Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912. Vol. 1 of 2

THE WHIPPOWIL

[From the same]

SYLPHS BATHING

[From Crystalina (New York, 1816)]

GEORGE ROBERTSON

George Robertson, the most widely quoted Kentucky jurist, and an able writer, was born near Harrodsburg, Kentucky, November 18, 1790. He was educated in the arts and in law at Transylvania University, and entered upon the practice of his profession at Lancaster, Kentucky, in 1809. In 1816 Robertson was elected to Congress, where he remained for two terms. He drew up the bill for the establishment of Arkansaw territory; and he projected the system of cutting public lands into small lots, selling them to actual settlers for one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. He declined another term in the House, as well as the attorney-generalship of Kentucky, in order to devote his whole attention to the law. Robertson was elected against his desire to the Kentucky legislature, in 1822, and he was a member of that body for the next five years. This was the time of the struggle between the Old-Court and New-Court parties, which was one of the most bitter political fights ever seen in Kentucky. Robertson consistently and vigorously championed the cause of the Old-Court party, which finally won. That this disgusted him with political life in any dress, is shown by his subsequent declination of the governorship of Arkansaw, and the Columbian and Peruvian missions. In 1828 he was elected an associate justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and, in the following year, chief justice. This position was George Robertson's heart's desire—he hated politics with a never-dying hatred, the law and the bench being his earthly paradise. He was chief justice of Kentucky for fourteen years, when he resigned to return to the active practice of law. From 1834 to 1857 Judge Robertson was professor of law in Transylvania University at Lexington. He died at Lexington, May 16, 1874, generally regarded as the ablest jurist Kentucky has produced. He was also the author of four books: Introductory Lecture to the Transylvania Law Class (Lexington); Biographical Sketch of John Boyle (Frankfort, 1838); Scrap-Book on Law and Politics, Men and Times (Lexington, 1855), his best known book; and his very interesting and well-written autobiography, entitled An Outline of the Life of George Robertson, written by Himself (Lexington, 1876), to which his son contributed an introduction and appendix.

Bibliography. The chief authority for the facts of Judge Robertson's life is, of course, his autobiography; Samuel M. Wilson's study in Great American Lawyers (Philadelphia, 1908).

ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS ON THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY

[From Scrap Book on Law and Politics, Men and Times (Lexington, Kentucky, 1855)]

Yet we have hopes that are immortal—interests that are imperishable—principles that are indestructible. Encouraged by those hopes, stimulated by those interests, and sustained by and sustaining those principles, let us, come what may, be true to God, true to ourselves, and faithful to our children, our country, and mankind. And then, whenever or wherever it may be our doom to look, for the last time, on earth, we may die justly proud of the title of "Kentuckian," and, with our expiring breath, may cordially exclaim—Kentucky, as she was;—Kentucky, as she is;—Kentucky, as she will be;—Kentucky forever.

EARLY STRUGGLES

[From An Outline of the Life of George Robertson, written by Himself (Lexington, Kentucky, 1876)]

Yet, thus juvenile, poor, and proud, I ventured not only on the rather hopeless prospects of professional life, but, on the 28th of November, 1809, when I was only ten days over nineteen years of age, I ventured on the far more momentous contingencies of marriage, and, linking my destinies with a wife only fifteen years and seven months old, we embarked without freight or pilotage, on the untried sea of early marriage. I had never made a cent, and had nothing but ordinary clothes, a horse, an old servant, a few books, and the humble talents with which God had blessed me. I borrowed thirteen dollars as an outfit, and out of that fund I paid for my license and handed to my groomsman, R. P. Letcher, five dollars for paying the parson, Randolph Hall, father of Rev. Nathan H. Hall. Some days afterwards Letcher rather slyly put into my hand a dollar, suggesting that he had saved that much for me by paying the preacher only four dollars. This looked to me as such minute parsimony as to excite my indignation, important as was only one dollar then to me. And I manifested that feeling in a manner both emphatic and censurious; to which Letcher replied that four dollars was more than was then customary, and that Mr. Hall, when he received it, expressed the warmest gratitude, and said that, old as he was, he had never received so large a fee for solemnizing the matrimonial rite! This reconciled me to the return of the dollar.

My wife and myself lived with her mother until the 9th of September, 1810, when we set up for ourselves in a small buckeye house with only two rooms, built and first occupied by Judge [John] Boyle, and respecting which I may here suggest this remarkable coincidence of successive events:—That Boyle commenced housekeeping in that house, and, while he occupied it, was elected to Congress; that Samuel McKee commenced housekeeping in the same house, and succeeded Boyle in Congress; that I commenced housekeeping in the same house, and succeeded McKee in Congress; and that R. P. Letcher commenced housekeeping in the same house, and, after an interval of two years, succeeded me in Congress. I was unable to furnish it with a carpet, and our only furniture consisted of two beds, one table, one bureau, six split-bottomed chairs, and a small supply of table and kitchen furniture, which I bought with a small gold watch. I had bought a bag of flour, a bag of corn meal, a half barrel of salt, and two hams and two middlings of bacon; and these, together with the milk of a small cow given to my wife by her mother, and a few chickens and some butter, constituted our entire outfit of provisions. But all our supplies were stolen the night we commenced housekeeping. This was, at that time, a heavy blow. I had no money; and, though I had good credit, I resolved not to buy anything on credit. And that was one of the best resolutions I ever made. It stimulated my industry and economy, and soon secured to me peace and a comfortable sense of independence. In adhering to my privative, but conservative resolve, I often cut and carried on my shoulders wood from a neighboring forest.

