Richard Hawes, The Inaugural Address of the Provisional Governor of Kentucky!

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KYR-0003-043-0001

Document Genre

Speech

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Kentucky Historical Society

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Broadside of "Inaugural address of the Provisional Governor of Kentucky" 1862 Richard Hawes

Place of Creation

Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky

Date of Creation

4 October 1862

Dates Mentioned

1862-10-04

1861-11-18

1863-01-01

Richard Hawes, The Inaugural Address of the Provisional Governor of Kentucky!, 4 October 1862, Broadside of "Inaugural address of the Provisional Governor of Kentucky" 1862 Richard Hawes, , Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort, KY. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/KYR-0003-043-0001, (accessed December 4, 2024).

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The Inaugural Address of the PROVISIONAL GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY!

The Addresses of General Bragg and Governor Hawes, at the Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, on the Inauguration of Governor Hawes, on the 4th day of October, 1862.

Citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

As the representative of the Confederate States of America, commanding the victorious armies which have driven the invaders from your Capital, and restored civil liberty to your land, I appear before you to install the Provisional Governor in the Capitol of Kentucky; and to transfer to the civil authorities all the privileges which pertain to the Magistrate over a free people.

The despotism at Washington has for more than a year deluded your people with false promises, as to the character and objects of this war. They have made the depth of your degradation the test of your loyalty. They have at last thrown off the mask so carelessly worn, and demand not only unmanly submission, but that you should join in a war for the confiscation of property, the excitement of servile insurrection, and the desolation of your homes. The proclamation of President Lincoln leaves no alternative but ignominy or resistance.

On the other hand, our Government desires to establish no such tyranny. Respecting the Civil Magistrate of the State, we [...][...][appeal his] rightful authority and limit our own power. We hope, as soon as greater tranquility is restored, to obtain the expression of the public will, irrespective of past opinions, on those points which have unfortunately divided your people; and recognising the sovereign rights of the State, to leave her the ultimate and inalienable privilege of deciding on every measure deemed by her people necessary for their welfare and happiness.

In the meantime, the armies of the Confederate States will yield appropriate deference to the civil authorities, and will defend your power and your territory with the discipline and valor for which they have been preeminently distinguished.

Freemen of Kentucky! I present to you your honored Chief Magistrate, His Excellency, Governor HAWES.

ADDRESS OF R. HAWES,
PROVISIONAL GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY.

Fellow Cttizens of the State of Kentucky:

I claim the privilege, and feel it a duty to address you. On the 18th of November, 1861, a Convention composed of Delegates elected by a large and respectable portion of the people of Kentucky, representing sixty-eight counties, adopted an ordinance, forever severing our connexion with the Government of the United States, and declaring Kentucky to be a free and independent State, clothed with all power to fix her own destiny, and to secure her own rights and liberties, and adopted a Constitution, which ordinance and Constitution with the future action, is hereto appended. That Convention appointed Commissioners to negotiate and treat with the Confederate States of America for admission as a sister State, and was admitted and received on an equal footing with the other States of the confederacy. Appropriate Senators and members of Congress have been elected and now compose a part of the Confederate Congress. The Government thus created, proceeded to exercise its lawful functions, until it was driven from the State by the armies of the United States.

Geo. W. Johnson was chosen as the provisional Governor. I am sure that I utter the common judgment of his numerous friends, as well as his political opponents in the statement, that a purer private and public character, and a more firm, enlightened and devoted friend of conservative liberty, could not be found in the whole range of Kentucky statesmen. His honest and patriotic convictions of duty, were sealed with his blood, on the memorable field of Shiloh.

After his death your humble fellow citizen who now addresses you, was chosen as his successor.

The provisional government driven from the State by the overpowering force of Federal arms, has returned under the protection of the Confederate army, and I propose to enter upon my duties as chief magistrate of Kentucky.

While our heroic army of the East has driven from the soil of Virginia, the boasted grand Federal army of the Potomac, our Western army under the commands of General's Bragg, Smith, and Marshall with like prowess and heroism, have expelled from the fairest portion of Kentucky, the grand Federal army of the West, and it is hoped and believed that the insolent invaders of our independence will soon be driven from every foothold in the Southern Confederacy. I have to express to you General Bragg as commander-in-chief of the army of the West, and the officers and soldiers under your command, the thanks of the Provisional Government, and I may add, the thanks of a large majority of the people of Kentucky, for opening the way and the opportunity for entering into our beautiful and fertile country, of breathing the free air of liberty, and, of choosing our political destiny, untrammelled by the dictatorship of Federal armies.

I freely and candidly admit that my official title to address you, iengliss not derived from the accustomed authentication of our free institutions; but in the throes and struggles for human liberty it is frequently lawful to break through the forms and shackles of armed power, in order that we may attain the substance of freedom and independence.

From the beginning of the horrible and unnatural and unchristian war which is now afflicting our State and country, the military usurpation and tyranny of the federal, combined with the slavish complicity of our State Government, have im[po]sed on our people a despotism which has no parallel in the worst periods of English or French history. There is not a solitary bulwark of liberty as erected by our revolutionary fathers, and as written in our constitution, which has not been ruthlessly shattered and crushed to dust, by the combined usurpations and tyranny of the Federal and State governments.

