The Jacksonian epoch

Chapter I

Florida and Jackson's Seminole Campaign — The Attempt to Censure the General for his Conduct in the War — The Beginning of the Feud between him and Clay — The Relation of Clay and Jackson to the Ensuing Political Period — Clay's Early History, to his Election as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1811 — The New Political Conditions of the Country Page 1

Chapter II

Maritime Aggressions of England and France — The Restrictive System — Clay as Speaker of the House — Preparations for War — Madison Accepts Clay's Programme and is Re-elected — The Embargo and the Declaration of War against England — The Political Aspect of the War — Clay's Reply to Quincy— The Treaty of Ghent— The Effect of the War— The Bank of the United States — Clay's Change of Opinion in Regard to it — The Tariff of 1816— The Policy of Internal Improvements, Madison's Veto, and Monroe's Hostile Position — Clay Opposes Monroe's Administration — He Advocates Internal Improvements and the Recognition of the South American Republics 46

Chapter III

Clay's Political Position — The Missouri Compromise, the Statesmanship of It, and Clay's Agency in Effecting It — He Renews his Efforts for the Recognition of the South American Republics, and Finally Succeeds — He Temporarily Retires, but Returns to the House at the Opening of the Eighteenth Congress — He Defeats a Bill to Pension Commodore Perry's Mother, and Advocates Internal Improvements and Webster's Resolution Concerning the Recognition of Greece — The Monroe Doctrine — The Tariff of 1824 and Clay's Relation to Protection— The Political Situation in 1824 — William H. Crawford — John Quincy Adam c :

i CONTENTS

Elected President by the House Through Clay's Influence, and Clay becomes Secretary of State— Clay's Administration of the State Department — The Panama Mission — John Randolph — His Duel with Clay — Adams and his Administration — Jackson is Elected over Adams in 1838— Clay's Home, Family, Personal Appearance, Temperament, and Mind Page 79

Chapter IV

The New Development and Arrangement of Political Forces — Andrew Jacksou, and the Significance of his Political Rise — His First Administration — The Spoils System — The "Kitchen Cabinet" — Party Dissension and Reorganization of the Cabinet — The Political Issues — Clay J Nominated for President and Re-elected to the Senate — The Political Activity of the Period — The Whig Programme — The Rejection of Van Buren's Nomination for Minister to England — Clay's Plan of Tariff Revision — His Defence of the American System — The Tariff of 1832— The Public Lands — The Effort to Compromise Clay on the Subject — His Land Bill . . 123

Chapter V

The Controversy over the Bank of the United States— Thomas H. Benton —The Whig Leaders Refuse to Compromise with Jackson on the Question of Rechartering the Bank — The Bank as a Political Issue — The Veto of the Bill to Recharter— The Error of the Whig Policy— The Debate on the Veto — The Presidential Campaign of 1832 — Jackson's Triumph — Nullification — The Force Bill and the Verplanck Tariff Bill — John C. Calhoun — Clay's Compromise Bill — It is Substituted for the Verplanck Bill in the House and Passed by the Senate — The Compromise Bill and the Force Bill become Laws, and South Carolina Repeals the Nullification Ordinance — The Wisdom of the Compromise and Clay's Responsibility for it — His Land Bill is Passed by both Houses, but Vetoed by the President 167

Chapter VI

Clay and Jackson make Northern Tours— The Removal of the Deposits — Tactics of the Whigs in the Senate — Clay's Resolutions Censuring the President and the Secretary of the Treasury— The Debate — The Anti- Bank Resolutions of the House — The Distress Petitions — Jackson's Protest against the Censure and the Subsequent Proceedings — Taney's Nomination for Secretary of the Treasury Rejected— Other Phases of the Bank Struggle — Coinage Legislation — The Land Bill — The Deposits Bill — The French Spoliations— The Cherokee Indians — The Four Years Law and the Spoils System 215

Chapter VII

1 -, -• f thP Surolus-The French Spoliations-The Slavery Ques- .ribution of the burpius me * J Publications— Admission

tion-The Abolition Petitions ^d IncendKuy £^ Death

, of Arkansas and Michigan into the Union-Texas £ and Chavacter-Tbe Colon « ( S ^^iSon of 1836 Becomes Chief Justice-The Political Si nation The * £_ -Politico-Finance-Jackson's Physica .and Menta J J ra1 ^ Tbe