LITERARY FAME

[From the same]

The classical reader remembers that, when almost all the Greeks, captured with Nicias at Syracuse, had died in dungeons, a remnant of the survivors saved themselves by the recitation of beautiful extracts from Euripides. How potent was the shadowed genius of the immortal Athenian, when it alone melted the icy hearts that nothing else could touch, and broke the captive's chains, which justice, and prayers, and tears, had in vain tried to unloose! And hence "the glory of Euripides had all Greece for a monument." He too was elevated by the light of other minds. It is said that he acquired a sublime inspiration whenever he read Homer—whose Iliad and whose Odyssey—the one exhibiting the fatality of strife among leading men, the other portraying the efficacy of perseverance—have stamped his name on the roll of fame in letters of sunshine, that will never fade away. No memorial tells where Troy once stood—Delphi is now mute—the thunder of Olympus is hushed, and Apollo's lyre no longer echoes along the banks of the Peneus—but the fame of Homer still travels with the stars.

SHADRACH PENN

Shadrach Penn, one of the ablest of Kentucky journalists, was born at Frederick, Maryland, in 1790. His family settled near Georgetown, Kentucky, when he was a mere boy. Penn began his newspaper career at Georgetown when he was but nineteen years of age; and he subsequently served in the War of 1812. In 1818 Penn removed to Louisville and established The Public Advertiser, which was a weekly for the first few years of its history, then a semi-weekly, and, on April 4, 1826, a final change was made "and the first daily newspaper west of the Alleghanies was flung to the public." After the establishment of the Kentucky Gazette, this marked the second most epoch-making event in Kentucky journalism. Penn was an able editor, the very ablest in Kentucky, and he was having things his own way in the West, advocating Jacksonian Democracy. In 1828 President Jackson showed his appreciation of Penn's services by offering him a place in his cabinet, which he declined, but he did spend a winter at Washington as the President's warm friend and adviser. Then, mirabile dictu! the Whigs brought George D. Prentice to Kentucky and, in 1830, he established the Louisville Journal, and began a most bitter fight upon Penn's paper. Penn fought back as best he could, but he was quite unequal for the contest. For nearly twelve years the warfare was waged without either editor asking quarter, and to the infinite amusement of the whole country. In 1841 Penn ran up the white flag and went to St. Louis to become editor of the St. Louis Reporter. Prentice bade him farewell in the best of temper, and when he died at St. Louis, on June 15, 1846, the old Whig's tribute to his memory was the finest one written.

Bibliography. The Pioneer Press of Kentucky, by W. H. Perrin (Louisville, 1888); Memorial History of Louisville, Kentucky, by J. Stoddard Johnston (Chicago, 1896).

THE COMING OF GEORGE D. PRENTICE

[From The Public Advertiser (Louisville, September 10, 1830)]

This gentleman and Mr. Buxton, of Cincinnati, have issued proposals for publishing a daily paper in Louisville, which is to be edited by Mr. Prentice. Willing that the gentleman shall be known by the people whose patronage he is seeking, we copy today from a Cincinnati paper his account of the late elections in Kentucky. The production may be viewed as a fair specimen of his "fine literature, his drollery, strong powers of sarcasm," and, above all, his "poetical capacity." The respect and attachment he displays toward Kentucky (to say nothing of the Jackson party), must be exquisitely gratifying to the respectable portion of Mr. Clay's friends in this city. To them we commend the letter of Mr. Prentice as an erudite, chaste, and veritable production, worthy of the "great editor" who is hereafter to figure as Mr. Clay's champion in the West. We may, moreover, congratulate them in consequence of the fair prospect before them; for with the aid of such an editor they cannot fail to effect miraculous revolutions or revulsions in the political world. The occupants of all our fish markets will be confirmed in their devotion to the opposition beyond redemption.

