionists commenced their opera- 
 tions. The effect has been to dissipate all prospects whatever, for the present, 
 of any scheme of gradual or other emancipation. The people of that state 
 have been shocked and alarmed by these abolition movements, and the number 
 who would now favor a system even of gradual emancipation is probably less 
 than it wag in the years 1798-9, At the session of the legislature held in 
 1837-8 the question of calling a convention was submitted to a consideration 
 of the people by a law passed in conformity with the Constitution of that state. 
 Many motives existed for the passage of the law, and among them that of 
 emancipation had its influence. "When the question was passed upon by the 
 people at their last annual election, only about one fourth of the whole voters 
 of the state supported a call of a convention. The apprehension of the danger 
 
110 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 The series of events from 1831 to 1835, centering around 
 the activities of Birney, brought the attention of the public 
 to the slavery question more than ever. As was common in 
 all other movements of popular interest it became the cus- 
 tom for local gatherings to be held to discuss the problem. 
 It was always customary at the conclusion of these meetings 
 to draw up a series of resolutions and it is noticeable that 
 they all voiced a similarity of sentiment on the slavery ques- 
 tion. A typical set of resolves were those drawn up at a 
 gathering held in Shelbyville in June, 1835 : 
 
 "Resolved, that the system of domestic slavery as it now exists 
 ill this commonwealth, is both a moral and a political evil, and in 
 violation of the rights of man. 
 
 "Resolved, as the opinion of this meeting, that the additional 
 vahie which would he given to our property, and its products by 
 the introduction of free white labor, would in itself be sufficient, 
 under a system of gradual emancipation, to transport the whole of 
 our colored population. 
 
 "Resolved, that no system of emancipation will meet with our 
 approbation, unless colonization be inseparably connected with it, 
 and that any scheme of emancipation which will leave the blacks 
 within our borders, is more to be deprecated than slavery itself. "^^ 
 
 These resolutions were just another indication that the 
 sentiment of the people of Kentucky during the decade 
 from 1830 to 1840 was in favor of gradual emancipation of 
 the slaves and their colonization in Africa. We have seen 
 that this was the plan of the various church bodies, and also 
 
 of abolition was the leading consideration among the people for opposing the 
 call. But for that, but for the agitation of the question of abolition in states 
 whose population had no right, in the opinion of the people of Kentucky, to 
 interfere in the matter, the vote for a convention would have been much larger, 
 if it had not been carried. . . . Prior to the agitation of this subject of aboli- 
 tion, there was a progressive melioration in the condition of the slaves — schools 
 of instruction were opened by humane and religious persons. These are now 
 all chocked, and a spirit of insubordination having shown itself in some locali- 
 ties, traceable, it is believed, to abolition movements and exertions, the legisla- 
 tive authority has found it expedient to infuse fresh vigor into the police and 
 the laws which regulate the conduct of the slaves." — Colton, Reed & McKinley, 
 WorTcs of Henry Clay, Vol. 6, pp. 353-154. 
 33jVt7cs' Register, July 4, 1835. 
 
Public Opinion 111 
 
 of Kentucky's greatest statesman, Henry Clay. Addrd to 
 this we find that the majority of tlie liberal-minded ])eople 
 of the State held to the same conviction, lint why, one 
 asks, did all this feeling come to naught. The answer can 
 be better expressed in the words of a contemporary Ken- 
 tuckian, Nathaniel Shaler: ''From the local histories the 
 deliberate student will easily become convinced that if there 
 had been no external pressure against slavery at this time 
 there would still have been a progressive elimination of the 
 slave element from the population by emancipation on the 
 soil, by the sale of slaves to the planters of the Southern 
 States, and by their colonization in foreign parts. "■'^' 
 
