ion in Congress had rendered the
Democratic element in Kentucky more determined, and inclined them more
strongly to take a Southern view of all the debated questions. The John
Brown affair exasperated her people in common with that of every other
slaveholding community, and led to the organization of the State-guard.

Created because of the strong belief that similar attempts would be
repeated, and upon a larger scale, and that, quite likely, Kentucky
would be selected as a field of operations, it is not surprising that
the State-guard should have expected an enemy only from the North,
whence, alone, would come the aggressions it was organized to resist,
and that it should have conceived a feeling of antagonism for the
Northern, and an instinctive sympathy for the Southern, people.

These sentiments were intensified by the language of the Northern press
and pulpit, and the commendation and encouragement of such enterprises
as the Harper's Ferry raid, which were to be heard throughout the North.

In the Presidential election of 1860, the Kentucky Democracy divided on
Douglas and Breckinridge, thereby losing the State. After the election
of Mr. Lincoln and the passage of ordinances of secession by several
Southern States, when the most important question which the people of
Kentucky had ever been required to determine, was presented for their
consideration, their sentiments and wishes were so various and
conflicting, as to render its decision by themselves impossible, and it
was finally settled for them by the Federal Government.

The Breckinridge wing of the Democracy was decidedly Southern in
feelings and opinions, and anxious to espouse the Southern cause.

The Douglas wing strongly sympathized with the South, but opposed
secession and disunion.

The Bell-Everett party, composed chiefly of old Clay Whigs, was
decidedly in favor of Union. Such was the attitude of parties, with
occasional individual exceptions. The very young men of the State were
generally intense Southern sympathizers, and were, with few exceptions,
connected with the State-guard. Indeed, divided as were the people of
Kentucky at that time, sympathy with the Southern people was prevalent
among all classes of them, and the conviction seemed to be strong, even
in the most determined opponents of secession, that an attack upon the
Southern people was an attack upon themselves. Among the Union men it
was common to hear such declarations as that "When