has two hundred and fifty voters; here is my worthy friend before us (Mr. Waller) who has eight thousand two hundred and fifty voters. Will there be any combination of the Methodists and Baptists? No; you might as well expect oil and water to mix. There can be no collusion, and will be no conspiracy, especially when out of one hundred and fifty-two thousand there are only thirty thousand members of the church. I do not vouch for my information being correct, but a gentleman connected with the church has furnished me with the statistics I have read. What class of men are the clergy? They are moral, virtuous, and intelligent men, and, as a body, are the most learned men in Kentucky, and I say this without fear of contradiction. Some, to be sure, start out on the ground that they have a calling that way. They say Christ made preachers out of fishermen, and that learning is calculated to spoil the preachers. The Catholic clergy are learned men, we

know. The father of the gentleman who prayed this morning, sent him four years to Rome that he might be educated. All denominations are trying to give their clergy an education.

"We know that the Presbyterians are doing everything to instruct their clergy. So are the Methodists, so are the Baptists, and so is every religious denomination. And it must be confessed that they are a learned body of men-much more learned and intelligent, generally, than the doctors and lawyers. I will not say that there is more virtue, but I say there is as much. I will not say they possess more natural gifts. Well, what harm have they done? Here is my friend near me (Mr. Waller), one of the best informed men in the house; he has been here nine weeks, and he has troubled the house but once, and that was to-day. There is the gentleman from Mason, who has not spoken much, but when he does speak, speaks well. We all expect to die in a few days, he goes off so much like

"Hark! from the tombs, a doleful sound,

Mine ears attend the cry:

Ye living men come view the ground,
Where you must shortly lie."

"I am in favor of the admission of the clergy. There is no exclusion in Congress. I have never seen less than from ten to twenty there, and they are as praiseworthy a body of men, and as good members as you can find anywhere. I see nothing in any of these men to exclude them, whether they are Presbyterians, or Baptists; and there is not a man whom I would more willingly meet than my worthy Catholic friend, the priest, who prays for us every few days. These men have a right to go to the Legislature. They pay their taxes as we do-they submit to the laws, and they help to sustain the government. And if there is a war, do you not see them at the head of your regiments, volunteering to pray to the Almighty for the success of our arms? I know the idea of the danger of mixing up church and State has

come to us from the British government.

But there we see the church having a representation in the House of Lords. I did not intend to make. an argument, but I rose merely to give the information I hold in my hand. But, I repeat, there is no reason why we should exclude them. They have the same rights as we have; they are of an age required by law; they are native Americans, or, if not, naturalized citizens; they submit cheerfully to the law; they are a virtuous body, and they contribute to the support of the government, and, what is more, to the educational part of the country they have contributed more than any other class. Why is it we call gentlemen to pray for us every day? It is to address the throne of grace. 'But,' says the gentleman from Mason, there is danger to the country, and, therefore, we must have the preamble which has been offered, and the exclusion of the clergy.' I am utterly against the preamble and against the exclusion."

The vote was taken and the result showed that "Ephraim was joined to his idols." It stood seventeen against, to seventy-four for, the clerical disability clause. "The Redeemer of mankind," said Waller, was crucified between two thieves, and the memory of that event can be well perpetuated by classifying his ministers with thieves and robbers."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A KENTUCKY MASTER AND HIS RELATION TO DOMESTIC

M

SLAVERY.

R. HARDIN spent his life in slave-holding communities, and was himself a slaveholder. For this reason, some notice of that institution and his relation to it seems necessary to a justification of some of his views and sentiments, and a proper estimate of his character. More than a score of years has elapsed since domestic slavery ceased to exist among Americans. Many of its incidents and characteristics are growing dim in the memory of a new generation. Its history and peculiarities have been discolored and exaggerated in literature to such an extent that it will be difficult for posterity to justly estimate its lights and shadows-its virtues and infirmities. In saying there was virtue in it, it is very far from the present purpose to make any defense or apology for it. The former slave States are happily rid of it, and few and far between are those who do not rejoice thereat. It is, however, due the subject of this work to say that there was nothing connected with the institution as it existed in Kentucky repugnant to justice or morality, or incompatible with refinement or humanity. Comparing the social, moral, and religious condition of slave-holding communities of Kentucky with the average communities in non-slaveholding States, their respective balance sheets of virtue and vice would, doubtless, not materially differ in the estimation of impartial judges. If on one hand slavery had its evils, on the other it had its compensations.