 During the decade from 1840 to 1850 this outside pres- 
 sure of which Shaler speaks was at its height. We have 
 seen typical examples of it within the borders of Kentucky 
 in the discussion of the cases of Delia Webster, Calvin Fair- 
 bank and John B. Mahan. The change in the trend of pop- 
 ular thought during this period does not show itself much 
 in the open until 1849, when the third constitutional con- 
 vention was about to assemble. It was then that all phases 
 of the problem of slavery were discussed, in the press, in 
 the pulpit, on the platform and in the elections. George D. 
 Prentice in an editorial gave the best exposition of Kentucky 
 sentiment. He said: ''The sentiment of Kentucky we be- 
 lieve to be, that slavery is an evil which must be borne with 
 patience, simply because there is no known plan for its 
 rapid extinction which would not produce incalculable sac- 
 rifices and appalling risks. At the same time we think the 
 people of Kentucky are not inclined to increase the evil, but 
 are inclined to favor its gradual emancipation and remote 
 termination, by prohibiting the further introduction of 
 slaves and by some provision tending to encourage volun- 
 tary emancipation with colonization. These measures they 
 believe, taken in connection with the known tendency in 
 widening circles to substitute free for slave labor, will has- 
 ten the social revolution in question as fast as it can be 
 
 31 staler, N. S., Eentucly, p. 197. 
 
112 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 carried with safety to the Commonwealth or with benefit to 
 the colonized negro. "^^ 
 
 So universal was this feeling that even Cassius M. Clay, 
 the only real abolitionist left in the State, came out more or 
 less in favor of it. Under his leadership there was held at 
 Frankfort, April 25, 1849, an emancipation convention to 
 which all the more radical element were invited. Clay himself 
 proved to be the most radical member of the convention but 
 when they came to draw up a series of resolutions the only 
 ones to pass were those which favored the absolute pro- 
 hil)ition of the importation of any more slaves into Ken- 
 tucky and the complete power to enforce and perfect, under 
 the new constitution, whenever the people desired it, a sys- 
 tem of gradual emancipation of the slaves.^*^ Here we are 
 confronted with the unusual fact that the radical element of 
 the State agreed with the plan of George D. Prentice, one 
 of the chief pro-slavery men of Kentucky, and with that of 
 Henry Clay. 
 
 While sojourning for his health in New Orleans in Feb- 
 ruary, 1849, Clay sent Eichard Pindell for publication a 
 letter on the gradual emancipation of slavery in Kentucky, 
 as the State at that time was about to hold another constitu- 
 tional convention. This long and able document constitutes 
 the most constructive program for the progressive elimina- 
 tion of slavery from the State that was ever drawn up. It 
 embodied not only the fundamental principles of Clay's atti- 
 tude on the Kentucky slavery question but it undoubtedly 
 typified the real position of the average high-minded Ken- 
 tucky slaveholder of that day. Clay frankly admitted that 
 he had little hope of the immediate success of the plan, but 
 he thought it was his duty to present the facts of the prob- 
 lem to the people of his own State, at a time when they were 
 about to alter the existing constitution. The spirit of the 
 plan as well as its context shows that Clay had thoroughly 
 considered the emancipation question from all aspects, 
 
 35 Louisville Weekly Journal, September 26, 1849, 
 ^"Niles' Ecgister, May 9, 1849. 
 Clay, Cafisius, Memoirs, pp. 175-178. 
 Collins-, Ifistory of Kentucky, A'ol. 1, p. 59. 
 
Public Opinion 113 
 
 especially in relation to its practical operation. Tlic a<t\i;il 
 plan was based oti throe ))riiiciples: (1) that any j^radual 
 emancipation should be slow in its operation, so as not to 
 disturb the existing habits of society; (2) as an indispen- 
 sable condition the liberated slaves were to be sent out of 
 the State and colonized in Africa; (.'>) and tlie expenses of 
 their transportation and six months subsistence were to be 
 borne by a fund supplied l)y the labor of tlie freed negro. 
 
