ALBERT T. BLEDSOE
Albert Taylor Bledsoe, controversialist, was born at Frankfort, Kentucky, November 9, 1809, the son of a journalist. He was appointed from Kentucky to West Point and was graduated in 1830, after which he served in the army in Indian territory until the last day of August, 1832, when he resigned to enter upon the study of law. A year later Bledsoe abandoned law to become a tutor in Kenyon College, Ohio, where he later studied theology and was ordained a clergyman in the Protestant Episcopal church. He was connected with various Ohio churches from 1835 to 1838, but in the latter year he quit the ministry to resume his legal studies and he removed to Springfield, Illinois, where he formed a partnership with the afterwards celebrated statesman and soldier, Colonel Edward D. Baker. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were practicing law in Springfield at this time, and Bledsoe knew both of them intimately; but because of his subsequent connection with the Southern Confederacy none of the biographies of these men mention him. For the following ten years Bledsoe practiced his profession at Springfield and Washington, D. C.
His first book, _An Examination of Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will_ (Philadelphia, 1845), showed that his interest in theological subjects had not waned. In 1848 Bledsoe was elected professor of mathematics in the University of Mississippi, which position he held for the ensuing six years. His next volume, _A Theodicy, or Vindication of the Divine Glory_ (New York, 1853), gave him a place among theologians. In 1854 Dr. Bledsoe was elected to the chair of mathematics in the University of Virginia, and this he occupied until 1861. While at the University he published _An Essay on Liberty and Slavery_ (Philadelphia, 1856), which anticipated his subsequent action of entering the Confederate army, which he did in 1861, and he was commissioned as a colonel. Dr. Bledsoe was speedily made assistant secretary of war, but this work proved most uncongenial, and he gladly accepted the joint invitation of Davis and Lee to run the blockade, in 1863, and go to England to gather materials for a constitutional argument on the right of secession. He spent three years in London and upon his return to the United States, in February, 1866, he brought his vast researches together in his best known work, _Is Davis a Traitor? or was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861?_ (Baltimore, 1866). Dr. Bledsoe now took up his residence at Baltimore, and some months later he became editor of a quarterly periodical, _The Southern Review_, which he conducted for the final years of his life. In 1868 he added the principalship of a Baltimore school to his burdens; and in the same year his last volume appeared, _The Philosophy of Mathematics_ (Philadelphia, 1868). In 1871 Dr. Bledsoe was ordained a minister in the Methodist church, and his _Review_ became the recognized organ of his church. He died at Alexandria, Virginia, December 8, 1877. Dr.
Bledsoe was always a student and scholar, but he was essentially a controversialist, often bitter in his statements, but time has mellowed much of this, and he now stands forth as a very remarkable man. Consider him from a dozen angles, and one will not find his like in the whole range of American history.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i); _Library of Southern Literature_, sketch by his daughter, Mrs. Sophie Herrick (Atlanta, 1909, v. i).
SEVEN CRISES CAUSED THE CIVIL WAR
[From _The Southern Review_ (Baltimore, April, 1867)]
This history consists of seven great crises. The first of these convulsed the Union, and threatened its dissolution before the new Constitution was formed, or conceived. For how little soever its history may be known, the North and the South, like Jacob and Esau, struggled together, and that, too, with almost fatal desperation, in the womb of the old Union. Slavery had nothing at all to do with that struggle between the North and the South, the _dramatis personae_ in the tragedy of 1861. It was solely and simply a contest for power.
The second crisis was the formation and adoption of the new Constitution. Much has been said about that event, as the most wonderful revolution in the history of the world; because the government of a great people was then radically changed by purely peaceable means, and without shedding a drop of blood. But if that was a bloodless revolution in itself, no one, who has maturely considered it in all its bearings, can deny that it was, in the end, the occasion of the most sanguinary strife in the annals of a fallen world.
