r man's doxy."
Every candid man, who remembers the political status of Kentucky at that
period, will admit that the Union party propounded no definite and
positive creed, and that its leaders frequently gave formal expression
to views which strangely resembled the "damnable heresies of secession."
Indeed, the neglect of the seceding States to "consult Kentucky,"
previously to having gone out, seemed to be, in the eyes of these
gentlemen, not so much an aggravation of the crime of secession, as, in
itself, a crime infinitely graver. There were many who would condemn
secession, and in the same breath indicate the propriety of
"co-operation." These subtle distinctions, satisfactory, doubtless, to
the intellects which generated them, were not aptly received by common
minds, and their promulgation induced, perhaps very unjustly, a very
general belief that the Union party was actuated not more by a love of
the Union, than by a salutary regard for personal security and comfort.
It seemed that the crime was not in "breaking up the Union," but in
going about it in the wrong way.

The people of Kentucky heard, it is true, from these leaders indignant
and patriotic denunciations of "secession," and, yet, they could listen
to suggestions amounting almost to advocacy, from the same lips, of
"central confederacies" or "co-operations."

Is it surprising, then, that no very holy horror of disunion should have
prevailed in Kentucky?

But any inclination to tax these gentlemen with inconsistency should be
checked by the reflection that they were surrounded by peculiar
circumstances. It appeared to be by no means certain, just then, that an
attempt would be made to coerce the seceding States, or that the
Southern Confederacy would not be established without a war. In that
event, Kentucky would have glided naturally and certainly into it, and
Kentucky politicians who had approved coercion, would have felt
uncomfortable as Confederate citizens. The leaders of the Union party
were men of fine ability, but they were not endowed with prescience, nor
could they in the political chaos then ruling, instinctively detect the
strong side. Let it be remembered that, just so soon as they discerned
it, they enthusiastically embraced it and clave to it, with a few
immaterial oscillations, through much tribulation. As was explained by
one of the most distinguished among them (in the United States Senate),
it was necessary to "educate the people of Ken