African slaves dwelt on George's creek in Pennsylvania, when and where Mr. Hardin was born. The earliest American Hardins were slaveholders. After American independence was achieved, Pennsylvania had by law provided for the prospective emancipation of her slaves. The denizens on George's creek were unconscious that they were affected by the proposed emancipation. They supposed they dwelt in the territory of slave-holding Virginia. Only when, about that period, the dividing line between the two States was surveyed, did they learn their error. It has been supposed (with some show of

probability) that their desire to retain their slave property was one of the causes resulting in the emigration of the Hardin family to Kentucky.

Prior to it becoming a State, slavery existed in Kentucky, by virtue of the laws of Virginia, of which Kentucky was part. No obstruction prevented slaveholders from the latter emigrating to Kentucky. Not so as to the slave-owners of other States. Virginia had already adopted the policy of preventing other than the natural increase of her slave population by interdicting importation from other States and abroad. But this interdiction was not rigidly enforced. Immigrants from Maryland and the Carolinas flowed into Kentucky in a steady stream. It was believed to be beyond the power of Virginia law-makers to forbid bona fide settlers from bringing their slaves with them for their own use. The right to do so was claimed under the Federal constitution, then newly adopted. But having conceded this right, no emigrant was allowed to bring with him slaves imported from Africa, the West Indies, or elsewhere beyond the sea, subsequent to the year 1789. No slave whatever, could be brought for the purposes of merchandise. The same policy marked the legislation of Kentucky after it became a State, a policy that had its culmination in the law of 1833, absolutely forbidding importation from other States.

Among the earliest acts of statehood, Kentucky adopted the statutes of Virginia then in force, respecting slaves and slavery. These have sometimes been called, by those who condemned them, the slave code." To judge it or the men who framed it from the altered standpoint of these times, would be foolish and unfair. To understand those laws, and appreciate the motives of the men who framed them, the situation of the country, the nature and surroundings of slavery, and the prevailing current of thought of that day must all be taken into account. If it seem harsh that a slave caught away from his owner's premises without a written pass was subject to lashes, it should be remembered that his young master, attending the old-field school-house, was receiving similar fare for no greater improprieties.

The personal treatment of slaves under the "code" will bear favorable comparison with the treatment of white sailors in the American and British navies for the same period. The "code" itself does not fully or fairly indicate the contemporary sentiment of the State as to slavery. The latter, practically, modified the harsher features of the former. So public sentiment, in later times,

suspended the "blue laws" of New England.

Practically, the relation of the Kentucky master to his slave was not that of owner and chattel, but was patriarchal in character. The slave was a dependent in the household of which the master was head.

The pioneers brought their slaves with them in their earliest journeys across the mountains. The slave shared the dangers that beset his master, and oftentimes his bloody fate. Stories are plentiful in State history and tradition of black heroes encountering death at the hand of savage foes to protect the master and his family. Not only did he share the perils of his master, but likewise the toils and vicissitudes of the wilderness. In sports, master and man were not wholly separated. If the one spent his days in fox-chasing or deer-driving, at night a sportsman not less enthusiastic emerged from the "quarters,' accompanied by his faithful dog in quest of opossum, coon, or rabbit. The incense of the saddle of venison on the master's table, was fairly rivaled by the not less savory roast rabbit and opossum that graced the board of the dependent.

Not unnaturally, the slave became identified in feeling and sentiment with his master's family. He rejoiced at its prosperity, and was genuinely distressed by its sorrows and misfortunes. If he gave his labor to his master, the latter in return sheltered and clothed him; defended him from the injuries of others; supported him when sick or too old to labor, and, at last, gave him Christian burial. Examples of the childlike affection and confidence existing between these humble dependents of the household and the master and mistress could be indefinitely multiplied. "Let Mas' John hold my hand," said a slave near death, "and I will not mind dying," and as the master did so, the sinking soul fluttered fearlessly and peacefully out to meet the Merciful Master of all.

Large slaveholders in Kentucky were the exception. This circumstance ameliorated the relation. Mr. Hardin thus expressed himself on this point in a speech in Congress in 1820:

"Do we not know that the happiness and comforts of slaves depend upon a few being owned by one man; for, when hundreds are thrown together upon one place, under an owner who knows them not, who has no affection for them, miserable, indeed, is their condition; but, on the other hand, when a few only belong to one man he knows them, he loves them, he considers them a part of his family; some have been the companions of his youth; others are raised by him, and are the playmates of his children. There is, then, a mutual affection between the white and black part of the