The revolution of 1801, by which the radical notions and doctrines of the infidel philosophers of the eighteenth century gained the ascendency in this country, never more to abate in their onward march, constituted the third great crisis in the political history of the United States. In passing through this crisis, the Republic of 1787 became in practice the Democracy of the following generation; and, finally, the rabid radicalism of 1861. It was then that the democratic, or predominant, element in the Republic, began to swallow up the others, and so became the most odious of all the forms of absolute power or despotism. It was then that the reign of "King Demos," the unchecked and the unlimited power of mere numbers, was inaugurated, and his throne established on the ruins of American freedom. But, while history will show this, it will also administer the consoling reflection, that American freedom was doomed, from the first, by the operation of other causes, and that the revolution of 1801 only precipitated its fall. If so, then the sooner its fall the better for the world; as in that case its destruction would involve a smaller portion of the human family in its ruins.
The desperate struggle of 1820-21, between the North and the South, relative to the admission of Missouri into the Union; the equally fierce contest respecting the Tariff in 1832-33; the Mexican War, and the acquisition of vast territory, by the dismemberment of a foreign empire, which led to the most violent and angry of all the quarrels between the two sections; constitute the fourth, fifth and sixth crises in the stormy history of the United Sections. The seventh and last great crisis, grew out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the rise of the Republican party, as it is called; and consisted in the secession of the Southern States, and the war of coercion. Each of these seven crises had, of course, its prelude and its sequel, without which it cannot be comprehended, or seen how it followed the preceding, and how it led to the succeeding crises in the chain of events. Now some of these crises are most imperfectly understood by the public, and, in some respects, most perfectly misunderstood, such as the first two for example; others, and especially the fourth, or the great Compromise of 1820, are overlaid with a mass of lying traditions such as the world has seldom seen; traditions invented by politicians, and industriously propagated by the press and the pulpit. If these traditions were cleared away, and the facts which lie beneath them in the silent records of the country brought to view, the revelation would be sufficient to teach both sections of the Union the profoundest lessons of humiliation and sorrow. If patiently and properly studied, the history of the United States is, perhaps, fraught with as many valuable lessons for the warning and instruction of mankind, as that of any other age or nation since the fall of Rome, since the Flood, or since the fall of man.
RICHARD H. MENEFEE
Richard Hickman Menefee, who with Henry Clay and Thomas F. Marshall form the great triumvirate of early Kentucky orators, was born at Owingsville, Kentucky, December 4, 1809. He was educated at Transylvania University, and graduated from the law school of that institution in 1832. He practiced his profession at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, for several years, when, in 1836, he was elected to the Kentucky legislature. In the legislature he won a wide reputation as an orator, and rapidly became known as the most gifted man of his age in Kentucky. In the summer of 1837 Menefee made the race for Congress and, after an exciting campaign, it was found that he had defeated his opponent, Judge Richard French. In the lower House of Congress Menefee and Sargeant S. Prentiss of Mississippi were the two young men that compelled the country's attention and admiration as orators. In 1838 William J. Graves, a Kentucky member of the House, killed Jonathan Cilley, representative from a Maine district, and the friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, in a duel near Washington City. Menefee was one of Graves's seconds. This affair of honor was so bitterly condemned on all sides that Congress was compelled to enact the anti-duelling law.
In July, 1838, the people of Boston tendered Daniel Webster a great home-coming banquet, in Faneuil Hall, and Menefee responded very eloquently to a toast to Kentucky. One more session of Congress and he returned to Kentucky, entering upon the practice of law at Lexington, where cases pressed fast upon him. He met Henry Clay in the great Rogers will case of 1840, and Clay got the jury's verdict. Cassius M.