WILLIAM O. BUTLER

William Orlando Butler, one of General Lew Wallace's favorite poets, was born near Nicholasville, Kentucky, in 1791. He was the son of Percival Butler, a noted Revolutionary soldier. He was graduated from Transylvania University, Lexington, in 1812. Butler studied law for a short time, but the War of 1812 called him and he enlisted. At the River Raisin he was wounded and captured and carried through Canada to Fort Niagara, but he was later exchanged. Butler was with General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and his gallantry attracted the attention of the general, who placed him upon his staff. In 1817 Butler returned to the law, married, and settled in the little river town of Carrollton, Kentucky, on the Ohio, his home henceforth. In July, 1821, the first draft of his famous poem, The Boatman's Horn (then called The Boat Horn), was published in The Western Review, a monthly magazine of Lexington, Kentucky. In describing his boyhood days at Covington, Indiana, General Lew Wallace very charmingly writes of his early love for the Wabash river, and for old Nebeker, the lonesome ferryman, who "welcomed me for my company. On the farther side, chained to a tree, he kept a long tin horn. A traveller, coming to the bank and finding us on the townward side, blew to get our attention ... when the voice of the big horn on the thither side called to us—How it startled me! What music there was in it! What haste I made to unship my oar!... And if since then I have been an ardent fisherman, believing with my friend Maurice Thompson that

and if the song of Butler, the soldier-poet of Kentucky—

is still a favorite of mine, with power to stir my pulses and return me to a freak of childhood full of joyousness alloyed only with thought of my mother's fears, the shrewd reader will know at once how such tastes inured to me. And as swimming seems to have been one of my natural accomplishments, I must have acquired it during my days at the ferry." This is far and away the best background for Butler's poem that has been done, and with it before the reader the famous poem must mean more to him. The poem was subsequently published as the title-poem in a small collection of his verse, entitled The Boatman's Horn and Other Poems. From 1839 to 1843 Butler was a Kentucky Congressman; and in 1844 the unsuccessful candidate for governor of Kentucky. Upon his Mexican War record, General Butler was nominated by the Democratic party for vice-president of the United States with General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, as the head of the ticket, but they were defeated by Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams. In 1855 General Butler declined the governorship of the territory of Nebraska; and in 1861 he went to Washington as a member of the famous "Peace Congress." General Butler died at his home, Carrollton, Kentucky, August 6, 1880, in the ninetieth year of his age. Though famous as a soldier and politician, The Boatman's Horn is the work that will keep his name green for many years; and several of his other poems are not to be utterly despised.

Bibliography. Biographical Sketch of Gen. William O. Butler, by F. P. Blair, Senior (Washington, 1848), was reprinted in full in The Kentucky Yeoman (Frankfort, June 15, 1848); The Poets and Poetry of the West, by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860); Lew Wallace's Autobiography (New York, 1906).

THE BOATMAN'S HORN

[From The Poets and Poetry of the West, edited by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860)]

HEW AINSLIE

Hew Ainslie, the foremost Scottish-Kentucky poet, was born at Bargery Mains, Ayrshire, April 5, 1792. Ill-health cut short Ainslie's education at the Ayr Academy, but some years later he went up to Glasgow to study law. Law and Hew Ainslie were not congenial fellows, and he shortly embarked upon the art of landscape gardening. He was next a clerk in Edinburgh, and also amanuensis for Professor Dugald Stewart. "Gradually the clouds of [Ainslie's] tobacco smoke began to curl into seven letters which looked like America." He was thirty years of age when he arrived at New York. He spent his first years in New York and Indiana as a farmer, but he soon relinquished this work and went, in 1829, to Louisville, Kentucky, where, three years later, an Ohio river flood swept his property away. And two years after this disastrous flood, fire destroyed his property in Indiana. Undismayed by misfortune, Ainslie became a contractor and supervised the erection of many large business structures in Louisville and other cities. During all these years he was assiduously courting the Muse, and making a great reputation for himself as a poet. Ainslie's first book, A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns (Deptford, 1822), is the English edition of his charming lyrics; and his Scottish Songs, Ballads, and Poems (New York, 1855), is the only American edition of his work. In 1864, forty-two years after his departure, Ainslie revisited the land of his birth, where he was hailed as one of Scotland's finest singers since Robert Burns. Kentucky was in the poet's blood, however, and a year later he returned to his home at Louisville. His American friends were not to be outdone by his home people, and they arranged a great home-coming for him. In 1871, when the Scots of Louisville assembled to celebrate the birthday of Burns, Ainslie, the toastmaster, arose and smilingly confessed to having once kissed "Bonnie Jean," Burns's widow. He died at Louisville, March 11, 1878. A comprehensive Scottish edition of his A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, and Poems, was issued in 1892. The Ingle Side, a little song of sixteen lines, is Ainslie's masterpiece; but it was as a poet of the sea that he won his great reputation. "As Lloyd Mifflin is America's greatest sonneteer, so Hew Ainslie, the adopted Kentuckian, may perhaps be ranked as America's most ardent singer of the sea."

Bibliography. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1887, v. i); Hew Ainslie, by A. S. Mackenzie (Library of Southern Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, 1909, v. i).

