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257 12 The Politics of Slavery Opponents of slavery outside Kentucky noticed that the commonwealth had the strongest antislavery movement of any of the slave states, and many hoped that Kentucky would set an example and be the first slave state to abolish slavery. Most Kentuckians agreed with Henry Clay that slavery was evil, but they also agreed with him that it was necessary for public safety— it was an evil necessity. The watershed in the consideration of emancipation as a political issue came with the state constitutional convention in 1849, when antislavery advocates hoped the slaves might be freed. Henry Clay encouraged this when he published a public letter meant to influence the convention. He wrote that Kentucky enjoyed “high respect and honorable consideration” throughout the nation and the world but that none of Kentucky’s past glory would equal the achievement of being “the Pioneer State” in abolishing slavery. But the voters elected a proslavery convention, and the members wrote one of the most proslavery state constitutions in the nation. The constitution used strong language to protect the rights of slave owners; it made the right to own slaves “inviolable,” declared that a majority in the General Assembly had no right to infringe on the “lives, liberty, and property of freemen,” and proclaimed that the right to own slaves was “higher than any constitutional sanction.” Debate continued, but, after the new constitution was ratified in 1850, Kentuckians seemed more committed to slavery than ever—nearly every candidate campaigning for election portrayed himself as a friend of slavery.1 One of the strongest early opponents of slavery in Kentucky was Presbyterian minister David Rice, a man of courage and dignity who came to Kentucky from Virginia in 1783 with his wife and eleven children in response to a request by about three hundred Presbyterian settlers that he organize 258 KENTUCKY RISING churches in their frontier communities. He was an effective organizer and a brave man, well ahead of his time on the slavery issue. He preached that slavery was evil and in 1792 published the important pamphlet Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy.2 That year, he was elected as a delegate to the Danville convention that wrote the first state constitution, and on the floor he said: “We now have it in our power to adopt [slavery] as our national crime; or to bear a national testimony against it. I hope the latter will be our choice; that we shall wash our hands of this guilt; and not leave it in the power of a future legislature, ever more to stain our reputation or our conscience with it.”3 Kentucky appeared not well-suited geographically to the types of agriculture that required slaves, but slave owners came and established mostly small farms; by 1790, Kentucky had 11,830 slaves, 16.2 percent of the population of 73,077. In 1792, 22.8 percent of the white families owned slaves, and the average number per household was 4.32. At the 1792 constitutional convention, David Rice advocated the inclusion of emancipation and a prohibition on slave importation and argued that “a slave is a standing monument of the tyranny and inconsistency of human governments.” But Rice’s words failed to sway his audience. Ninety percent of the convention delegates were slave owners, and the issue forced the only roll-call vote of the entire meeting. Rice’s measure was defeated by a close twenty-six to sixteen vote.4 This initial debate over slavery is illustrative of the course the issue would take in Kentucky through the coming years. While a vocal minority would express opposition to African American slavery, the majority of Kentuckians would hold fast to an institution that benefited the minority of slave owners. Necessary-evil theorists recognized the inherent contradictions between the promotion by the United States of the natural rights of life, liberty, and property for all citizens and the holding of a significant portion of that population in bondage. They agreed that slavery was evil, but they warned that immediate emancipation would lead to anarchy, threaten the lives and property of both blacks and whites, and result in the destruction of liberty for whites. As historian Harold Tallant wrote: “Accordingly, the Negro’s right to liberty must be temporarily sacrificed in order to safeguard the Caucasian ’s right to self-preservation.”5 Slavery would have to die a slow death, and economic forces would lead to its...

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