 Regarding the progressive plan of liberation, Clay sug- 
 gested that a certain date, January 1, 1855 or 1860, be fixed 
 for the commencement of the plan. All slaves born after 
 that date were to be free at the age of twenty-five ; but they 
 were liable thereafter to be hired out under State authority 
 for a period of not more than three years, in order to raise 
 money to paj^ for their expenses of transportation to their 
 colony and their subsistence for the term of six months. It 
 was suggested that the offspring of those who were to be 
 free at twenty-five should be free at their birth, but subject 
 to apprenticeship until they reached their majority and 
 then to be hired out as in the case of the parent to pay the 
 expenses of transportation to the colony and their settle- 
 ment there. In the meanwhile the master would have the 
 usual legal rights over the slaves and could sell, devise or 
 remove them out of the State. 
 
 Clay considered colonization to be an indispensable part 
 of his scheme and went so far as to say that he would be 
 '' utterly opposed" to any system of emancipation without 
 it. He firmly believed that the nearly two hundred thou- 
 sand blacks along with their descendants "could never live 
 in peace and harmony and equality with the residue of the 
 population" if they were free. He thouglit the expense of 
 colonizing should be borne by a fund from the labor of the 
 liberated Negro because he was the individual who secured 
 the most benefit thereby. The non-slaveholder should not 
 be taxed for any share in the expense and the slaveholder 
 would have enough sacrifices to make without any addi- 
 tional financial burdens. Clay figured that the average 
 
114 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 auniial liire of each slave would be about fifty dollars, or 
 one hundred and fifty dollars for the whole period of three 
 years. One third of this sum would be required for the 
 transportation of the Negro to Africa and the other two 
 thirds would go towards a fund to establish him in his new 
 country.^' 
 
 The persistence of Clay in his avowed convictions on 
 the subject of slavery and emancipation in Kentucky was 
 kept up in spite of the fact that within a few days after the 
 luiblication of his plan of emancipation throughout Ken- 
 tucky the House of Representatives at Frankfort by the 
 unanimous vote of 93 to declared that "we the represen- 
 tatives of the people of Kentucky, are opposed to abolition 
 or emancipation of slavery in any shape or form whatever, 
 except as now provided by the laws and constitution of the 
 state. "^^ This was their answer to the plea set forth by 
 Clay and strange to say the same group of men voted unan- 
 imously at the same session to return Clay for six years 
 more to the United States Senate. 
 
 A convention of the so-called "Friends of Constitutional 
 
 37 Clay endeavored in his plan to be fair to all parties concerned, not only 
 the Negro but the slave owner as well, as is well evident in the following para- 
 graph, in which he sought to show the .iustice of his scheme to the holders of 
 Negroes in the State: 
 
 ' ' That the system will be attended with some sacrifices on the part of the 
 slaveholders, which are to be regretted, need not be denied. What great and 
 beneficent enterprise was ever accomplished without risk and sacrifice? But 
 these sacrifices are distant, contingent, and inconsiderable. Assuming the 
 year 1860 for the commencement of the system, all slaves born prior to that 
 time would remain such during their lives, and the present loss of the slave- 
 holder would be only the difference in value of the female slave whose off- 
 spring, if she had any, born after the first day of January, 1860, should be 
 free at the age of twenty-five or should be slaves for life. In the meantime, if 
 the right to remove or sell the slave out of the State should be exercised, that 
 trifling loss would not be incurred. The slaveholder, after the commencement 
 of the system, would lose the difference between the value of the slaves for life 
 and slaves until the age of twenty-five years. lie might also incur some incon- 
 siderable expense in rearing from their birth the issue of those who were to be 
 free at twenty-five, until they were old enough to be apprenticed out; but as it 
 is probable that they would be most generally bound to him, he would receive 
 some indemnity from their services until they attained their majority." 
 
 3« Collins, Jlistorn of Kentiicl'}!, Vol. 1, p. R8. 
 