Clay placed Menefee in nomination for the United States Senate in the Kentucky legislature of 1841, but his ill-health made his election a hazardous action. A short time before his death he drew up the mature reflections of his life, in the form of a diary, and this, only recently published, has added to his fame. Menefee died at Lexington, Kentucky, February 20, 1841. Thomas P. Marshall pronounced an eulogy upon him which has taken its rightful place among the masterpieces of American oratory; and in 1869 a Kentucky county was carved out of several other counties and named in his honor. While he was not a constructive statesman, Menefee's fame as an orator seems to grow greater with the passing of the years.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Speeches and Writings of Thomas F. Marshall_, by W.
L. Barre (Cincinnati, 1858); _Richard Hickman Menefee_, by John Wilson Townsend (New York, 1907).
KENTUCKY: A TOAST
[From _Richard Hickman Menefee_, by John Wilson Townsend (New York, 1907)]
MR. CHAIRMAN:
I cannot remain silent under the sentiment which has just been announced and so enthusiastically received. That sentiment relates not to myself but to Kentucky--dearer to me than self. Of Kentucky I have nothing to say. There she is. In her history, from the period when first penetrated by the white man as the _dark and bloody ground_, down to the present, she speaks. The character to which that history entitles her is before the world. She is proud of it. She is proud of the past; she is proud of the present. And her pride is patriotic and just. As one of her sons, I ask to express in her name, the acknowledgments due to the complimentary notice you have taken of her, a notice not the less complimentary from its association with the name of Massachusetts.
There is much in the character and history of Massachusetts which should bind her in the strongest bonds to Kentucky. Your sentiment places them together: just where they ought to be. Kentucky is willing to occupy the place you have assigned her. Without respect now to subordinate differences in past events, both States stand knit together by the highest and strongest motives by which States can be impelled. I mean the motive and purpose common to each of maintaining and upholding, in every extremity and to the very last, the Union of these States and the Constitution. Massachusetts has proclaimed over and over again her resolution not to survive them. Nor will Kentucky survive them. She has embarked her whole destiny--all she has and all she hopes for--in the Union and the Constitution. Let come what may of public calamity, of faction, of sectional seduction or intimidation, or evil in any form the most dreadful to man, Kentucky, like Massachusetts, regards the overthrow of the Union as more frightful than all. Kentucky acknowledges no justification for a disruption of the Union that is not a justification for revolution itself. In that Union, and under that Constitution, Kentucky means to stand or fall. Kentucky stands by the Union in her living efforts; she means to hold fast to it in her expiring groans. With Massachusetts she means to perish, if perish she must, with hands clenched, in death, upon the Union.
If the occasion allowed it, I should like to say something of old Massachusetts. I should like to rekindle my own patriotism at her altars. Here--on this very spot--in this very hall--the sacred flame of revolutionary liberty first ascended. Here it has ever ascended. It has never been smothered--never dimmed. Perpetual--clear--holy! Behold its inspirations here in your midst! Where are the doctrines of the Union and the Constitution so incessantly inculcated as here? Where are those doctrines so enthusiastically adopted as here? The principles of the Union and the Constitution--for us another name for the principles of liberty which cannot survive their overthrow--will, in after ages, trace with delight their lineage through you. The blood of freedom is here pure. To be allied to it is to be ennobled.
_Massachusetts!_ Which of her multitude of virtues shall I commend?
How can I discriminate? I will not attempt it. I take her as she is and all together--I give--_Old Massachusetts!_ God bless her!
