450 



KENTUCKY. 



determine who should buy and sell, not only in the 

 ordinary course of trade, but for family supplies. 

 As administered in Kentucky, it was a most shame- 

 ful and corrupt system of partisan political corrup- 

 tion and oppression. This machinery of fraud and 

 corrupt oppression is still retained, and the facts 

 showing its corrupt use, should be collected and pre- 

 sented, by the authority of the Legislature of Ken- 

 tucky, to the national authorities, in such form as to 

 secure the abolishment and future prohibition of all 

 such interferences with the lawful and necessary 

 trade of the country. 



An attempt was also made, under cover of these 

 military trade regulations, through the Commissary 

 Department, to perpetuate a most extensive swindle 

 upon the farmers of Kentucky in the purchase of 

 their hog crop. Under the trade orders none could 

 ship or drive to market without a permit ; and all 

 were prohibited from shipping across the Ohio River, 

 thus closing the Cincinnati and other markets to our 

 farmers. The buyers and packers of Louisville and 

 elsewhere were warned off under threats of arrest 

 and confiscation, etc. Agents, who were assigned to 

 this wholesale swindle, went actively to work, noti- 

 fying the farmers that the Government had deter- 

 mined to take their hogs, and had fixed the price 

 which they must take a price greatly below the 

 market value. To have a stop put to this swindle, 

 which was being carried on through the Commissary 

 Department, under the patronage of the command- 

 ant of the District of Kentucky, 1 sent a communica- 

 tion to the President, borne by reliable messengers, 

 to explain the details of the matters of my letter. 



The hog swindle was promptly ended, but not until 

 the farmers had sustained losses to at least $300,000, 

 yet in time to save them the loss of over one million 

 dollars. I suggest that it is due to the honest 

 farmers of the State that you collate, or provide for 

 so doing, the facts bearing upon this attempted and 

 partiallv-executed fraud, and present them also in 

 connection with the " military trade regulations." 



The gravest matter of military outrage has been, 

 and yet is, the arrest, imprisonment, and banishment 

 of loyal citizens without a hearing, and without even 

 a knowledge of the charges against them. There 

 have been a number of this class of arrests, merely 

 for partisan political vengeance, and to force them to 

 pay heavy sums to purchase their liberation. How 

 the spoils, so infamously extorted, are divided, has 

 not transpired to the public information. For par- 

 tisan political ends Gen. John B. Huston was arrested 

 at midnight, preceding the election, and hurried off 

 under circumstances of shameful aggravation. He 

 was, however, released in a few days ; but that does 

 not atone for the criminality of his malicious arrest 

 and false imprisonment. The battle-scarred veteran, 

 Col. Frank Wolford, whose name and loyal fame is 

 part of his country's jewelled memories, and whose 

 arrest, for political vengeance, should put a nation's 

 cheek to the blush, is yet held in durance vile, with- 

 out a hearing and without an accusation, so far as he 

 or his friends can ascertain. 



Lieut. -Governor Jacobs, whose yet unclosed wounds, 

 received in battle for his country, was victimized to 

 partisan and personal vengeance, and hurried, with- 

 out a hearing and without any known accusation, 

 through the rebel lines into Virginia. The indecent 

 and guilty haste with which he was hurried off, and 

 through the lines stamps the personal malignity of 

 the deed with the infamy of conscious criminality. 

 Other cases might be mentioned, but these are se- 

 lected because they are known to the whole country ; 

 their acts are part of the glorious history of loyal 

 heroism, and their accusers shrink from the light of 

 investigation, but cannot escape the scourging judg- 

 ment of an outraged people. 



The military authorities are as much bound to ob- 

 serve the laws as the civil. Though the law govern- 

 ing the action of the n^ilitary may and does often and 

 materially differ from that which controls the action 



of the civii, yet the law applicable to each is alike 

 binding on each. Although the facts which consti- 

 tute reasonable and probable cause for the arrest and 

 imprisonment of a citizen by the military are dif- 

 ferent from and far more extensive than civil arrests, 

 yet the rules of law are the same in the application 

 of the facts. 



mode of proceeding, when non-combatants and 

 others have been arrested, is fixed. This law, which 

 was intended to limit the action of military command- 

 ants in the various localities and give some assurance 

 of ultimate justice to the the citizen, has been wholly 

 and utterly set at defiance by Brevet Maj.-General S. 

 G. Burbridge in the instances of ColonelWolford and 

 Lieut.-Gov. Jacobs and others. Nay, further, the 

 action in the case of Lieut.-Gov. Jacobs is in defiance 

 of Federal and State Constitutions and laws; in 

 defiance of the laws of humanity and liberty ; dis- 

 honors the cause of pur country, and degrades the 

 military rank to the infamous uses of partisan and 

 personal vengeance. 



The contributions of the State to the army 

 of the United States to Dec. 31st, 1864, were as 

 follows : Three-years men, 39,645 ; one-year 

 men, 18,085 ; nine-months men, 3,057 total, 

 61,317. This is exclusive of the colored troops, 

 of whom there were 14,918, three-years men. 

 The total of white and colored troops is 76,335. 

 The returns of the enrolment presented the 

 following results : 113,410 whites, 20,083 ne- 

 groes ; total, 133,493. About 5,000 should be 

 added to the colored, as no returns were made 

 from two districts. The receipts into the Treas- 

 ury during the fiscal year were greatly decreased, 

 and the Governor recommended an increased 

 rate of taxation. 



Near the end of the year 1863 a call wan 

 issued by some citizens of Missouri for a con- 

 vention of the friends of freedom in slave States, 

 to assemble at Louisville on June 8th, " for the 

 promotion of a more cordial understanding be- 

 tween those who concurred in the necessity of 

 adopting freedom policies ; for the more effective 

 initiation of local State organizations to accom- 

 plish the work of emancipation ; and for such 

 mutual interchange of opinions and experiences 

 as may make the teachings of the past profit in 

 the guidance of the present." The convention 

 thus called was postponed to February 22d, at 

 which time it assembled. About one hundred 

 delegates from Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, 

 and Arkansas were present. Wm. P. Thomason 

 was chosen President, and the following resolu- 

 tions were adopted : 



JKesolved, 1st. That the unity of this country, with 

 the present republican form of government, State and 

 National, must be preserved, and rebellion sup- 

 pressed. 



2d. That slavery was the cause and now constitutes 

 the strength of the rebellion ; that we see no hope 

 of permanent peace until the principles of freedom 

 announced in the Declaration of Independence and 

 the Federal Constitution are carried into practice. 

 The question whether slavery is to be perpetuated or 

 not is no longer exclusively a State but a national 

 one. It is, therefore, proper that the Constitution of 

 the United States should be so amended as to secure 

 freedom to every human being within its jurisdiction. 

 Such a guarantee of individual freedom is as neces- 