Farther Distribution-The Financial Condition of the Count y Mania for Speculation-The Specie Circular 8

CHAPTER VIII ••■ nf TpvL- The Mexican Claims -International Copy

rbe i togj-JSi Resolution to Expunge the Senate's Censure

of as nf o^ the Removal of the Deposit- The *£»*£»»£

The Debate-Clay's ^^^^L^SiS^SSSS^

^Iso^rS^ "

CHAPTER IX VM Buret* It«e «. -£ jMjJ j^S^lS.^

Webster's Speech ^f^^Ti^ the President's Mesto the President-Tlte tx-i a session u *• . , Opposition,

sage, and the ^^^^2-2^^ Debate on SX'^i. Over the Slavery Qnestion-Oah

houn's Attitude

Chapter X

The Debate on Calhoun's Slavery Resolution. £<*£«*g^ Independent Treasury again ^^^^^^ W& let Speech The Doctrine of Instructions— The Subsidiar) ooiu j Nortbe m

on the Slavery Question and Calhoun's Commen *-^g£E Tour-The Obstacles to Hte Nominauon-T he ^ S National

tion-Harrison and Tyler Nominated - Clay 8 Disgust a 4 ^

cence

CHAPTER XI i t> iu; M i Situation— Organization of the House— The

Slavery and International Law — The Demociauc ^u

V1I1 cdpr^.'Tg

I

Harmon and S^SlSStS. f .he VUg Pmy _ m , I

Death -toSSSSf R T e, , ati0 " S B ""-» CV-aT^ ? e Chm 4

Chapter I

Florida and Jackson's Seminole Campaign— The Attempt to Censure the General for his Conduct in the War— The Beginning of the Feud between him and Clay— The Relation of Clay and Jackson to the Ensuing Political Period — Clay's Early History, to his Election as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1811— The New Political Conditions of the Country

Florida had long beeu a prolific cause of trouble. It was the abode of outlaws, hostile Indians, and runaway slaves, constantly increasing in number. During the war with England they had acted, to whatever extent they could, with the British, who left in their possession a fortification on the Appalachicola, known as Negro Fort, containing a large quantity of arms and military stores. It was the source of serious mischief to the adjoining frontier, and particularly to the Georgia slave-owners. In the summer of 1816 our "^troops, under General Gaines, with the consent of the Spanish authorities at Pensacola, invested the fort and destroyed it. But the condition which had permitted this annoyance still continued, and would continue so long as Spain owned the territory and was unwilling or unable to perform the duties of sovereignty as well as her treaty obligations. The next year after the destruction of Negro Fort the government took similar measures to abate a still greater nuisance 1

— the occupation of Amelia Island, off the northeast coast of Florida, by pirates, smugglers, and slaves who had overpowered the Spanish garrison stationed there and made it their depot and retreat. Meantime, affrays between the Indians and whites quite as lawless became more frequent, and culminated in an attack by General Gaines and his forces upon the Creeks at Fowltown. Their village was sacked and a few reds were killed. This trivial affair was the beginning of an Indian war which proved to be the origin of a vastly greater political war.

General Jackson was forthwith ordered to the scene. His victory at New Orleans had made him the foremost captain of the country. He had since commanded the Western Department. Pie had experience in Indian warfare, having won his first military reputation in the Creek war of 1814. He was in cordial relations with the administration. That he should be put in command was a natural consequence. With his characteristic vigor, and assuming authority in disregard of his orders to draw upon State militia in the mode prescribed by law, he raised a body of volunteers, appointed their officers, and pushed with celerity to the Florida frontier. The campaign which followed was all that such preliminaries promised.

With a force of eighteen hundred he plunged into Florida, where he was soon afterward joined by a brigade of friendly Indians. Before this array the enemy vanished into the swamps and forests, leaving only their wretched villages to be destroyed. Not more than sixty of the hostile Indians, who did not number more than a thousand, were killed during the campaign, and these without the loss of a single white soldier. The chiefs were captured by displaying the English flag, and hanged. But for Jackson to execute his

Ch. I.J THE FLORIDA WAR 3

orders to pursue and subdue the Indians was not enough. On the supposition that the Spaniards were in complicity with the Indians, he seized St. Mark's and Pensacola, and placed in each an American garrison. The Spanish governor had fled from Pensacola and taken refuge in the fort at Barrancas. This place Jackson bombarded into surrender. He then transported the Spanish officers to Havana, and established a military government.

