will on the question after the document had been given a test. It was provided that the people might take a vote on the advisability of calling a new constitutional convention, in the elections of 1797, and, that if the majority was in favor of a convention, then the electorate should vote in the following general elections of 1798, and if again the majority was favorable, the legislature should call a convention in 1799 to revise or remake the constitution. There was another method provided whereby a majority of two-thirds of both houses of the Legislature might call a constitutional convention without a vote of the people. The laws of Virginia of a general nature were continued in the new state "until they shall be altered or repealed by the legislature."

The elements entering into the situation that made possible this constitution were varied. The influence of Virginia was felt, but not nearly to the extent that would have seemed natural in the case of a parent state on its offspring. Fundamental Virginia usages were thrown in the discard, as noted in suffrage and representation. The years of thought and discussion by large numbers of the people clearly had their weight. The Danville Political Club decided in favor of the manner of electing senators four years before the convention adopted that very method. The widespread demand that there be no property qualifications for voting was as surely the source of the constitutional provision guaranteeing universal suffrage, as was the desire of the more wealthy and larger property holders to have their rights protected responsible for the manner of choosing the governor, senators, and judges.

Just as people in the aggregate had their effect, so did certain individuals. That the constitution was the work of any individual or substantially his work cannot be successfully maintained. The man who, perhaps, contributed most to it both in what he himself had to give and in making it possible for the other forces to produce their effects was George Nicholas. He was thoroughly conversant with constitutions and constitutional practices, having played an important part in the Virginia convention which ratified the Federal Constitution. So completely had he buried himself in the arguments for that instrument of government, that he undoubtedly carried with him into the Kentucky convention, much of its influence which found its way into the Kentucky constitution. Whatever similarities may be drawn between these two constitutions must be attributed to the work of Nicholas. The large number of speeches, letters, and essays, written by Nicholas give ample evidence of his preparations for the work. Among the subjects thus treated were: Government; Resolutions regarding Form of Government for Kentucky; Expenses of Government, Land Tax, Loan Office; Checks and Divisions of Power; Senate; House of Representatives; Power of the House of Representatives; Governor; Appointments to Office; Suffrage; Bill of Rights; Courts; and Slaves.22 Nicholas was also appointed on a committee for the final draft of the constitution, with Cuthbert Harrison, Benjamin Sebastian, Isaac Shelby, Thomas Kennedy, Thomas Lewis, Caleb Wallace, James Garrard, Thomas Warring, and Alexander S. Bullitt.23

The United States House of Representatives in an address to Washington characterized the Kentucky document "as particularly interesting since besides the immediate benefits resulting from it, it is another auspicious demonstration of the facility and success with which an enlightened people is capable of producing for their own safety and happi

22 "Nicholas Papers, Letters, and Speeches" in Durrett MS. Collection. 23 MS. Minutes, in Durrett MS. Collections, p. 20.

24 A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, Edited by J. D. Richardson, I, 132. Date of address, Nov. 10, 1792.

On June 1, 1792, without further action by Congress, Kentucky came into the American Union. In the annals of constitutional government, she has no counterpart. For eight years she had labored and toiled through ten conventions, a record that was never to be approximated from that day until the present by any American community in quest of statehood. Her provocations were frequent and exasperating, the more so because often the conditions producing the perplexities were the conspiring of men and events without any human design. With master intriguers to work on a popular discontent, which fed not only on political privileges denied but also on economic rights withheld, Kentucky in her efforts to find a solution for these problems approached nearer to treating with foreign nations than a less sorely tried and perplexed people would have done. But there was never an element in Kentucky, outside of hired Spanish agents, that considered for a moment bowing the knee to Spanish domination. The navigation of the Mississippi was a powerful weapon, controlling completely the economic existence of the Kentuckians. The Spaniards used it, and gave it to their hired conspirators to use. Kentucky listened and deliberated. The river she would have, if not through the power of the national government, then through her own efforts. With the coming of statehood, she temporarily forgot the Mississippi in the joy of her present conquest. The prospect of the new Federal Government was pleasing. With one of her besetting problems now solved, she could with good graces await for the time a solution of the other. But as a member of the new union she would be respected according to her deserts, and in due time she would have every right political and economic that was hers. In the meantime she could afford to watch and wait.