THE BOUROCKS O' BARGENY

[From A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, and Poems (Paisley, Scotland, 1892)]

THE HAUGHS O' AULD KENTUCK

[From the same]

THE INGLE SIDE

[From the same]

THE HINT O' HAIRST

[From the same]

JAMES G. BIRNEY

James Gillespie Birney, leader of the Conservative Abolitionists, opposed to the radicalism of William Lloyd Garrison and all his ilk, yet as earnest and sincere in his hatred of slavery, was born at Danville, Kentucky, February 4, 1792. He was at Transylvania University for a short time, then proceeded to Princeton, from which institution he was graduated in 1810. In 1814 he became a lawyer in his native town of Danville. In 1816 Birney was in the Kentucky legislature; but two years later he removed to Alabama, settling upon a plantation near Huntsville. The slavery question was appealing to him more and more, and he finally became an agent for the American Colonization Society. In the fall of 1833 Birney returned to Kentucky, and went to Danville, where he freed his own slaves, and organized the Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society. On January 1, 1836, the first issue of his anti-slavery sheet, The Philanthropist, appeared from his Cincinnati office. This soon became the Bible of the Conservative Abolitionists, who opposed the drastic methods of Garrison and his followers. In his speeches Birney denounced all violence and fanaticism in the handling of the slavery problem, though he himself received much violence at the hands of mobs and almost insane partisans. His strong addresses through the North won him the secretaryship of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. In this capacity he was soon recognized as the real leader of the "Constitutional Abolitionists," who said they stood upon the Constitution, fought against secession, and desired to wipe slavery from the face of the American continent with decency and in order. In 1840 and again in 1844 Birney was the candidate of the Liberty party for president of the United States. In the second campaign he multiplied his very small vote received in the first race by nine. He was thrown from his horse, in 1845, and the final twelve years of his life were passed as an invalid. Birney died at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, November 25, 1857. Besides numerous contributions to the press, his principal writings are Letter on Colonization (1834); Addresses and Speeches (1835); American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery (1840); Speeches in England(1840); and An Examination of the Decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Case of Strader et al. v. Graham (1850).

Bibliography. History of Kentucky, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); James G. Birney and His Times, by his son, William Birney (New York, 1890).

THE NO-GOVERNMENT DOCTRINES

[From A Letter on the Political Obligations of Abolitionists (Boston, 1839)]

Within the last twelve or eighteen months, it is believed—after efforts, some successful, some not, had been begun to affect the elections—and whilst the most indefatigable exertions were being made by many of our influential, intelligent and liberal friends to convince the great body of the abolitionists of the necessity—the indispensable necessity—of breaking away from their old "parties," and uniting together in the use of the elective franchise for the advancement of the cause of human freedom in which we were engaged;—at this very time, and mainly, too, in that part of the country where political action had been most successful, and whence, from its promise of soon being wholly triumphant, great encouragement was derived by abolitionists everywhere, a sect has arisen in our midst, whose members regard it as of religious obligation, in no case, to exercise the elective franchise. This persuasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is believed they have embraced—that as Christians have the precepts of the Gospel to direct, and the Spirit of God to guide them, all human governments, as necessarily including the idea of force to secure obedience, are not only superfluous, but unlawful encroachments on the Divine government, as ascertained from the sources above mentioned. Therefore, they refuse to do anything voluntarily, by which they would be considered as acknowledging the lawful existence of human governments. Denying to civil governments the right to use force, they easily deduce that family governments have no such right. Thus they would withhold from parents any power of personal chastisement or restraint for the correction of their children. They carry out to the full extent the "non-resistance" theory. To the first ruffian who would demand our purse, or oust us from our houses, they are to be unconditionally surrendered, unless moral suasion be found sufficient to induce him to decline from his purpose. Our wives, our daughters, our sisters—our mothers we are to see set upon by the most brutal, without any effort on our part, except argument, to defend them—and even they themselves are forbidden to use in defense of their purity such powers as God has endowed them with for its protection, if resistance should be attended with any injury or destruction to the assailant. In short, the "No-Government" doctrines, as they are believed now to be embraced, seem to strike at the root of the social structure; and tend—so far as I am able to judge of their tendency—to throw society into entire confusion, and to renew, under the sanction of religion, scenes of anarchy and license that have generally heretofore been the offspring of the rankest infidelity and irreligion.

It is but justice to say—judging from the moral deportment of the adherents of the "No-Government" scheme—that so far from admitting, what I have supposed to be, its legitimate consequences, they would wholly deny and repudiate them.

These Sectaries have not as yet separated themselves from the American [Anti-Slavery] society. Far from it. They insist that their views are altogether harmonious with what is required for membership by the constitution.... But is this really so? Is the difference between those who seek to abolish any and every government of human institution, and those who prefer any government to a state of things in which every one may do what seemeth good in his own eyes—is the difference between them, I say, so small that they can act harmoniously under the same organization? When, in obedience to the principles of the society, I go to the polls and there call on my neighbors to unite with me in electing to Congress men who are in favor of Human Rights, I am met by a No-Government abolitionist inculcating on them the doctrine that Congress has no rightful authority to act at all in the premises—how can we proceed together? When I am animating my fellow-citizens to aid men in infusing into the government salutary influences which shall put an end to all oppression—my No-Government brother cries out at the top of his lungs, all governments are of the Devil(!) where is our harmony! Our efficiency? We are in the condition of the two physicians called in to the same patient—one of whom should be intent on applying the proper remedies for expelling the disease from the body and thus restoring and purifying its functions; the other equally intent on utterly destroying body, members, functions and all. Could they be agreed, and could they walk together? It seems to me not. And simply because their aim, their objects are radically and essentially different. So with the No-Government and the Pro-Government abolitionists. One party is for sustaining and purifying governments, and bringing them to a perfect conformity with the principles of the Divine government—the other for destroying all government.