Public Opinion 115 
 
 Reform" had been held at the State capital on Fe])ruary 5, 
 1849, and had drawn up a series of twelve resolutions on 
 the several questions which were to be debated in the con- 
 stitutional convention. They made mention incidentally of 
 the desired reforms in connection with slavery stating 
 ''that we do not desire or contemplate any change in the 
 relative condition of master and slave in the new Constitu- 
 tion, and intend a firm and decided resistance to any such 
 change. We have no objection to a proper provision for 
 colonizing the present free blacks, and those who shall here- 
 after be set free, but protest against abolition or emancipa- 
 tion without the consent of the owner, unless upon full com- 
 pensation and colonization."^*^ 
 
 This element dominated the convention. The l)ody not 
 only ignored any plan of emancipation but drew the reins 
 of the existing institution tighter than ever before by incor- 
 porating in the Bill of Rights the famous phrase that "the 
 right of property is before and higher than any constitu- 
 tional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such 
 slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the 
 right of the owner of any property whatsoever." Such a 
 statement was, however, not brought on by the words of 
 Clay, but was a direct answer to the "higher law than the 
 constitution" plea of the abolitionists."**^ The convention 
 amended the standard article on slavery with a section to 
 the effect that the "General Assembly should pass laws 
 
 3oNiles' Eegister, February 21, 1849. 
 
 40 We know how Clay felt about this matter, for he referred to it at length 
 in his speech in the Senate on February 20, 3850, in the debate on the Com- 
 promise resolutions. Speaking particularly of his letter of emancipation he 
 declared : " I knew at the moment that I wrote that letter in New Orleans, as 
 well as I know at this moment, that a majority of the people of Kentucky 
 would not adopt my scheme, or probably any project whatever of gradual 
 emancipation. Perfectly well did I know it; but I was anxious that, if any 
 of my posterity, or any human being who comes after me, should have occasion 
 to look into my sentiments, and ascertain what they were on this great institu- 
 tion of slavery, to put them on record then; and ineffectual as I saw the project 
 would be, I felt it was a duty which I owed to myself, to truth, to my 
 country, and to my God, to record my sentiments. The State of Kentucky has 
 decided as I anticipated she would do. I regret it; but I acquiesce in her de- 
 cision. "—Colton, Eeed & McKinley, Worls of Henry Clay, Vol. 3, p. 353. 
 
116 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 providing that any free negro or mulatto immigrating to, 
 and any slave thereafter emancipated in, and refusing to 
 leave that State, should be deemed guilty of a felony, pun- 
 ished by confinement in the penitentiary." 
 
 The obvious purpose of this amendment was to reduce 
 the number of Negroes in the State. Accordingly every 
 slave emancipated was forced to leave the State and the 
 Negro population was decreased just so much every time 
 any slaves were set free. The convention was thus willing 
 to do something towards eliminating the Negro, but was not 
 in favor of any scheme of a general gradual liberation of the 
 slaves. The necessary legislative act for carrying out the 
 provision of the constitution was enacted March 24, 1851.^^ 
 This law only went half way in that it only prevented those 
 Negroes who had been freed in Kentucky from living in the 
 State. It was not until March 3, 1860, that the prohibition 
 was extended to all free Negro immigration into the State. ^^ 
 An interesting development of this policy was shown in the 
 enactment of the legislature in 1863 which declared it un- 
 lawful for any Negro or mulatto claiming to be free under 
 the Emancipation Proclamation to migrate to or remain in 
 the State. Any Negro violating this law was to be treated 
 as a runaway slave.^^ 
 
 The desire of the State authorities to eliminate the free 
 Negro was accompanied by constructive measures in behalf 
 of the emancipated slave. On March 3, 1856, the State leg- 
 islature passed a law appropriating $5,000 annually to aid 
 the Kentucky Colonization Society in the transportation of 
 free Negroes to Liberia.^"* The universal sentiment of the 
 time was that the salvation of the Negro race rested in their 
 elimination from the State even as free men and their trans- 
 portation to their native African soil. Henry Clay of all 
 others was the most persistent advocate of colonization. 
 
