Reference was made at an earlier period in this work of Aaron Burr, in connection with the "Spanish Conspiracy." During the summer of 1805, Burr appeared in Kentucky, visiting quietly for a time at Frankfort. He had prior to this fought the fatal duel with Hamilton, which, together with attacks upon the administration of Mr. Jefferson, had destroyed his political prospects. His was too active and brilliant a mind to remain quiescent. He must be always employed and must be first in every enterprise. After grasping at the presidency which for a time seemed within his reach, it must have been as gall and wormwood to sink to the second place and, as vice president, preside over the sleepy senate. How his eyes must have turned toward that other man higher up, and how he must have hated him.

Leaving Frankfort Burr leisurely visited the chief points in the then accessible West and finally turning southward from St. Louis, reached New Orleans. In August he was again in Kentucky, stopping for a time in Lexington. In 1806, he was again in the West. It would prove an interesting chapter could one write into history the thoughts, desires, and schemes of that haughty brain in which burned the fires of an insatiable ambition. It has been charged that in his dreams he saw himself an emperor seated upon a splendid throne surrounded by a court, the ruling prin

cess of which should be his beautiful daughter, Theodosia, the only being besides himself whom he ever truly loved. Sorrow's crown of sorrow was his to wear when this idol of his heart lost her life at sea. Whatever his dreams, whatever his ambitions, they came at last to naught and his name was writ in water, so far as success was concerned, and is remembered today, only to be execrated by most of those who choose to think of him at all. He ruined the lovable but gullible Irishman, Herman Blennerhassett, who listened and was lost. He brought suspicion upon General Wilkinson, whom the closest student of the history of that period, must hesitate to declare guiltless of complicity in Burr's schemes of empire; he drove from the bench of Kentucky's highest court Judge Sebastian; he escaped conviction on a charge of treason, and retiring to New York died at an advanced age, a disappointed man whose heart had been eaten by the desire for the highest place among men and burned to cinders by an unholy ambition.

Efforts to secure his indictment by the Federal grand jury at Frankfort proved unsuccessful though the brilliant United States district attorney, Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, represented the government. The magnetism of Burr, his attractiveness to the people of all classes, led to the failure to indict him being received with applause from those in the court room, while subsequently a public ball

was given in his honor. There were not lacking those who honored Daveiss for his brilliant efforts, unsuccessful though they were, and who had not been won by the personal graces of the wily Burr. To the district attorney, therefore, a public ball was also given. A somewhat unusual manner of expressing approval, one would say today, but one hundred years ago there were fewer people in Ken

HENRY CLAY

tucky than now by very many thousands, fewer means of entertainment, fewer opportunities for the coming together of kindred spirits. No trumpet's clarion call, summoning a baron's retainers to the defense of his castle, met quicker response in the olden days, than did the sound of the violin's strings in those splendid days, one hundred years ago, when young Kentucky's heart beat rapturously and men were measured by their deeds and worth rather than by the miserable dollars they had accumulated.

In 1806, the legislature took up for consideration charges that Judge Sebastian of the court of appeals had, during his continuance in office, been a pensioner of the Spanish government, and appointed a committee of investigation. Judge Sebastian obligingly relieved this committee from the performance of some of its duties by promptly resigning when he

Vol. I-13.

learned that its report would be adverse to him and so he passed off the public stage.

And now comes upon the stage one of the master spirits of his time, a man destined to write his name broadly upon the political history of his country and to make Kentucky known wherever greatness and statesmanship are recognized and honored. Henry Clay had come to Kentucky at an early age from Hanover county, Virginia, where he was born April 12, 1777. He was the son of a Baptist minister of some local prominence, who died when his son was but five years old, leaving the future statesman and orator to the loving care of the mother who had a large family to rear and educate. Baptist ministers in those days, as in these, were not given to the accumulation of the world's goods. The mother was poor in all save those high attributes which have given to the world so many illustrious sons, and her family of children in after days, had occasion to recall with filial gratitude the sacrifices she had made in their behalf and the advantages she had given them from her slender store.

