Her Governor Declared For Secession, And At
First Also Her Legislature Was Inclined To Follow The Governor.
But
no overt act of secession by the State was committed, and at last it
was decided that Kentucky should be declared to be loyal.
It was in
fact divided. Those on the southern border joined the
secessionists; whereas the greater portion of the State, containing
Frankfort, the capital, and the would-be secessionist governor, who
lived there, joined the North. Men in fact became Unionists or
secessionists not by their own conviction, but through the necessity
of their positions; and Kentucky, through the necessity of her
position, became one of the scenes of civil war.
I must confess that the difficulty of the position of the whole
country seems to me to have been under-estimated in England. In
common life it is not easy to arrange the circumstances of a divorce
between man and wife, all whose belongings and associations have for
many years been in common. Their children, their money, their
house, their friends, their secrets have been joint property, and
have formed bonds of union. But yet such quarrels may arise, such
mutual antipathy, such acerbity and even ill usage, that all who
know them admit that a separation is needed. So it is here in the
States. Free soil and slave soil could, while both were young and
unused to power, go on together - not without many jars and unhappy
bickerings, but they did go on together. But now they must part;
and how shall the parting be made?
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