 We have seen that the general trend of public opinion 
 from about 1798 had been progressively in favor of gradual 
 
 *i Collins, History of Kentucky, Vol. 1, p. Gl. 
 
 *2lbid., Vol. 1, p. 83. 
 
 <8 Session Laws of 1863, p. 366. 
 
 " Ibid., 1856, Vol. 1, p. 50. 
 
Public Opinion 117 
 
 emancipation provided it was coupled with some Torni of 
 colonization which would remove the liberated Negroes from 
 the State. Public sentiment, however, received a serious 
 set-back about 1838 with the beginning of the Underground 
 Railroad system and the incoming of the al)olitionist litera- 
 ture. In a speech in the Kentucky legislature of 1838 James 
 T. Morehead, one of the leading anti-slavery statesmen of 
 the State, portrayed the coming of the newer era in the 
 history of Kentucky slavery when the people would make 
 more strenuous efforts to hold firmly to the slavery institu- 
 tion. JMorehead pictured the popular mind in these words : 
 *'Any man who desires to see slavery abolished— any friend 
 of emancipation, gradual or immediate— who supposes for 
 a moment that now is the time to carry out this favorite 
 policy, must be blind to the prognostics that lower from 
 every quarter of the political sky. Sir, the present is not the 
 period to unmanacle the slave in this or any other state of 
 the Union. Four years ago you might have had some hope. 
 But the wild spirit of fanaticism has done much to retard 
 the work of emancipation and to rivet the fetters of slavery 
 in Kentucky. . . . The advocates of abolition— the phren- 
 zied fanatics of the North, neither sleep nor slumber. 
 Their footsteps are even now to be seen wherever mischief 
 can be perpetrated — ^and it may be that while the people of 
 Kentucky are reposing in the confidence of fancied security, 
 the tocsin of rebellion may resound through the land— the 
 firebrand of the incendiaiy may wrap their dwellings in 
 flames — their towns and cities may become heaps of ashes 
 before their eyes and their minds drawn off from all 
 thoughts of reforming the government to consider the means 
 necessary for their self-preservation— the protection of 
 their families and all that is dear to men."^^ 
 
 Such was the idea of one of the most prominent public 
 men of Kentucky and such became in time the opinion of the 
 average citizen who had come to believe in gradual emanci- 
 pation as the hope and solution of the Negro problem in the 
 State. The future course of events regarding slavery in 
 
 i^Uaysville Eagle, April 11, 1838. 
 
118 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Kentucky is to be explained by this radical change of mind. 
 Thus did the wise and constructive plans of the gradual 
 emancipationists come to naught with the incoming of the 
 radical abolitionist movement which the Kentucky populace 
 thought would bring about a civil insurrection among the 
 slaves in their own State. The abolitionists misunderstood 
 the gradual emancipation movement in Kentucky and really 
 fanned the flame of the pro-slavery sentiment that came in 
 its place. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Laws 
 
 Littell's Laws, 5 volumes, 1792-1819. 
 Session Laws, 70 volumes, 1792-1863. 
 Eevised Statutes: 
 
 1. Wickliffe, Turner and Nicholas, 1 volume, 1852. 
 
 2. Stanton, 2 volumes, 1860. 
 
 ^. Myer's Supplement, 1 volume, 1866. 
 
 Law Digests 
 
 Littell and Swigert, 2 volumes, 1792-1822. 
 
 Pirtle, 2 volumes, 1832. 
 
 Loughborough, 1 volume, 1842. 
 
 Morehead and Brown, 2 volumes, 1792-1834. 
 
 Monroe and Harlan, 2 volumes, 1852-1853. 
 
 Frye, Poindexter and Smith, 1792-1852. 
 
 Cofer, 1853-1867. 
 
 Eeports 
 
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 Othkr Documen'ts 
 
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 Niles' Eegister, 1811-1849. 
 