Among the numerous arbitrary acts of this unique campaign was the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, destined to more conspicuous historical note than any other. The former was an old Scotch trader found at St. Mark's ; the latter was a young Englishman taken in one of the Indian towns. Both were tried by court-martial. Arbuthnot was convicted of exciting the Creeks to war and of supplying them with means. He was sentenced to be hanged. Ambrister was convicted of supplying means and leading the lower Creeks. He was sentenced to be shot. For some reason, Ambrister's sentence was reconsidered by the court, and changed to flogging and imprisonment. This, however, Jackson disapproved, and restored the original sentence. Both men were then executed.

Jackson announced that the war was ended, and returned to Nashville. But, upon reflection, he ordered General Gaines to take St. Augustine. This order, if executed, would have completed the conquest of the Floridas. It was sent to the "War Department, which by this time had full cognizance of Jackson's proceedings. The Spanish Minister was also apprised, and was already protesting vehemently. The administration was in a predicament. Jackson had grossly exceeded our national rights as well as his instructions. Unless his acts were disavowed the pending negotiations with Spain would be frustrated ; and to secure the peaceable cession of the Floridas was, without doubt, the preferable policy. There was plainly but one course to pursue, and that was immediately taken. Jackson's order to Gaines was quickly countermanded. The posts Jackson seized were restored, and the provisional government he had set up was withdrawn.

But Jackson himself was too popular to admit of his being censured by the administration. As so often happens with political administrations, it said one thing and did another. But this course was adopted only after a struggle in the Cabinet. Calhoun, Secretary of War, and Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, were for censure. Adams, Secretary of State, alone defended the General. The discussion was finally allayed, so far as appearances were concerned, by disavowing in fact what was verbally approved as having been necessary under the circumstances. However bold and arbitrary Jackson's conduct had been, no one supposed that he had been influenced by any other motive than to suppress the frontier troubles, both Indian and Spanish, unless, perhaps, to distinguish himself. The mass of the people believed, with Adams, that Jackson had done the right thing, though possibly in the wrong way. But the politicians with Presidential aspirations were alarmed, professedly for the institutions and character of their country, but really because of Jackson's threatening popularity.

As soon as Congress convened, the subject of the Seminole campaign was taken up. In due time committee reports were made condemning Jackson's operations. In the Senate nothing further was done ; but in the House a violent and protracted debate ensued. In this debate

Oh. I.] CLAY'S SPEECH 5

Henry Clay was the principal figure. " But," says Adams, in bis Diary, "of that mighty controversy he was no longer the primary leader. lie had ranged himself under the Crawford banners." The debate began January 1G, 1819, and lasted until February 8th. Thirty-three set speeches were delivered, twenty of them being against the proposed resolutions of censure. One of the resolutions expressed disapproval of the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and the others proposed legislation to prevent like acts in the future. Clay spoke twice. His first speech was on January 17th. The second was at the close of the debate, and was not reported.

The whole debate is disappointing. It is no great compliment to Clay to say that his speech was the strongest and most striking of the debate, no small part of which was bad declamation. He disclaimed all personal unfriendliness either to General Jackson or to the administration. " Toward that distinguished captain," said he, " who shed so much glory on our country, whose renown constitutes so great a portion of its moral property, I never had, I never can have, any other feelings than those of profound respect and of the utmost kindness. . . . Rather than throw obstructions in the way of the President, I would precede him and pick out those, if I could, which might jostle him in his progress ; I would s}^mpathize with him in his embarrassments, and commiserate with him in his misfortunes." To neutralize the effect he had produced in his previous hostility to the administration, he assured the House, with great show of candor but with, poor prophecy, that he had not engaged and would not engage in systematic opposition to Monroe, nor to the administration of any other Chief Magistrate. " I will say," he added, " that I approve entirely of the conduct of our government, and that Spain has no just cause of complaint. We having violated no important stipulation of the treaty of 1796, that power has justly subjected herself to all the consequences which ensued upon the entry into her dominions."

