University of Kentucky UKnowledge United States History History 2003 The Three Kentucky Presidents: Lincoln, Taylor, Davis Holman Hamilton University of Kentucky Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Hamilton, Holman, "The Three Kentucky Presidents: Lincoln, Taylor, Davis" (2003). United States History. 117. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/117 The Three Kentucky Presidents The Three Kentucky Presidents Lincoln, Taylor, Davis HOLMAN HAMILTON THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 1978 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 03 04 05 06 07 5 4 3 2 1 Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress 0-8131-9053-3 (pbk.: alk. paper) Manufactured in the United States of America. To the memory of Frank Roberts, Indiana newspaperman and wonderful friend Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi 1 / Abraham Lincoln before His Presidency 1 2 / Jefferson Davis before His Presidency 10 3 / Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, President 20 4 / President Lincoln 34 5 / President Davis 43 6 / Slavery, Extension, and the Federal Union 54 Epilogue 65 Bibliographical Essay 67 Illustrations follow page 36 Acknowledgments HE AUTHOR WISHES to express his thanks for ideas, exper- Ttise., and scholarly aid of various kinds to Charles P. Roland, Alumni Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, Lexington; to Frank E. Vandiver, provost of Rice University, Houston, Texas; and to Mark E. Neely, Jr., director of the Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Other persons whose valued assistance is gratefully acknowledged are two recent recipients of doctorates from Kentucky, James C. Klotter and John David Smith; and two young historians who, I trust, will soon receive their doctor- ates, Thomas H. Appleton, Jr., and William A. Shelton. As in the case of all my previous writings, and for so much else through many happy years, my greatest gratitude of all is offered to Suzanne Bowerfind Hamilton, my beloved wife. H.H. Lexington, Kentucky October 17, 1977 Introduction IO STATE in the Union has a seal more appropriate than Kentucky'sN, . I do not refer exclusively to Kentucky's motto— "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"—but emphasize the figures appearing on the seal. One is a gentleman in formal attire, the other a frontiersman in buckskin; and the two are shaking hands. The two figures symbolize, as no other pattern could, the two principal human (or at least male) ingredients of early Kentucky. The frontiersman's influence of course came first. It is not hard to convince book readers or television viewers of the un- doubted accomplishments and fame of Kentucky's pioneers. Daniel Boone is known the nation over. And such other frontier figures as George Rogers Clark and Simon Kenton are familiar to numerous modern Americans. Kentucky has an ex- cellent claim to the title of the "First West." Log cabins, log houses, and log forts—known as "stations" and erected for protection from Indian assaults—reflected the norm of pioneer times. The first Kentucky frontiersmen and their fami- lies were continually aware of perils surrounding them and were every bit as inured to primitive conditions as subsequent settlers in the Far West. Boonesborough and Harrodsburg are well-remembered symbols of what living was like when Ken- tucky was young. But residents of many other locales, includ- ing those that became Louisville and Lexington, shared the common experiences of frontier life. Although fundamentally western, Kentucky in its youth— and ever after—likewise was characterized by an eastern her- itage identified with the Atlantic Seaboard. Originally part of Virginia, Kentucky was populated mainly by men, women, and children from Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. xi Many of these were plain, roughhewn people with little or no exposure to assets—material or cultural—prior to crossing the mountains to their new Kentucky homes. Still, a substantial minority of those who came before 1800 had moved in ben- eficial social circles in the East. Such early Kentucky leaders as George Nicholas and John Breckinridge of Virginia and John Wesley Hunt of New Jersey had made the most of edu- cational opportunities and had developed cultural standards as high as those of their eastern contemporaries. Moreover, they came west soon after the period of wilderness penetration. Thus Kentucky was quickly characterized by a prominent mix and mingle of eastern gentility and frontier earthiness. One of the most remarkable developments was that of Lex- ington—the Athens of the West. Why did Lexington's popula- tion include so many residents of unusual quality? The most deterministic cause may be found in—of all things—faulty land titles. For Kentucky inherited Virginia's land "system," or lack of system, as a result of which two or more claimants to parcels of property often became enmeshed in litigation. As much of the best land lay in the Lexington vicinity or in cen- tral Kentucky's adjacent counties, the town and its environs became a happy hunting ground for lawyers from the East. Skilled attorneys practicing in Lexington had ready access to cash income and opportunities to buy good land for them- selves. They brought attractive wives with them to the Blue- grass or married lovely daughters of other "first families." They built stately mansions and, when children blessed their households, they thought not merely of elementary schooling but of secondary and even higher education. More than any other single distinction, it was Transylvania University (the "university across the woods") that gave this western "Athens" its cultural tone. Louisville had a different sort of special reason for growing into an important community. Located at the Falls of the Ohio, it was a natural tarrying place for boatmen and passengers journeying on one of America's major rivers. As traffic and transportation burgeoned in the era of the steam- boat, Louisville would shoot past Lexington in population and xii become Kentucky's largest city. Long before that, former field-grade officers of the Revolutionary War settled in Jeffer- son County on the periphery of Louisville and occupied posi- tions of leadership. Like their counterparts in the Bluegrass and in every area where conditions for farming were especially propitious, these people—most of them Virginians—brought the institution of slavery. Kentucky thus was a "southern" state in the sense that it was a "slave state," and also in the sense that well-to-do Virginians' architectural and other cultural tastes now were transferred west of the mountains. Yet not all Kentuckians settled on good land. Not all Kentuckians could afford mansions. Not all could afford slaves, especially settlers at the heads of hollows in eastern Kentucky. Thousands of poor whites and industrious, frugal, but by no means wealthy yeoman farmers also lived in northern Kentucky, the Green River country, and elsewhere from the winding Ohio all the way to the Tennessee line. In the 1790s, because of their numbers, there even developed a movement to eliminate slavery in Kentucky. And, while this proposal went down to defeat, the presence of numerous slaveless whites was a factor in keeping Kentucky substantially less southern than western. The "westernness" of Kentucky was partially exemplified by the career of Henry Clay. At the turn of the century this promising Virginia lawyer settled in Lexington in his early twenties and immediately won recognition at the bar. Marry- ing a Kentucky heiress, he acquired land and slaves—building upon his legal reputation as a politician and going to the United States Senate before he was thirty years old. In and out of Congress time and again between 1806 and 1852, Clay al- most certainly would have been prime minister if we had had the British political system. Aspiring to the presidency on five occasions, Clay never achieved that cherished goal. Yet he was one of the three or four most prominent statesmen of his generation—a rep- resentative of western thinking and feeling, albeit with a southern exposure. The programs he advocated and the policies he endorsed were, for the most part, national in xui nature. And it is significant that Clay became known not as Harry of the South but as Harry of the West. In analyzing reasons for this able man's failure to attain the pinnacle of power and prestige, one should not minimize acci- dents of politics—unpredictable developments that become career pivots. But one wonders whether Clay was not too much the Virginian, too much the aristocrat, too imperious to suit the preferences of his times. Andrew Jackson, not only a soldier but a lawyer and slaveholder identified with neigh- boring Tennessee, had—in the eyes of voters—a degree of westernness more western than Clay's own. And it may be meaningful that no Virginian or other southerner, mainly bracketed with a southern seaboard state (unless Zachary Tay- lor is incorrectly seen that way), was elected to the highest office after 1820 until 1964.