 Newspapers 
 
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 119 
 
120 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
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BlBLIOCRAlMIV 121 
 
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 Lexington Western Monitor, 1814-1820. 
 
 Louisville Public Advertiser (semi-weekly), 1819-1829. 
 
 Louisville Public Advertiser (daily), 1830-1841. 
 
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 Louisville Focus (weekly), 1828-1829. 
 
 Louisville Focus (daily), 1831. 
 
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 Maysville Eagle (weekly), 1846-1847. 
 
 Maysville Eagle (semi-weekly), 1835-1845. 
 
 Maysville Eagle (tri-weekly), 1845-1858. 
 
 Maysville Herald (tri-weekly), 1847-1848. 
 
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 Allen, William B. A History of Kentucky. Louisville. 1872. 
 
 Allen, James Lane. The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky. New York. 1911. 
 
 Arthur, Timothy S., and Carpenter, W. H. The History of Kentucky. Phila- 
 delphia. 1850. 
 
 Bishop, Robert H. Outline of the History of the Church in Kentucky. Lex- 
 ington. 1824. 
 
 Butler, Mann. A History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Louisville 
 18'24. 
 
 Collins, Lewis and R. H. History of Kentucky. 2 volumes. Covington (Ky.). 
 1874. 
 
 Cook, J. F. Old Kentucky. New York. 1908. 
 
 Cotterill, R. S. History of Pioneer Kentucky. Cincinnati. 1917. 
 
 Davidson, R. History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky. New York. 
 1847. 
 
122 Slavery in Kentucky 
 
 Filson, John. The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucky, 
 
 Wilmington. 1784. 
 tFilson Club Publications 
 
 Brown, John Mason. The Political Beginnings of Kentucky, 1889, 
 Durrett, Reuben T. John Filson. 1884. 
 Durrett, Reuben T. The Centenary of Kentucky. 1892. 
 Durrett, Reuben T. The Centenary of Louisville, 1893, 
 Martin, Asa Earl. The Anti-slavery Movement in Kentucky. 1918. 
 Perrin, William Henry, The Pioneer Press in Kentucky, 1888, 
 Price, Samuel W. The Old Masters of the Blue Grass. 1902. 
 Speed, Thomas, The Political Club, Danville, Ky. 1894. 
 Whitsitt, William H, Life and Times of Judge Caleb Wallace. 1888. 
 Ford, S. H. History of the Kentucky Baptists. (A series of articles in the 
 
 Christian Repository. 1856-1858.) 
 Gray, John Thompson. A Kentucky Chronicle. New York. 1906. 
 Johnson, E. Polk. History of Kentucky and Kentuckians. 3 volumes. New 
 
 York. 1912. 
 McElroy, Robert M. Kentucky in the Nation's History. New York, 1909. 
 Marshall, Humphrey. The History of Kentucky (second edition 2 vols.). 
 
 Frankfort. 1824. 
 Perrin, William H., and Battle, J. H., and Kniffin, G. C. Kentucky: a History 
 
 of the State. Louisville. 1886. 
 Bedford, A. H. History of Methodism in Kentucky. 3 volumes. Nashville. 
 
 1868. 
 Shaler, Nathaniel S. Kentucky: a Pioneer Commonwealth. Boston. 1885. 
 Smith, Zachary F. The History of Kentucky. Louisville. 1886. 
 Speed, James. The Union Cause in Kentucky (1860-1865). New York. 1907. 
 Spencer, John J. History of the Baptists in Kentucky. 2 volumes. Cincin- 
 nati. 1880. 
 Townsend, J. Kentuckians in History and Literature. New York. 1907. 
 Vance, W. R. Slavery in Kentucky. (Washington and Lee University thesis.) 
 
 1896. 
 Watts, William C. Chronicles of a Kentucky Settlement. New Y''ork. 1897. 
 Webb, B. J. Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky. Louisville. 1884. 
 
 Kentucky: Local and County Histories 
 
 Anon. History of Union County. Evansville. 1886. 
 