He sought the origin of the war, by a far-fetched argument based on imperfect acquaintance with the facts, in the treaty of Fort Jackson, concluded in August, 1814, by which the Creeks were subjected to grinding conditions. This treaty he posted as tyrannical and unconscionable, extorted by the sword. He contended that it served "but to whet and stimulate revenge, and give old hostilities, smothered, not extinguished, by the pretended peace, a greater exasperation and more ferocity. A truce thus patched up with an unfortunate people without means of existence, without bread, is no real peace. The instant there is the slightest prospect of relief from such harsh and severe conditions, the conquered party will fly to arms and spend the last drop of blood rather than live in such degraded bondage." He arraigned the capture of the Indian chiefs " b}^ means of deception — hoisting foreign colors on the staff from which the stars and stripes alone should have floated," and stigmatized as barbaric the retaliation for enormities that the Indians had perpetrated. He examined at length the proceedings under which Arbuthnot and Ambrister were executed, and pronounced the whole transaction to be in flagrant violation of civilized law and principle. He denounced the seizure of St. Mark's, Pensacola, and Barrancas as unauthorized war against Spain, and hence a lawless usurpation of the constitutional powers of Congress. But notwithstanding the severity of his strictures upon the General's acts, he attributed to him no improper motives.

Ch. I.] CLAY'S SPEECH 7

" I must cheerfully and entirely," said he, " acquit General Jackson of any intention to violate the laws of the country or the obligations of humanity. I am persuaded from all I. have heard that he considered himself as equally respecting and observing both." And again : " I hope not to be misunderstood ; I am far from intimating that General Jackson cherished any designs inimical to the liberty of the country. I believe his intentions to be pure and patriotic." Yet his peroration was as intense as though Jackson had been engaged in conspiracy and treason.

" Against the alarming doctrine of unlimited discretion in our military commanders, when applied even to prisoners of war, I must enter my protest. It begins upon them ; it will end on us. . . . "We are fighting a great moral battle for the benefit not only of our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the whole world are in fixed attention upon us. One, the largest portion of it, is gazing with contempt, with jealousy, and with envy; the other portion, with hope, with confidence, and with affection. Everywhere the black cloud of legitimacy is suspended over the world, save only one bright spot which breaks out from the political hemisphere of the West to enlighten and animate and gladden the human heart. Obscure that by the downfall of liberty here, and all mankind are enshrouded in a pall of universal darkness. . . . Beware how you forfeit this exalted character. Beware how you give a fatal sanction in this infant period of our republic, scarcely yet two score years old, to military insubordination. Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Caesar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte ; and that if we escape the rock on which they split we must avoid their errors. ... I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful isthmus

I on which we stand. They may bear down all opposition ; they may even vote the General the public thanks. But if they do, in my humble judgment, it will be a triumph of the principle of insubordination — a triumph of the military over the civil authority — a triumph over the powers of this House — a triumph over the Constitution of the land. And I pray most devoutly to Heaven that it may not prove in its ultimate effects and consequences a triumph over the liberties of the people."

The resolutions decisively failed. The sum of the General's acts was advantageous to the country ; and whatever they were, they were the acts of the " Hero of New Orleans." However correct it may have been to class the Seminoles within the pale of international law, to the mass of the people they were but a horde of blood-thirsty savages, to be exterminated by any means that offered. Likewise, the effort to convict Jackson of murder by the principles of Vattel seemed to most minds absurdly technical. Even though Arbuthnot and Ambrister were irregularly executed, the suspicious circumstances attending their capture among the red-skins in the wilds of Florida placed them in a precarious position ; and this view was subsequently taken by the British government. As not even Jackson's fiercest assailants questioned that he acted, however rashly, as he thought was best and for the public good, a justification sufficient for all practical purposes was conceded. During the debate Jackson was in "Washington ; but immediately afterward he visited Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, and was received with ovations. The attack was ill-advised. It proved the most calamitous and far-reaching of Clay's political mistakes. " The rage and disgust of the General," says Parton, "when he read the speech, were extreme.

Cn. I.] THE FEUD 9

The long feud between General Jackson and Mr. Clay dated from the delivery of this speech. Jackson never hated any man so bitterly and so long as he hated Henry Clay."

