By Todd Hatton / Berry Craig
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-997406.mp3
Murray, KY – Today on the Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, we'll hear how pro-southern Governor Beriah Magoffin turned down the leadership of a Confederate Bluegrass, despite being blocked again and again by a General Assembly who would have been glad to see him go.
On this date in 1861, Kentucky secessionists were still smarting over Governor Beriah Magoffin's refusal to head the Bluegrass State's rump Confederate government.
According to Lewis and Richard Collins' History of Kentucky., Magoffin condemned it in unqualified terms.
Magoffin, who was from Harrodsburg, was a Southern sympathizer. He was pro-slavery and pro-states' rights. So, George Johnson of Scott County, Kentucky's Confederate "governor," wrote a letter to the Louisville Journal promising to step aside for Magoffin.
Safely behind Rebel lines in Kentucky's Confederate "capital" of Bowling Green, Johnson wrote, "I will gladly resign whenever the regularly elected governor shall escape from his virtual imprisonment at Frankfort" to "head...this movement for the emancipation of Kentucky."
Magoffin had been at odds with the Unionist majority legislature for months. In September, when lawmakers voted to abandon neutrality within the Union for full support of the Union war effort, Magoffin wielded his veto pen. He was overridden.
The Unionists hoped he would resign. A few of them talked about impeaching the governor. But Magoffin wouldn't budge.
Nor would he accept his friend Johnson's offer. In his reply to Johnson's letter, Magoffin wrote, "I have not seen a copy of the [letter]...If the purpose and proceedings of [the Russellville Sovereignty Convention]...are correctly represented...I condemn its actions in unqualified terms. Self-constituted, as it was, and without authority from the people, it cannot be justified by similar revolutionary acts, in other states, by minorities to overthrow the state governments. I condemned their action and I condemn the action of this one."
By "minorities to overthrow state governments" Magoffin evidently meant Missouri. There, too, minority secessionists created a bogus Confederate government.
But, as dubious as the Missouri and Kentucky Rebel governments were, they were enough to get both states "admitted" to the Confederacy.
Magoffin continued: "My position is and has been and will continue to be, to abide by the will of the majority of the people of the state - to stand by the laws and the constitution of the state of Kentucky, as expounded by the supreme court of the state, and by the constitution and laws of the state, and by the constitution and laws of the federal government as expounded by the Supreme Court of the United States." (Magoffin evidently was referring to the high court's pro-slavery ruling in the Dred Scott case of 1857.)
Meanwhile, Magoffin continued to fight the legislature's crackdown on Confederate-sympathizing Kentuckians. He vetoed, to no avail, a bill that authorized the imprisonment of any Kentuckian who joined the Confederate army and invaded the state. The measure also meted out jail time and fines for Kentuckians who encouraged their fellow citizens to join the Rebel forces.
So Magoffin refused to join the Rebels or step aside and go home. He remained in office, largely powerless, but still determined to thwart the Unionist legislature as best he could.
WKMS produces Kentucky Civil War Dispatches from West Kentucky Community and Technical College history professor Berry Craig. The Murray State alumnus is the author of Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War, Hidden History of Kentucky Soldiers, True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon, and Burgoo, and Hidden History of Western Kentucky. For WKMS News, I'm Todd Hatton.