In criticising those who seem to have favored a Spanish alliance, many of whom, after statehood, became prominent in both state and National affairs, the situation of the inhabitants of the Kentucky territory, cut off from the parent State of Virginia, and the National government as well, must be taken into consideration. The purposes of Wilkinson were plainly made manifest in the end, but many of those who were at first attracted by his suavity of manner and power to influence others, once they understood his designs, became the most ardent advocates for a place in the National Union. With all charity, therefore, should their actions be judged, and the harsher criticism indulged by many be avoided. Innes, Brown, Sebastian, Wallace and those holding their views, were men of sterling worth and character, incapable of ignoble or treasonable conduct, and were so regarded by their contemporaries.

CHAPTER XXV

KENTUCKY CHARACTER AND SOCIETY AT THE BEGINNING OF STATEHOOD

The settlement of Kentucky began in 1775; statehood was granted in 1792. The number of population requisite for admission as a state set down in the Northwest Ordinance for the territories north of the Ohio, had here been exceeded by over 13,000. The mighty impetus that changed cane-brakes and forests of an uninhabited region into farmsteads and cities of a state in the American Union within a period of seventeen years, was a composite of numerous forces working together. Likes and dislikes, repulsions and attractions, resultants of the spirit of the times and the conditions of the country, played their parts.

The Revolutionary War left a train of discontent and economic ruin in its wake, which affected large numbers of people. For seven years the ravages of war had desolated an invaded country. Plantations had been destroyed, and the accumulations of generation had been consumed. Added to the invasion of a foreign enemy, was the still more bitter strife carried on between Whig and Tory, Patriot and Loyalist. In some communities the former were outnumbered by the latter, and not until irreparable damage had fastened itself on the social and economic order, could the Tories be exterminated by stern laws of confiscation and repression and by the sword. Thus, was driven out and banished to foreign countries through the very exigencies of the times a substantia! element, which had played no mean part in pre-Revolutionary days. Impoverished in population, the country was no less a sufferer in its economic order. Thriftless agriculture had already begun to work ruin to the fertility of the soil. With the same crop planted year after year, without a rotation, the yield steadily decreased. Tobacco was playing havoc with Virginia agriculture. The economic ruin that was later to drive Jefferson, Monroe, and many other Virginians almost into abject poverty had set in.

Economic and financial ruin was staring in the face, the individual, the state, and the nation. Burdensome taxation increased as the value of state and continental currency decreased. Beset by all of these conditions, plantation owners, small farmers, and the landless class, began to turn their thoughts toward a solution. Many large planters sought a remedy in the endless process of acquiring the contiguous lands of the small farmers, thus to replenish their worn out soil. The small farmer, having sold his holdings, moved further westward to repeat the process of clearing the forests for a new beginning. The condition of the landless, the adventuresome, and the habitually unfortunates became worse as time went on.

But this ever increasing discontent, born largely of economic incompetency, had its safety-valve. To the west lay an unexplored region, whose possibilities could yet be only imagined. Reports of it had already begun to filter back across the Alleghanies when the Revolution came and cut off further consideration. But before this struggle had ended, the region was becoming better known and its attractions were increasing in proportion. By 1780, it had come to occupy a definite place in the

thoughts of the people. Thus for every repelling force in the East was found an attraction in the West.

The reports of the wonderfully fertile soil of the westernmost part of Virginia beyond the mountains were irresistible. The vanguard that had followed Boone to this land on the eve of the Revolution had been forced to almost desert the country during the first few years of the war. The hunters and explorers closely followed by the occasional settler, which became the typical process of westward expansion, had now opened the way for the onrush of settlers with their families and whatever property might be carried along. The Kentucky regions were now coming to be systematically advertised by word of mouth, letters, and publica

tions.

Returning hunters, explorers, and messengers painted the trans-Alleghany country as a region of boundless hopes and opportunities. There the landless and the unfortunate could acquire a competency and even a fortune in an incredibly short time. The restless and lovers of adventure would here find a veritable paradise. Big game abounded, and Indian dangers were on all sides. Letters from those who had gone before were sent back to relatives and friends, urging them to come to Kentucky and partake of the boundless opportunities. George Rogers Clark had written back to Virginia in 1775, urging his father to come and settle in Kentucky. "I am convinced," he said, "that if he once sees ye country he will never rest until he gets on it to live." 1 Another enthusiast wrote later that "Here are the finest and most excellent sites for farms, cities and towns. Here may the industrious and broken hearted farmer, tired with the slavery of the unfortunate situation in which he was born, lay down his burthen and find rest on these peaceful and plenteous plains; here may Iberia, Britain, and Scotia, pour out their superabundant sons and daughters, who with cheerful hearts, and industrious hands, will wipe away the tear of tyrannic toil, and join the Children of America in the easy labors of comfort and plenty, and bless the providence of that power which has directed them to such a land." 2