GEORGE W. CUTTER
George Washington Cutter, one of Kentucky's finest poets, was born in Massachusetts about 1809, but he early came to Covington, Kentucky, and entered upon the practice of his profession, the law. He commanded a company of Kentuckians in the Mexican War with great honor to himself and to them. He had been a constant contributor of verse to the periodicals of his time, but he did not publish his first book until after the war with Mexico. _Buena Vista and Other Poems_ (Cincinnati, 1848) was his first collection, and it contained a preface signed from Covington, Kentucky, December, 1847. From this it will be seen that Cutter returned to Kentucky after the war, and that he was living in this State at the time of his book's appearance. Tradition has said that he wrote the title-poem, _Buena Vista_, a spirited war ballad, on the field of action immediately after the battle. His little volume contained thirty-seven poems, including _The Song of Steam_, which has been singled out by critics as his masterpiece, an ode to Henry Clay, his political idol, and his fine descriptive poem, _The Creation of Woman_. This, to the present writer, is the most exquisite thing Cutter did in verse. It is highly and consistently poetical, and it should be better appreciated than it has been. Cutter was married to Mrs. Frances Ann Drake, a famous Kentucky actress, but they were not happy and a separation by mutual agreement subsequently followed. Mrs. Cutter was the widow of Alexander Drake, of the well-known family of that name, and after parting with the poet she resumed her first husband's name, returned to the stage, and managed theatres in Kentucky and Ohio until her death in Oldham county, Kentucky, September 1, 1875. Cutter later removed to Indiana and was a member of the State legislature, after which service he removed to Washington City to accept a government position. In Washington Cutter continued his poetical output, life in the capital turning his attention to patriotic subjects. _Poems, National and Patriotic_ (Philadelphia, 1857) proved the author to be, for the critics of his time, "the most intensely patriotic poet we have." This volume contained sixty-nine of what he regarded as his best poems. _The Song of Steam and Other Poems_ also appeared in this same year of 1857, and it contained one of the poet's finest efforts, _The Song of the Lightning_. Cutter died at Washington, D. C., December 24, 1865.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, by W. T.
Coggeshall (Columbus, 1860); Adams's _Dictionary of American Authors_ (Boston, 1905).
THE SONG OF STEAM
[From _Buena Vista and Other Poems_ (Cincinnati, 1848)]
Harness me down with your iron bands, Be sure of your curb and rein; For I scorn the power of your puny hands As the tempest scorns a chain.
How I laughed as I lay concealed from sight, For many a countless hour, At the childish boast of human might, And the pride of human power.
When I saw an army upon the land, A navy upon the seas, Creeping along, a snail-like band, Or waiting the wayward breeze; When I marked the peasant faintly reel With the toil which he daily bore, As he feebly turned the tardy wheel, Or tugged at the weary oar;--
When I measured the panting courser's speed, The flight of the courier dove-- As they bore the law a king decreed, Or the lines of impatient love-- I could not but think how the world would feel, As these were outstripp'd afar, When I should be bound to the rushing keel, Or chained to the flying car.
Ha! ha! ha! they found me at last, They invited me forth at length, And I rushed to my throne with a thunder-blast, And I laughed in my iron strength.
Oh! then ye saw a wondrous change On the earth and the ocean wide, Where now my fiery armies range, Nor wait for wind or tide.
Hurrah! hurrah! the waters o'er, The mountain's steep decline, Time--space--have yielded to my power-- The world! the world is mine!
The rivers, the sun hath earliest blest, Or those where his beams decline; The giant streams of the queenly west, Or the orient floods divine:
The ocean pales where'er I sweep, To hear my strength rejoice, And the monsters of the briny deep Cower, trembling, at my voice.
I carry the wealth and the lord of earth, The thoughts of his god-like mind, The wind lags after my flying forth, The lightning is left behind.
In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine, My tireless arm doth play, Where the rocks never saw the sun decline, Or the dawn of the glorious day.
I bring earth's glittering jewels up From the hidden cave below, And I make the fountain's granite cup With a crystal gush o'erflow.
I blow the bellows, I forge the steel, In all the shops of trade; I hammer the ore and turn the wheel, Where my arms of strength are made; I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint; I carry, I spin, I weave; And all my doings I put into print, On every Saturday eve.
I've no muscle to weary, no breast to decay, No bones to be "laid on the shelf,"
And soon I intend you may "go and play,"
While I manage this world myself.
But harness me down with your iron bands, Be sure of your curb and rein; For I scorn the strength of your puny hands, As the tempest scorns a chain.