 Battle, J. A., and Perrin, W. H. Counties of Todd and Christian: Historical 
 and Biographical. Louisville. 1884. 
 
 Boyd, Lucinda. Chronicles of Cynthiana and other Chronicles. Cincinnati. 
 1S94. 
 
 Boyd, Lucinda. The History of the City of Winchester and the County of 
 Clark. (>fSS. in the Durrett Collection.) 
 
 Casseday, Benjamin. The History of Louisville. Louisville. 1852. 
 
 Chenault, William. The Early History of Madison County. (MSS. in the 
 Durrett Collection.) 
 
 Deering, Richard. Louisville, Her Commercial, Manufacturing and Social Ad- 
 vantages — inchnling Her History. Louisville, 1S59. 
 
 Duncan, Samuel >f. Early History of Jessamine County. Nicholasville. 1876. 
 
Bibliography 123 
 
 Finley, Alexander C. The History of Russellville. Russcllvillo. 1878. 
 
 .Tolinson, Frank. History of Franklin County. Frankfort. 1912. 
 
 Johnson, J. Stoddard. Memorial History of Louisville. Chicago. 1890. 
 
 Jones, Mary K. History of Campbell County. 1876. 
 
 Maccabe, Julius P. B, Directory of the City of Lexington and of the county 
 of Fayette for 1838 and 1839 — containing an epitomized history of 
 the city and its present condition. Lexington. 1838. 
 
 McMurtie, H. Sketches of Louisville and its Environs. Louisville. 1819. 
 
 Perrin, William H. Counties of Christian and Trigg: Historical and Bio- 
 graphical. Chicago. 1884. 
 
 Perrin, William H. History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Coun- 
 ties. Chicago. 1882. 
 
 Perrin, William H. History of Fayette County. Chicago. 1882. 
 
 Eanck, George W. History of Lexington, Kentucky. Cincinnati. 1872. 
 
 Reid, Richard. Historical Sketches of Montgomery County. Mt. Sterling. 
 1882. 
 
 Eothert, C. A. History of Muhlenburg County. Louisville. 1913. 
 
 Starling, Edmund L. History of Henderson County. Henderson. 1887. 
 
 Young, Bennett H. A History of Jessamine County. Louisville. 1898. 
 
 Valuable Contemporary Pamphlets 
 
 Address to the Non-slaveholders of Kentucky — read at Louisville, April 10, 
 1849. Louisville. 1849. 
 
 Address to the People of Kentucky on the Subject of Emancipation. 1849. 
 
 Address to the People of the United States with the Proclamation and Resolu- 
 tions of the Pro-slavery Convention at Lexington. St. Louis. 1855. 
 
 Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a plan for instruction and 
 emancipation of their slaves — by a committee of the Synod of Ken- 
 tucky. Newburyport. 1836. 
 
 Blanchard, J., and Rice, David. Debate on Slavery. Cincinnati. 1846. 
 
 Duncan, James. Treatise on Slavery. Vevay, Ind. 1824. 
 
 Fee, John G. An Anti-slavery Manual. Nevs- York. 1851. 
 
 Fee, John G. Non-fellowship with Slaveholders, the Duty of Christians. New 
 York. 1852. 
 
 Metcalfe, Samuel L. A Collection of Some of the Most Interesting Narratives. 
 Lexington. 1821. 
 
 Rice, David. A Kentucky Protest against Slavery. 1792. 
 
 Stevenson, Thomas B. Report to the Convention of Southern Methodist Min- 
 isters — held at Louisville in the summer of 1845. Louisville. 1845. 
 
 Webster, Delia A. Kentucky Jurisprudence. History of the Trial of Miss 
 Delia A. Webster on a charge of aiding slaves to escape. Vergennes, 
 Vt. 1845. 
 
 CONTEMPOBART WRITINGS 
 
 Allbach, James. Annals of the West. Pittsburgh. 1857. 
 