The movement into Kentucky was yet young when publications on the country began to appear. All described that land in the most florid and superb style of language. The earliest work on Kentucky was by John Filson. He entitled his book, "The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke, and an Essay Toward the Topographical and Natural History of that Important Country." As a history it was not exact in all of its facts; but as a picture of a wonderful newly discovered country it gave a true portrayal that immediately attracted world-wide. attention. The first edition of this advertisement of Kentucky appeared in 1784. The following year, it was translated into the French and German languages; and before the end of the century three reprints had been made in England. Filson admitted that his chief purpose was to let the world know about this land of opportunities: "When I visited Kentucky, I found it so far to exceed my expectations, although great, that I concluded that it was a pity that the world had not adequate information of it." In describing McBride's visit to Kentucky, he said the explorers returned "with the pleasing news of their discovery of the best tract of land in North America, and probably in the world," and Filson added on his own authority that "a great part of the soil is amazingly fertile." 3 Four other works directly on Kentucky or dealing largely with it, some running through as high as four editions, appeared before the end of the century.4

1 A. B. Hulbert, Pilots of the Republic [Chicago, 1906], 172.

2 Butler's Journal from N. B. Craig, The Olden Time [Pittsburg, 1846], quoted in J. A. James, "Some Phases of the History of the Northwest" in Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, 1913-1914, 168-195.

3 Filson, History of Kentucky, [London, 1793]; 7, 9.

chase,

These were: Alexander Fitzroy, The Discovery, Purchase, and Settlement of

5

The soil of central Kentucky, which came to be known as the Bluegrass Region, was of unusual and enduring fertility and gave a glamour to the whole country lying south of the Ohio and west of the mountains. One of the early historians declared that as the quality of the land was the great object to immigrants, "every one must be pleased with the soil, and was that the only thing requisite to make a country valuable or pleasing, Kentucky would be the most so in the world, as the land is nowhere excelled." The limestone formations were responsible for the fertile soil. The pre-historic glaciers which had overrun the regions north of the Ohio, depositing boulders and covering up these formations with other debris, had stopped with the Ohio, except in a few instances. The extreme northern part of the state just south of Cincinnati and including parts of the present counties of Campbell, Kenton, and Boone, and a few regions further down the river in Trimble County are the only exceptions.G

These printed records were not responsible for the first onrush of settlers beginning in 1780; but they played their part in making the stream continuous for many years to follow. Although the first serious effort at settling Kentucky began in 1775 with prospects of a steady increase, the fierce struggle with the Indians and the British in the ensuing years of the Revolution almost depopulated the country; so that by 1779, there were perhaps no greater number of people there than when the settlement began. In 1787, the statement was made that only 146 white men could be found in the whole country at the former date.?

But the next year all the forces in East and West seem to have begun to conspire together to fill up Kentucky. The Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap, which had heretofore been the chief access to Kentucky, was now again carrying westward its stream of hardy pioneers. The Ohio River, while still an ambuscade for Indian attacks almost throughout its whole course, yet was now beginning to carry the vanguard of a great migration to come later. A fever for western migration seems to have set in that has no counterpart in American expansion, except in the gold rush to California more than a half century later. Just as vessels of war and commerce in the ports of California were deserted by many of their crews for the "gold diggings," so Virginia regiments suffered numerous desertions for the Kentucky regions. The incredible statement was made in 1780 that Kentucky could furnish 15,000 men ready for war against the British or Indians.8 The truth might be approximated in this statement, if Kentucky were made to include every settler and fugitive Tory in the Ohio Valley. The settlers went forward as unattached individuals, moving families, and in 1781, there was the spectacle of a whole religious congregation going in a body to this promised land. This was the celebrated Baptist "Traveling Church" as it came to be called. The congregation voting to leave in a body moved out from its seat in

the Country of Kentucky in North America [London, 1786], Harry Toulmin, Thoughts on Emigration, To Which are Added Miscellaneous Observations Relating to the United States of North America and a Short Account of the State of Kentucky [London, 1792], Gilbert Imlay, A Topographical Description of Western Territory of North America [London, 1792], W. Winterbotham, An Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the American United States and of the European Settlements in America and the West Indies [London, 1795). 5 Winterbotham, An Historical View, III, 131.

6 G. F. Wright, "The Glacial Boundary in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois" in Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Doc. 244, 51 Cong. I Sess., 63, 64.

Pennsylvania Gazette, March 29, 1787, quoted in McMaster, History of the People of the United States, I, 149.

8 W. H. Siebert, "The Tory Proprietors of Kentucky Lands" in Ohio Archaelogical and Historical Quarterly, No. 1, January, 1919, 13.