Such was the origin of the most remarkable contest in our political history. It was the combat of two masterful personalities aided by conditions which had been long maturing. The character and quality of both men had been trained and tried, and through individuality and circumstance they were soon to lead opposing political forces. Clay had been longer in the public eye. His career was solely civic, while Jackson's reputation was solely military. To appreciate the struggle waged under their leadership, it is necessary to understand the respective positions in which they stood in the popular mind when the struggle began ; and to do this requires that their previous history should be sketched. We must know the men before we can fully comprehend the events they moulded. Adequate biographies of such men cannot be written; their lives are components of history, and cannot properly be separated from it. At the risk of apparent departure from the purpose of this study, let us first examine at some length Clay's early career and its environment. It will serve the double purpose of depicting the individual and the conditions that produced a new political era.

Clay was born April 12, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia. Little is known of his ancestry. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and soon after the colonization of Virginia, three brothers — Charles, Thomas, and Henry — sons of Sir John Clay, of Wales, came to the colony with Sir Walter Raleigh, who gave each of them ten thousand pounds. They settled near Jamestown. Henry left no children, but

Charles and Thomas became the founders of a numerous family. The future statesman was a descendant of the former. 1 His immediate origin was humble. His father, John Clay, was the pastor of a small congregation of Baptists, to whom he frequently preached from a rock on the shore of the South Anna Kiver, no doubt before administering the peculiar rite of his creed. The sect was then in low esteem in the South; so late as in 1775 its ministers were often arrested as disturbers of the peace. In the preceding year, Madison, disgusted by this intolerant practice, wrote to a Northern friend : " I want again to breathe your free air. . . . That diabolical, hell -conceived principle of persecution rages among some ; and to their eternal infamy the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such purposes. There are at this time in the adjacent county not less than five or six well-meaning men in close jail for publishing their religious sentiments, which in the main are very orthodox." 2

Kindly tradition represents the Kev. Mr. Clay as possessing some of the oratorical qualities that characterized his famous son. He died in 17S1, leaving in straitened circumstances a widow and seven children, one of his five sons having previously died. Henry was next to the youngest child, and the only one to rise from obscurit}' - . Mrs. Clay's maiden name was Hudson. She was an intelligent, estimable woman, and a worthy mother. She lived more than eighty years, surviving most of her fifteen children, having seven by her second husband, whom she married after a few

1 "I believe I have the only reliable record of the Clay family extant. It is written on blank leaves in the ' Works of Samuel Johnson, London, 1713.' "—Life of Cassius M. Clay, vol. i. p. 18.

2 Parton's Life of Jefferson, p. 203.

Ch. I.] CLAY'S YOUTH 11

years of widowhood. It is related as indicative of her spirit that she indignantly threw into the fireplace some money left on her table by one of Tarleton's officers to pay for property of hers taken on one of his raids through the county. But the correct account of the incident out of which the story arose was doubtless recounted by Clay himself in a political speech delivered in 1840. "I was born a democrat," said he, "rocked in the cradle of the Revolution, and at the darkest period of that ever -memorable struggle for freedom. I recollect, in 1781 or 1782, a visit made by Tarleton's troops to the house of my mother, and of their running their swords into the new-made graves of my father and grandfather, thinking they contained hidden treasures. Though not more than four or five years of age, the circumstance of that visit is vividly remembered, and it will be to the last moment of my life."

As soon as he was old enough he aided in such ways as he could in the support of the family, which depended on the produce of some indifferent land in the " Slashes," as the region was known. Barefooted and coarsely clad, he often followed the plough. It was his duty to replenish the meal -barrel, which he did by taking the grist to Darricott's mill, on the Pamunky. The bag was his saddle, and with a rope bridle he guided the pony he rode. It is probable that he performed similar errands for others, for he was commonly called by the people along the route the " Mill-boy of the Slashes " — a sobriquet that always clung to him.

In the neighboring district- school, taught in a log-cabin by an intemperate Englishman named Peter Deacon, he received his only regular education, which consisted of the mere rudiments. At the age of fourteen he was placed in a retail store at Eichmond, where he worked for nearly a year. He then sought, through the hopeful efforts of his step-father — probably inspired by the boy's budding ambition — a position in the office of the Clerk of the High Court of Chancery. There was no vacancy, but he was nevertheless installed by the influence of a brother of the clerk, who was a friend of Captain Watkins.