THOMAS CORWIN

Thomas Corwin, witty, delightful "Tom" Corwin, was born near Paris, Kentucky, July 29, 1794. Before he was five years old, his father had taken him into the wilds of Ohio, the Lebanon of today. "Tom" Corwin was admitted to the bar, in 1818, after a slender education and a brief reading of the law. His wit and eloquence made his reputation rapidly and, in 1830, he found himself in the lower House of Congress. The whole country laughed at his inimitable speeches; and that he had a strong hold on the Ohio Whigs is certain as they returned him to the House for ten years. In 1840 Corwin was elected governor of Ohio, after a brilliant and successful state-wide campaign. He was incomparable on the stump, and he rode into the gubernatorial chair on an overwhelming Whig tide. Two years later, however, his former opponent, Wilson Shannon, defeated him for reëlection. In 1844 Corwin was sent to the United States Senate, in which body he renewed his House reputation as an orator. On the eve of the Mexican War, he made his memorable anti-war speech, which practically ruined his future political career, as the country desired to fight the hated men on the border. But a more bravely beautiful speech was never made. President Fillmore chose Corwin his Secretary of the Treasury, in 1850. At the expiration of Fillmore's term, Corwin returned to the practice of law at Lebanon, Ohio. In 1858 he reëntered public life, serving a term in Congress; and, in 1861, President Lincoln appointed him minister to Mexico. Corwin remained in Mexico until the coming of Maximilian, when he returned to Washington to practice law. In the capital of the country he died, December 18, 1865. "Tom" Corwin was one of the most captivating of American orators, and most lovable of men.

Bibliography. Life and Speeches of Thomas Corwin, by Isaac Strohn (Dayton, Ohio, 1859); The Library of Oratory (New York, 1902, v. vi).

THE MEXICAN WAR

[From Life and Speeches of Thomas Corwin, by Isaac Strohn (Dayton, Ohio, 1859)]

Mr. President, this uneasy desire to augment our territory has depraved the moral sense and blunted the otherwise keen sagacity of our people. What has been the fate of all nations who have acted upon the idea that they must advance! Our young orators cherish this notion with a fervid but fatally mistaken zeal. They call it by the mysterious name of "destiny." "Our destiny," they say, is "onward," and hence they argue, with ready sophistry, the propriety of seizing upon any territory and any people that may lie in the way of our "fated" advance. Recently these progressives have grown classical; some assiduous student of antiquities has helped them to a patron saint. They have wandered back into the desolated Pantheon, and there, among the polytheistic relics of that "pale mother of dead empires," they have found a god whom these Romans, centuries gone by, baptized "Terminus."

Sir, I have heard much and read somewhat of this gentleman Terminus. Alexander, of whom I have spoken, was a devotee of this divinity. We have seen the end of him and his empire. It was said to be an attribute of this god that he must always advance and never recede. So both republican and imperial Rome believed. It was, as they say, their destiny. And for a while it did seem to be even so. Roman Terminus did advance. Under the eagles of Rome he was carried from his home on the Tiber to the farthest East on the one hand, and to the far West, among the then barbarous tribes of western Europe, on the other.

But at length the time came when retributive justice had become "a destiny." The despised Gaul calls out the contemned Goth, and Attila, with his Huns answers back the battle-shout to both. The "blue-eyed nations of the North," in succession or united, pour forth their countless hosts of warriors upon Rome and Rome's always-advancing god Terminus. And now the battle-axe of the barbarian strikes down the conquering eagle of Rome. Terminus at last recedes, slowly at first, but finally he is driven to Rome, and from Rome to Byzantium. Whoever would know the further fate of this Roman deity, so recently taken under the patronage of American democracy, may find ample gratification of his curiosity in the luminous pages of Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

Such will find that Rome thought as you now think, that it was her destiny to conquer provinces and nations, and no doubt she sometimes said, as you say, "I will conquer a peace," and where now is she, the mistress of the world? The spider weaves his web in her palaces, the owl sings his watch-song in her towers. Teutonic power now lords it over the servile remnant, the miserable memento of old and once omnipotent Rome. Sad, very sad, are the lessons which time has written for us. Through and in them all I see nothing but the inflexible execution of that old law which ordains as eternal that cardinal rule, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor anything which is his." Since I have lately heard so much about the dismemberment of Mexico I have looked back to see how, in the course of events, which some call "Providence," it has fared with other nations who engaged in this work of dismemberment. I see that in the latter half of the eighteenth century three powerful nations, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, united in the dismemberment of Poland. They said, too, as you say, "It is our destiny." They "wanted room." Doubtless each of these thought, with his share of Poland, his power was too strong ever to fear invasion, or even insult. One had his California, another his New Mexico, and the third his Vera Cruz. Did they remain untouched and incapable of harm? Alas! no—far, very far, from it. Retributive justice must fulfill its destiny, too.