Henry Clay-great man that he was-was not greater than the good woman whom he honored himself by worshiping as his mother. He grew to manhood, inured to hardships; labored with his hands to eke out the scanty store at home, studied as opportunity came, laying firmly the foundations on which he afterwards erected the superstructure of his great public career. He was the friend of the people, the rich and the humble, the poor and the oppressed. He was a southerner to the manner born, yet was among the first of the statesmen of the country to advocate emancipation of the slaves, not only because it was right but because, with prophetic vision, he saw in the future the woes to flow from the curse of slavery. How fortunate for the country had his suggestions been adopted; what bloodshed averted; what bitter aftermath of the struggle which came so few years after his death would have been averted. Above all

else, Mr. Clay was a patriot; he gave his great talents for the benefit of the whole people, and was greater than any political party; broader than any political platform. He favored internal improvements because they would favorably affect for good the greatest number compared to the money expended; he was the father of what came to be known as the American System, which is but another name for a tariff upon foreign importations. In the days of Mr. Clay, men who favored the policy of protection were not commonly termed by the opponents of that policy, as "robbers" and "thieves." Perhaps men have grown less courteous as the years have passed.

Mr. Clay's legal education began when he was nineteen years old, when he took up his residence with the attorney general of Virginia, Robert Brooke, with whom he studied so assiduously that at the end of a year's devotion to the principles of the law, he obtained a license to practice law from the court of appeals of his native state. Notwithstanding this short period of time devoted to legal study, Mr. Clay was equal to the demands made upon him when he met in the courts men older in years and in the practice than himself. No man ever met Henry Clay at the bar, on the hustings or on the floor of the senate who did not recognize a foeman worthy of his steel.

When Mr. Clay came to Lexington, he was less than twenty-one years of age. He continued his studies, evidently recognizing that there was yet much for him to learn, but made no effort to engage in the practice of his profession. He was studying not only his books but the people among whom he had cast his lot and one of whom he was henceforth to be, the most distinguished of them all. At last, he went to the bar, with modesty and expecting no great success. The Lexington bar was then, as now, an able one, and the young Virginian, delicate in form and apparently not robust in health, had giants to encounter. He met them fairly and perhaps to his own sur

He

prise, successfully. He has said of himself, "that he immediately rushed into a lucrative practice." To follow Mr. Clay in his career is not the purpose of this work. Volume after volume has been written, telling in eloquent terms of the great successes and the great disappointments that came to him. appointments that came to him. Here only a passing reference can be made. When he came to Kentucky Lexington was a storm center of politics; the bitterness of the contest between the Republicanism of Mr. Jefferson and the Federalism of Hamilton was at its height. There was no such thing as neutrality in politics then. itics then. Had there been, it would not have appealed to the positive character of Mr. Clay. He found a place suited to his beliefs in the Republican, or Democratic party of Jefferson, as it had now come to be called. The senseless bitterness of partisan politics is shown in the fact that Mr. Clay's bitterest political enemies in later life, those who most rabidly reviled him, were members of that same Democratic party in which he had spent the earlier days of his young manhood. The sentence against the man who dares to think for himself and to vote as he honestly believes is "anathema. maranatha," a sentence usually declared by men who know not a principle of the party to which they belong and who represent only its prejudices.