His first entrance into the office was long remembered by his fellow-clerks. Plain of features, overgrown and ungainly for his years, and clothed in rustic fashion, he presented a rather curious appearance. " His mother had dressed him up in a new suit of Figinny cloth, cotton and silk mixed, complexion of pepper-and-salt, with clean linen well starched, and the tail of his coat standing out from his legs at an angle of forty-five degrees, like that of a dragoon. The clerks looked askance at each other, and were not a little amused at the apparently awkward chap who had been thrust in upon them." 1 But they were not long in discovering that " Harry " was like the toad in the adage. His natural gifts were even then not wholly undeveloped, and he speedily rose in the estimation of his companions.

It was this early introduction to politics that opened the way to his career. His faithful and competent attention to his duties was observed by all with whom he came in contact, particularly by Chancellor Wythe — a distinguished character in a distinguished time. Wythe was a scholarh T , liberal-minded gentleman of the true Virginian school, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, an able jurist, and the Chief of the High Court of Chancery. It was, therefore, no small compliment to Clay that he should be

Colton's Life of Clay, vol. i. p. 20.

Ch. I.] CLAY'S STUDIES 13

chosen as the Chancellor's amanuensis. He acted in that capacity for four years. His duties at first were very exacting and laborious, as the subject-matter of the Chancellor's dictation — he being unable to write because of a tremulous hand — was strange to him ; besides, he was required to copy quotations in Latin, of which he was wholly ignorant.

This situation — or rather relation, from the warm interest of the Chancellor in the promising youth — was an inestimable advantage to him. It might well seem providential were it not that uncommon capacity usually attracts patrons. Besides a livelihood, it gave him character in the community and brought him into constant observation of perhaps the ablest bar in the countiy. He made the most of the opportunity, which was his only means to remedy his extreme lack of education. His habits were studious and exemplary; his reading, tastes, and aspirations were guided by his venerable friend. His leisure was mostly devoted to books; but his reading appears to have been desultory — Harris's Hermes, Tooke's Diversions of Purley, Lowth's Grammar, and various historical works. Perhaps a further indication of his studies during this time is contained in a letter to his son James, written in 1837. " Your resolution to study," he wrote, " and to begin with history, is a good one, and I hope you will persevere in it. Gillies's Greece, with Plutarch's Lives / Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ; Tacitus ; Hume, with the continuation ; Russell's Modern Europe ; Ilallam's Middle Ages ; Robertson's Charles V., Indies, etc. ; Marshall's Life of Washington ; Botta's History of the American Revolution. These books and others may be read with advantage ; and } T ou should adopt some s} T stematic course as to time — that is, to read so many hours out of the twenty-four."

Under these circumstances it was natural that he should decide to pursue the profession of the law. Accordingly, in the latter part of 1796, in his twentieth year, he entered the office of the Attorney - General, Robert Brooke, as a lawstudent. Within a year he procured a license to practise. While his regular novitiate was of itself inadequate to prepare him for the bar, his long association with the Chancellor was undoubtedly a valuable training in the principles and application of equity jurisprudence, and was probably so considered in hastening his admission to practice.

Concerning this early period of Clay's life there is but little positive information. Though Richmond was a city of but five thousand inhabitants, it was the social and political centre of Virginia. Despite the levelling influences of the Revolution, the subsequent abolition of primogeniture and entail and the progress of Jefferson's political principles, there still remained strong aristocratic tendencies, which largely dominated society. Yet that society was ever ready to open its doors to character and ability, and Clay was accorded the attention and respect of such men as John Marshall, Edmund Pendleton, and Spencer Roane. Instead, however, of remaining in Richmond, he decided to settle in Lexington, Kentucky. " The public attention was at that time strongly drawn to Kentucky as a field especially propitious to the enterprise of the young. Members of the most respectable families of Virginia had already emigrated to that State, and the marvels of its rapid growth and teeming prosperity were recounted with such commendation as to rouse a general fervor in behalf of settlement in this Eldorado of the West." l Moreover, Kentucky was still