KENTUCKY. 



463 



which " the Secretary of "War shall appoint." 

 In pursuance of this law, commissions were 

 appointed for Delaware and Maryland, but none 

 for Kentucky. In January, 1865, the Senate 

 of the United States adopted a resolution mak- 

 ing inquiry respecting the appointment of these 

 commissioners as provided ; and in response to 

 that resolution, Secretary Stanton said, that, 

 while appointments had been made for Maryland 

 and Delaware, "in the other slave States, by 

 the President's direction, no appointments have 

 yet been made." 



The act further provided that the compen- 

 sation should be paid out of the commutation 

 fund, which in December, 1865, amounted to 

 more than twelve millions of dollars. 



The emancipation question continued to be 

 the most exciting topic of discussion in the State, 

 until it was finally settled by the ratification of 

 the constitutional amendment by the number 

 of States required to make it valid. The effect 

 of the agitation, together with the military 

 measures of the Government, upon the value 

 of slave property, caused a decline from $34,179,- 

 246 in July, 1864, to about $8,350,000 in July, 

 1865. This was the result of the returns on 

 the books of the tax assessors. On the other 

 hand the friends of emancipation urged as fol- 

 lows : 



As to the effect of emancipation in Kentucky, no 

 argument can be so convincing as the rapid increase 

 in the value of real estate in the State of Maryland 

 and the District of Columbia since the abolition of 

 slavery there. 



The value of the land in Maryland has enhanced 

 .already to an extent that more than compensates for 

 the pecuniary value of the slaves emancipated ; and 

 in the city of Washington the increase in the value 

 of real estate and taxable property since the abolition 

 of slavery in the District of Columbia, has been un- 

 paralleled and unprecedented. Nor is this prosperity 

 merely apparent and attributable to the inflated con- 

 dition of the national currency, as some are ready to 

 charge. The gold valuation of real property in the 

 city of Washington is now more than fifty per cent. 

 perhaps a hundred greater than it was four years 

 ago. Such also will be the effect in Kentucky. Nor 

 is anything to be feared from the temporary disturb- 

 ance to the labor system of our State which the ex- 

 tinction of slavery will effect. The laws of labor, like 

 the laws of trade, will regulate themselves. The 

 freed slave must have bread, and to get it he must 

 work. He will work where his labor is most in de- 

 mand and best requited, and the cost of his labor to 

 his employer will be much less than it ever has been 

 to his owner. The examples of the States of Indiana, 

 Ohio, and Illinois, where negroes have long performed 

 a large part of the unskilled labor of the city and the 

 country, may be cited in proof of this. Negroes have 

 never been drones upon society there, and they never 

 will be here. 



The State election was held on August 7th. 

 The issue was between those who advocated 

 the amendment of the Federal Constitution 

 abolishing slavery, who were termed Unionists, 

 and those opposing the amendment, who were 

 termed Conservatives. The latter, at one of 

 their conventions to nominate a candidate for 

 Congress, thus expressed their views : 



That no power has been delegated by the Con- 

 stitution to the Government of the Unite'd States to 



emancipate the slaves of any State ; that such power 

 is, therefore, reserved to the States respectively, or 

 the people ; and that we, as Kentuckians, claim the 

 same right on this subject which has been heretofore 

 exercised by the non-slaveholding States, constitut- 

 ing a part of the United States, and a part of our 

 National Government and Union, and that we are 

 now unwilling to delegate any such power to the 

 Government or Congress of the United States, or in 

 any manner to place it in the power of that body to 

 prescribe the terms upon which the slaves of Ken- 

 tucky shall be emancipated, and determine the so- 

 cial and political rights they shall enjoy. We are, 

 therefore, decidedly opposed to the adoption and 

 ratification of the amendment recently proposed by 

 Congress to the Constitution of the United States, 

 granting powers to the National Government on tho 

 subject of slaves and slavery in the United States. 



That the enlistment of slaves to serve in the armies 

 of the United States, and compelling them to serve, 

 is the taking of private property for public use, and 

 for which the Constitution requires that a just com- 

 pens_ation shall be made, and we cannot perceive the 

 justice of that policy on the part of the Government 

 which continues the enlistment of slaves when vast 

 armies of white men are about to be discharged ; nor 

 can we perceive the justice or the humanity of the 

 policy which congregates thousands of negro women 

 and children, at different posts and camps in Ken- 

 tucky, to be supported at public expense, when the 

 wives and children of white soldiers actively engaged 

 in putting down the rebellion have not been in any 

 manner provided for. 



At the Union Convention at the capital for 

 the nomination of a State treasurer, Gen. 

 Palmer, the Federal military commander, was 

 present, and made an address as follows : 



You will receive the assistance of the General Gov- 

 ernment in the proper use of the Government patron- 

 age. I am authorized to say, that I know it is true, 

 that the Administration desires that its powers will 

 be employed for the support of the true Union party 

 of this State. But that patronage must be directed 

 and controlled by you. 



The next point is, you will be protected all over the 

 State of Kentucky. To secure this, there must be 

 an active political organization, to the support of 

 which these forces can be directed. It must be ac- 

 tive in all parts of the State ; and I take it upon my- 

 self to say, and I say what I know to be true, that 

 wherever in this State of Kentucky, during the com- 

 ing canvass, the true, earnest Union men wish to ap- 

 pear and to speak, they shall be protected in speak- 

 ing. The time has passed, in this country, when free 

 speech is to be understood as the liberty of mouthing 

 treason. If I desired an inscription upon my monu- 

 ment, after I have passed from this earth, it should 

 be, " Here lies the champion of free speech." But 

 that free speech does not imply that the traducer of 

 the Government, and the defamer of the principles 

 upon which it is founded, shall be protected in his 

 lying utterances. 



There are a certain class of questions that men may 

 discuss, but there are questions that do not admit of 

 discussion. You have the right to discuss the prin- 

 ciples of the Government, and you have the right to 

 freely criticise the actions of every public man, but 

 you have no right, either with the bayonet or with a 

 lying, slanderous tongue, to stab the vitals of the 

 Government; and when the recording angel shall, at 

 the last day, inquire into the conduct of men with 

 respect to the deeds done in the body, the darkest 

 and blackest recorded there will be the lying villain- 

 ies embodied in words uttered by the friends of the 

 traitors who have brought this war upon the coun- 

 try. I would not judge a man very closely by what 

 he said. I would give him the benefit of a" literal 

 construction in the matter of words, but my idea is 



