By Berry Craig / Todd Hatton
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-944242.mp3
Murray, KY – Today, we're beginning an almanac that will look back at what was happening in Kentucky 150 years ago, as the Commonwealth played its part in the American Civil War. These pieces come from the pen of author and history professor Berry Craig, and they're produced here at WKMS. So, here's today's inaugural installment of Kentucky's Civil War Dispatches.
On this date in 1861, supporters of John Bell and Stephen A. Douglas for president in 1860 were preparing to meet in separate conventions in Louisville. Kentucky's Union Party would ultimately spring from these meetings.
Convinced that president-elect Abraham Lincoln of Illinois and his Republican Party would end slavery, South Carolina had seceded from the Union on Dec. 20. The secessionists called for "a confederacy of Slaveholding States."
In early January, 1861, a half dozen other Deep South slave states were on the verge of secession.
Kentucky was a border slave state, and almost all of its citizens were pro-slavery. Yet a majority of them were also intensely pro-Union, a fact reflected in the presidential election of 1860.
The main issue was the spread of slavery into the federal territories. Lexington's John C. Breckinridge, the 1860 Southern Democratic presidential candidate, favored slavery's unfettered expansion. Kentucky native Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery's spread.
Douglas, the Northern Democrat, proposed "popular sovereignty." The Illinoisan argued that citizens of the territories should be permitted to vote slavery in or out.
Bell, who ran as a Constitutional Unionist, sidestepped the divisive issue. The Tennessean urged the preservation of the Union, and he would carry the Commonwealth.
Breckinridge finished second with Douglas a distant third; Lincoln received a mere 1,366 votes out of more than 146,000 cast.
Lincoln's election chagrined most Bluegrass State citizens. However, few considered it grounds for immediate secession.
Kentucky favored the Crittenden Compromise, submitted by U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden of Versailles, in December of 1860. He hoped the plan would save the Union.
The most important features of the Compromise were proposed constitutional amendments to permit expansion of slavery into territories south of 36-degrees, 30-minutes latitude - the old Missouri Compromise line - and to safeguard slavery where it existed.
The plan failed.
Meanwhile, the Bell and Douglas backers -- the Douglas men called themselves Democratic Unionists -- gathered in Kentucky's largest city on January 8. Both conventions jointly and unanimously endorsed the Crittenden Compromise. The delegates also created what would become the Union State Central Committee. In turn, the committee would help form the leadership for the coming Union Party in Kentucky.
The Bell and Douglas men convened nine days before the General Assembly was to meet in special session. They wanted to be unified in case Governor Beriah Magoffin, a Southern-sympathizing Breckinridge Democrat, and the legislature might try to push Kentucky precipitously out of the Union.
Kentucky's Civil War Dispatches are produced by WKMS and written by West Kentucky Community and Technical College history professor Berry Craig. He's also the author of Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War and True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon and Burgoo.