In 1803 and again in 1806, Mr. Clay represented Fayette county in the state house of representatives, and here began his remarkable political career. political career. In 1806, when but twentynine years old, he was elected to serve out the unexpired term of General Adair in the United States senate. This term covered but a single session of the senate. Returning home after the adjournment of congress, he was a third time elected to represent Fayette county in the legislature. The people of Kentucky when next they are called upon to choose men to represent them at Frankfort would do well to consider the wise example set them by Fayette county more than a hundred years ago. They

the accomplished speaker of the national house of representatives. He continued as a member of the house until 1809, when he resigned and was a second time elected to the United States senate to fill out an unexpired term, Mr. Thruston, a senator from Kentucky, having resigned. This time, his term of service in the senate was for two years. During his term he took part in the discussion of the more important questions before the senate, the most notable of his speeches being that in which he favored giving the preference to home-grown and homemade articles in purchasing supplies for the army and navy. He was but laying the foun

the display of eloquence. Mr. Clay opposed the charter, but subsequently experienced a change of mind and in 1816 he favored the bank and remained afterward one of its ablest advocates. He was man enough to change his views when he found he was in error, and brave enough to defy all the powers arrayed against him, because of that change.

James Madison, at the expiration of Mr. Jefferson's term in 1809, succeeded him in the presidency. General Charles Scott was elected governor of Kentucky in 1808; Gabriel Slaughter, lieutenant governor, and Jesse Bledsoe was appointed secretary of state.

The foreign relations of the new republic were far from a satisfactory condition. Great Britain had never seemed to recognize that the United States had gone into business on their own account. The conduct of the former on the high seas had been particularly offensive and war seemed imminent. This was more than ever expected after the attack of the English frigate "Leopard" upon the United States man-of-war "Constitution." The survivors of The survivors of the Revolution were not yet old men in many instances, while their sons were at that fiery age which makes war welcome. No one doubted that war was to come; with true American spirit, no one doubted what the issue of that war would be. "We have whipped you once and can whip you again" said old and young America in unison, and each was ready to put the issue to the touch. There was little if any question as to what was to happen. The real question was as to when it was to happen.

While awaiting events in the discussion between the United States and Great Britain, the material interests of Kentucky were not permitted to languish.

In 1807, the Bank of Kentucky, with a capital of $1,000,000 was incorporated. In 1808, the limitation in acts of ejectment was reduced from twenty to seven years, where there was an adverse entry and actual residence. This act, as stated by Mr. Smith in his excellent history, was largely instrumental in quieting land litigation upon conflicting claims and had for its author Humphrey Marshall, one of the first historians of Kentucky. It is not improbable that the day may come when the people of the state may recognize the great services rendered them by its historians, who labor alone for the common good with no thought of the adequate financial compensation, which none of them has yet, or will ever receive.

In 1810 the census returns showed Kentucky to be the seventh state in the Union in

point of population, the latter numbering 406,511. Of these there were 324,237 whites; 80,567 slaves, and 1,717 free colored people. The general increase in the succeeding ten years had been eighty-four per cent; of slaves something more than ninety-nine per cent. This latter increase showed that the increase in population was largely from Virginia and accounts, in large part, for the affinity between the people of Kentucky and the Old Dominion.

In 1811, the Indians, incited by British officers, renewed activities and outrages upon the whites came to be of frequent occurrence. There was as has been stated, no longer a doubt that there was to be a renewal of hostilities between the people of the United States and Great Britain. The latter government still smarted under its defeat in the War of the Revolution and the loss of the fair colonies populated originally by Englishmen who had breathed the air of freedom in the new world and had learned to successfully defend their homes and families against the trained soldiers. of that land which they had once been proud to call their Fatherland. England sought to intimidate the new republic by turning loose upon it the savage hordes as they had brought the Hessians in the Revolution. But as the Hessians were not feared, neither were the Indians. In the early pioneer days, the people had met and conquered the savages and were ready and willing to meet and conquer them. again.

They went out to meet the Indians on their own chosen fields and gave them such lessons as were never forgotten. At Tippecanoe, in the then territory of Indiana, the white forces under General William Henry Harrison, one of the greatest of Indian fighters, met the savage forces under Tecumseh and his brother, The Prophet. Tecumseh was a born general, savage though he was. With education, coupled with his natural instincts as a soldier and commander, he would have been well nigh invincible. He knew the value of concen