HENRY B. BASCOM

Henry Bidleman Bascom, the distinguished Methodist preacher and orator, was born at Hancock, New York, May 27, 1796. He received a scanty education, and when but eighteen years of age he was licensed to preach by the Ohio conference of the Methodist church. He was a circuit-rider, traveling more than four hundred miles upon horseback his first year in the work, and receiving the princely salary of $12.10 for his year's services. Bascom was too florid for the Ohio brethren, and they caused him to be transferred to Tennessee and Kentucky circuits. In this work he won a wide reputation as a pulpit orator. In 1823 Henry Clay had Bascom appointed chaplain of the House of Representatives, but his long sermons did not please the members, and he was not a great success in Washington. Bascom was elected as the first president of Madison College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1827, but two years later he became an agent for the American Colonization Society. From 1831 to 1841 he was professor of moral science and belles-lettres in Augusta College, Augusta, Kentucky, the first Methodist college in the world. The Methodist church having taken over Transylvania University, at Lexington, Dr. Bascom was elected president of that institution in 1842. He revived the ancient seat of learning to a wonderful degree, becoming another Horace Holley, but the rebirth proved ephemeral. In 1844 President Bascom protested against the action of the General Conference of the Methodist church concerning slavery, and, in the Louisville conference of 1845, he took a most prominent part, winning for himself the title of "father of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South." Dr. Bascom was editor of the Southern Methodist Review for several years; and in 1848 he resigned the presidency of Transylvania University, only to be elected a bishop in the branch of the Methodist church he had helped to establish. He was ordained as bishop in May, 1850, and almost immediately set out for Missouri, where he held his first and only conference. On his return to Kentucky he was in very poor health; and he died at Louisville, September 8, 1850. Bishop Bascom was the greatest Methodist preacher Kentucky can claim; and he was also an able writer. His works include Sermons from the Pulpit; Lectures on Infidelity; Lectures and Essays on Moral and Mental Science; and Methodism and Slavery. In 1910 a portrait in oils of Bishop Bascom was painted by Paul Sawyier, the Kentucky artist, for Transylvania University.

Bibliography. Life of Henry Bidleman Bascom, D.D., LL.D., by M. M. Henkle (Nashville, Tennessee, 1856); The Transylvanian (Lexington, Kentucky, June, 1910).

A CLERGYMAN'S VIEW OF NIAGARA

[From The Life of Henry Bidleman Bascom, D. D., LL. D., by Rev. M. M. Henkle (Nashville, Tennessee, 1856)]

I have seen, surveyed, and communed with the whole!—and awed and bewildered, as if enchanted before the revealment of a mystery, I attempt to write. You ask me, in your last, for some detailed, veritable account of the Falls, and I should be glad to gratify you; but how shall I essay to paint a scene that so utterly baffles all conception, and renders worse than fruitless every attempt at description? In five minutes after my arrival, on the evening of the fifth, I descended the winding-path from the "Pavillion," on the Canadian side, and, for the first time in my life, saw this unequaled cascade from "Table Rock;" the whole indescribable scene, in bold outline, bursting on my view. I had heard and read much, and imagined more of what was before me. I was perfectly familiar with the often-told, the far-traveled story of what I saw; but the overpowering reality on which I was gazing, motionless as the rock on which I stood, deprived me of recollection, annihilated all curiosity; and with emotions of sublimity till now unfelt, and all unearthly, the involuntary exclamation escaped me, "God of Grandeur! what a scene!"

But the majesty of the sight, and the interest of the moment, how depict them? The huge amplitude of water, tumbling in foam above, and dashing on, arched and pillared as it glides, until it reaches the precipice of the chute, and then, in one vast column, bounding with maddening roar and rush, into the depths beneath, presents a spectacle so unutterably appalling, that language falters; words are no longer signs, and I despair giving you any idea of what I saw and felt. Yet this is not all. The eye and mind necessarily take in other objects, as parts of the grand panorama, forests, cliffs, and islands; banks, foam, and spray; wood, rock, and precipice; dimmed with the rising fog and mist, and obscurely gilded by the softening tints of the rainbow. These all belong to the picture; and the effect of the whole is immeasurably heightened by the noise of the cataract, now reminding you of the reverberations of the heavens in a tempest, and then of the eternal roar of ocean, when angered by the winds!