 Barre, W. L. Speeches and Writings of Thomas F. Marshall. Cincinnati. 
 
 1858. 
 Bowen, E. Slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Auburn. 1859. 
 Buckingham, James Silk. The Eastern and Western States of America. 3 
 
 volumes. London. 1842. 
 
124 Slavery ix Kentucky 
 
 Clarke, Lewis and Milton. Narratives of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton 
 Clarke during a captivity of more than twenty years among the slave- 
 holders of Kentucky. (A violent anti-slavery publication.) Boston. 
 ]S46. 
 
 Clay, Cassius M. Life Writings and Speeches. Cincinnati. 1886. 
 
 De Bow, J. D. B. Statistical View of the United States. Washington. 1854. 
 
 Fairbauk, Calvin. How the Way was Prepared. Chicago. 1890. 
 
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 Cincinnati. 1828. 
 
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 Greeley, Horace. Writings, Speeches and Addresses of Cassius Clay. New 
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 Kendall, Amos. Autobiography of Amos Kendall. Boston. 1872. 
 
 Littell, William. Political Transactions in and Concerning Kentucky. Frank- 
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 Michaux, F. A. Travels to the West of the Allegheny Mountains. London. 
 1805. 
 
 Palmer, John. Journal of Travels in the United States. London. 1818. 
 
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 Pickard, Kate E. E. The Kidnapped and the Ransomed. (Anti-slavery pub- 
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 Shaler, Nathaniel S. Autobiography. Boston. 1909. 
 
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 graphical View of the United States. 4 volumes. London. 1799. 
 
 GENERiVL Secondary Works 
 
 Ballagh, James Curtis. A History of Slavery in Virginia. Baltimore. 1902. 
 
 Birney, William. James G. Birney and His Times. New York. 1890. 
 
 Brackett, Jeffrey R. The Negro in Maryland. Baltimore. 1889, 
 
 Buckley, J. M. History of Methodism in the United States. 2 volumes. New 
 York. 1898. 
 
 Calhoun, Arthur Wallace. Social History of the American Family. 3 volumes. 
 Cleveland. 1917-1918. 
 
 Chaddock, R. E. Ohio Before 1850. New York, 1908. 
 
 Cobb, Thomas R. R. An Inquiry Into the Law of Negro Slavery. Philadel- 
 phia. 1858. 
 
 Coleman, Mrs. Chapman. Life of John J, Crittenden. 2 volumes. Philadel- 
 phia. 1871. 
 
 Collins, W. H. Domestic Slave Trade of the Southern States. New Y'ork. 
 1904. 
 
Bibliography 125 
 
 Colton, Calvin, Eccd, Thomas B.; and McKinley, William. Works of Henry 
 
 Clay. 7 volumes. Now York. 1896. 
 Helper, Hinton Rowan, The Impending Crisis of the South. New York. 18G0, 
 Hurd, John Codman. The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States. 
 
 2 volumes. New York. 1858-1862. 
 Little, Lucius P, Ben Hardin — His Times and Contemporaries. Louisville. 
 
 1887. 
 Rogers, Joseph M, The True Henry Clay, Philadelphia, 1904. 
 Schurz, Carl. Life of Henry Clay. 2 volumes. Boston. 1887. 
 Smith, William Henry. A Political History of Slavery, 2 volumes. New 
 
 York, 1903. 
 Stroud, G, W, Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States 
 
 of the United States. Philadelphia, 1856. 
 Trexler, Harrison Anthony, Slavery in Missouri (1804-1865), Baltimore. 
 
 1914. 
 Weston, G. M. The Progress of Slavery in the United States, Washington, 
 
 1857. 
 Wheeler, Jacob D, The Law of Slavery, (A compilation of decisions of the 
 
 Federal and State courts.) New York. 1837. 
 Wilson, Henry. History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. 
 
 2 volumes. Boston. 1874. 
 Woodson, Carter G. The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. New York. 
 
 1915. 
 
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