The concave bed of rock, from which the water falls some two hundred feet into the almost boundless reservoir beneath, is the section of a circle, which, at first sight, from "Table Rock," presents something like the geometrical curve of the rainbow; and the wonders of the grand "crescent," thus advantageously thrown upon the eye in combination, and the appropriate sensations and conceptions heightened by the crash and boom of the waters, render the sight more surpassingly sublime, than anything I have ever looked upon, or conceived of. As it regards my thoughts and feelings at the time, I can help you to no conception of their character. Overwhelming astonishment was the only bond between thought and thought; and wild, vague, and boundless were the associations of the hour! Before me, the strength and fullness of the congregated "lakes of the north," were enthroned and concentrated within a circumference embraced by a single glance of the eye! Here I saw, rolling and dashing, at the rate of twenty-five hundred millions of tons per day, nearly one half of all the fresh water upon the surface of the globe! On the American side, I beheld a vast deluge, nine hundred feet in breadth, with a fall of one hundred and eighty or ninety, met, fifty feet above the level of the gulf, by a huge projection of rock, which seems to break the descent and continuity of the flood, only to increase its fierce and overwhelming bound. And turning to the "crescent," I saw the mingled rush of foam and tide, dashing with fearful strife and desperate emulation—four hundred yards of the sheet rough and sparry, and the remaining three hundred a deep sealike mass of living green—rolling and heaving like a sheet of emerald. Even imagination failed me, and I could think of nothing but ocean let loose from his bed, and seeking a deeper gulf below! The fury of the water, at the termination of its fall, combined with the columned strength of the cataract, and the deafening thunder of the flood, are at once inconceivable and indescribable. No imagination, however creative, can correspond with the grandeur of the reality.

I have already mentioned, and it is important that you keep it in view, the ledge of rock, the verge of the cataract, rising like a wall of equal height, and extending in semicircular form across the whole bed of the river, a distance of more than two thousand feet; and the impetuous flood, conforming to this arrangement, in making its plunge, with mountain weight, into the great horseshoe basin beneath, exhibits a spectacle of the sublime, in geographical scenery, without, perhaps, a parallel in nature. As I leaned from "Table Rock," and cast my eye downward upon the billowy turbulence of the angry depth, where the waters were tossing and whirling, coiling and springing, with the energy of an earthquake, and a rapidity that almost mocked my vision, I found the scene sufficient to appal a sterner spirit than mine; and I was glad to turn away and relieve my mind by a sight of the surrounding scenery; bays, islands, shores, and forests, everywhere receding in due perspective. The rainbows of the "crescent" and American side, which are only visible from the western bank of the Niagara, and in the afternoon, seem to diminish somewhat from the awfulness of the scene, and to give it an aspect of rich and mellow grandeur, not unlike the bow of promise, throwing its assuring radiance over the retiring waters of the deluge.

JAMES T. MOREHEAD

James Turner Morehead, Kentucky's most scholarly governor, was born near Shepherdsville, Kentucky, May 24, 1797. He was prepared for Transylvania University, Lexington, and there he studied from 1813 to 1815. He studied law under John J. Crittenden and, in 1818, entered upon the practice at Bowling Green, Kentucky. Ten years later Morehead was in the Kentucky legislature, and he was returned for several sessions. In 1832 he was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which nominated Henry Clay for the presidency; and while in Baltimore he himself was nominated for lieutenant-governor of Kentucky, with John Breathitt for governor. They were elected in August, 1832, but the Governor died on February 21, 1834, and Morehead succeeded to his office on the following day. He served until September, 1836. Upon the expiration of his term, Governor Morehead resumed the practice of law at Frankfort. He was elected United States Senator from Kentucky, in 1841, and he served until 1847. Senator Morehead was an attractive public speaker, and when it was known in Washington that he was to make a speech the galleries were usually well filled. After the expiration of his term, he practiced law at Covington, Kentucky. Senator Morehead had the most extensive collection of books and manuscripts upon the history of Kentucky and the West of any man of his day and generation. After his death, which occurred at Covington, Kentucky, December 28, 1854, his library was purchased by the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati. Morehead's Address in Commemoration of the First Settlement of Kentucky, at Boonesborough (Frankfort, 1840, 181 pp.), rescued and preserved numerous documents of great historical importance. In the preparation of his great History of the United States, George Bancroft is said to have relied upon this famous address of Morehead for much of his information concerning the early history of the West. Morehead also published Practice and Proceedings at Law in Kentucky (1846). The fine face of this scholar and statesman is one of Matthew Harris Jouett's most luminous canvasses.[7]

Bibliography. History of Kentucky, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1888, v. iv); National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1906, v. xiii).

JOHN FINLEY

[From An Address in Commemoration of the First Settlement of Kentucky (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1840)]

The first successful attempt to explore the Kentucky country was made by John Finley, a backwoodsman of North Carolina, in 1767. He was attended by a few companions, as adventurous as himself, whose names have escaped the notice of history. They were evidently a party of hunters, and were prompted to the bold and hazardous undertaking, for the purpose of indulging in their favorite pursuits. Of Finley and his comrades, and of the course and extent of their journey, little is now known. That they were of the pure blood, and endowed with the genuine qualities, of the pioneers, is manifestly undeniable. That they passed over the Cumberland, and through the intermediate country to the Kentucky river, and penetrated the beautiful valley of the Elkhorn, there are no sufficient reasons to doubt. It is enough, however, to embalm their memory in our hearts, and to connect their names with the imperishable memorials of our early history, that they were the first adventurers that plunged into the dark and enchanted wilderness of Kentucky—that of all their contemporaries they saw her first—and saw her in the pride of her virgin beauty—at the dawn of summer—in the fullness of her vegetation—her soil, instinct with fertility, covered with the most luxuriant verdure—the air perfumed with the fragrance of flowers, and her tall forests looming in all their primeval magnificence.

How long Finley lived, or where he died, the silence of history does not enable us to know. That his remains are now mingled with the soil that he discovered, there is some reason to hope, for he conducted Boone to Kentucky in 1769—and there the curtain drops upon him forever. It is fit it should be raised. It is fit that justice, late and tardy that it be, should be done to the memory of the first of the pioneers. And what can be more appropriate, than that the first movement should be made for the performance of such a duty, on the day of the commemoration of the discovery and settlement of the Commonwealth?

LEWIS COLLINS

Lewis Collins, the Kentucky historian, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, on Christmas Day, 1797. When a boy he entered the printing office of Joel R. Lyle, editor of The Paris Citizen, where he worked for more than a year as a printer. He removed to Mason county, Kentucky, to become associate editor of the Washington Union. On November 1, 1820, Lewis Collins purchased the Maysville Eagle, which had been established six years prior to his purchase, and he made it one of the best country newspapers ever published in Kentucky. In 1823 he was married to a sister of Benjamin O. Peers, afterwards president of Transylvania University. Collins was editor of the Eagle for twenty-seven years, when he retired in order to give his entire attention to his Historical Sketches of Kentucky (Maysville, 1847). This was the first illustrated history of Kentucky, and easily the most comprehensive that had appeared. The histories of Marshall and Butler began at the beginning, but both concluded with the year of 1812, while Collins brought his work down to 1844. His was a mine of historic lore, arranged in departments, and not altogether readable as a continuous narrative. It was the foundation upon which his son, Richard H. Collins, was later to build the most magnificent state history ever published. Lewis Collins was presiding judge of the Mason county court from 1851 to 1854. He was a just judge, a painstaking chronicler of his people's past, and a fine type of Christian citizen. Judge Collins died at Lexington, Kentucky, January 29, 1870. The Kentucky legislature passed an appropriate resolution in which his life was commended and his death deplored.

Bibliography. History of Kentucky, by Z. F. Smith (Louisville, Kentucky, 1892); Kentucky in the Nation's History, by R. M. McElroy (New York, 1909).

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

[From Historical Sketches of Kentucky (Maysville and Cincinnati, 1847)]

The late H. P. Peers, of the city of Maysville, laid the foundation for the work which is now presented to the reading community. Mr. Peers designed it to be simply a small Gazetteer of the State; and had collected, and partially arranged for publication, the major part of the materials, comprising a description of the towns and counties. Upon his decease, the materials passed into the hands of the Author, who determined to remodel them, and make such additions as would give permanency and increased value to the work. He has devoted much labor to this object; but circumstances having rendered its publication necessary at an earlier day than was contemplated, some errors may have escaped, which more time, and a fuller investigation, would have enabled him to detect.

Serious obstacles have been encountered in the preparation of the Biographical Sketches. Many of those which appear in the work, were prepared from the personal recollections of the Author; while others have been omitted because he did not know to whom he could apply for them, or having applied, and in some instances repeatedly, failed in procuring them. This is his apology for the non-appearance of many names in that department which are entitled to a distinguished place in the annals of Kentucky.

In the preparation of the work, one design of the Author has been to preserve, in a durable form, those rich fragments of local and personal history, many of which exist, at present, only in the ephemeral form of oral tradition, or are treasured up among the recollections of the aged actors in the stirring scenes, the memory of which is thus perpetuated. These venerable witnesses from a former age, are rapidly passing away from our midst, and with them will be buried the knowledge of much that is most interesting in the primitive history of the commonwealth. It is from sources such as we have mentioned, that the materials for the future historian are to be drawn; and, like the scattered leaves of the Sybil, these frail mementos of the past should be gathered up and preserved with religious veneration. If the Author shall have succeeded, in thus redeeming from oblivion any considerable or important portion of the early history of the State, his design will be fully accomplished, and his labor amply rewarded.

Of all the members of this great republican confederacy, there is none whose history is more rich in the variety, quality, and interest of its materials. The poet, the warrior, and the statesman, can each find subjects, the contemplation of which will instruct him in his art; and to the general reader, it would, perhaps, be impossible to present a field of more varied and attractive interest.