It is my sincere conviction that in a broken Union, the people of Kentucky have the sovereign right to consider and decide their interests, happiness, and destiny, in any confederate alliance they may choose, and that a large and decisive majority, are in favor of fixing the political fate of our State with the Southern Confederacy.

The Union party of our State have gained the possession of the Legislature by crafty and false issues, and have persistently refused to consult the sovereign vote and will of the people. The great issue that now divides us is North or South.

It is my ardent wish and fixed purpose to resign into the hands of the sovereign people of Kentucky, the temporary authority with which I have been clothed, so soon as a permanent Government can be established, on that only true and free basis, the will of the people.

The 10th Section of th[...] Ordinance and Constitution to which I have referred, declares, that so soon as an election can be held free from the influence of the armies of the United States, the Provisional Government shall provide for the assembling of a Convention to adopt such measures as may be necessary and expedient for the restoration of a permanent Government.

I propose to advise the legislative power of the Provisional Government to call such Convention at the earliest period consistent with the free and un[...]errified expression of the sovereign will of Kentucky.

Up to the beginning of the political struggles which have resulted in the fratricidal war which is covering our estates with mortgages; which is desolating our land, and spilling the blood of our people, all parties, with very few exceptions, were devoted to the preservation of the Union according to the letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution. That Union, or its restoration is now impossible, and those who would persuade you to the contrary, are wilfully deceiving you. The old party rallying cry of the Union and the Stars and Stripes is a bald imposture and mockery. I can assure you my fellow-countrymen, that I have mixed freely with a large number of the people of the Southern Confederacy at their own homes, and with very many of their Representatives in Congress, and pledge you my humble character for truth and honor, that there exists in the South a fixed public sentiment pervading the heads and hearts of almost every man, women and child, in opposition even unto death, against an union with the Federal Government. It is this brave and devoted spirit of liberty and independence, which against all adversities, has so signally covered their armies with victory after victory, and which braces their nerves for still more heroic deeds. They [...] desire peace on fair and honorable terms, a peace by which they will be allowed the right of self government and independence; and they freely concede that it is just and right that the assumption of a ratable part of the public debt existing before the war, the free navigation of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and a fair partition of the Territorial and other property of the late Union, should be the basis of a settlement of peace.

You know that the people of the South standing shoulder to shoulder as one man, in spite of every obstacle of numbers and means, have conquered on almost every battle field. Our brave determination of freedom and [ind]ependence has raised up armies which have not been excelled [...] ancient and modern history. -- Our Generals can compare in [skill] and valor with the best leaders and field Marshals of Caesar or Napoleon; and at our head we have that christian gentleman, Jefferson Davis, who is at once Orator, Statesman, General and Patriot. With the help of a gracious GOD, we must [be] victorious.

I will briefly glance at some of the prominent grievances and wrongs which the Confederate States have suffered from the Federal Government, as some of the grounds and reasons for their fixed determination independence.

The South had submitted unwillingly to the treasury bounties to Northern fishermen; to [the] Northern monopoly of the coasting trade; and to the oner[ous] tariff laws, ostensibly for revenue, but really to enrich the [North] at the expense of the South.

The slave States asserted [that] it was the fixed purpose of a dominant North, to abolish [slavery] in the District of Columbia; to monopolize the Territories by the exclusion of slave property; to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law; to abolish slavery in the States where it existed; to destroy the equality of the States, and to convert our Federal Union into a consolidated Government.

The Government of Mr. [Lincoln] has now thrown off all disguises, and slavery is now [abolished] in the District of Columbia; is excluded from the Territories, and on the first day of next January, is to be abolished in all disloyal States or parts of States unless there shall [be] unconditional submission to its dictatorship.

As a means of enforcing [submission] to its tyranny and the subjugation of the States to [a] consolidated despotism, all the dearest safeguards to persons and property have been trodden down. Seizures and imprisonment of persons without warrant or trial; confiscations of estates; forced loans and military exactions; the utter suppression of speech and the press; and in fine any ond every insult, persecution and cruelty, which could be exercised by the worst tools of a relentless tyranny.

The State Legislature and the Military Governor of Kentucky also, have forfeited all claims to respect or obedience. The Union leaders in and out of office, by an organized system of cunning and fraud, have deceived and cheated the people, and almost every legislative act touching our relations to the war and the Federal Government, is violative of the Constitution. -- You are familiar with the history of this Union Legislature, and you know how step by step, you have been unsuspectingly drawn as prisoners into the Camp of the Federal army

You were assured that Kentucky should take no part in this unnatural war; that the Southern States should not be coerced or subjugated; that Kentucky should occupy a position of neutrality, and neutrality armed in full panoply. You were assured, that if the Union could not be restored, our affinities of blood, and our commercial and business interests, would and should carry us into the Southern Confederacy. All these false pretenses and impostures, are now unveiled, your property, your persons, and your liberties, have been furtively handed over to the armed despotism of the Lincoln Government.

In this tremendous and horrific revolutionary struggle, what will be the action of chivalrous Kentuckians?

The enemies of the great right of self-government, are still attempting to deceive you by the logical chicanery of sworn obedience to the Federal and State Government. You now know, where they would lead you. They would have you to devote your estates, your persons, and your lives, to the abolition dictatorship of Abraham Lincoln, and the subjugation of the Southern States.

You are constantly told by the Union men, that our Confederate currency is valueless, and the Federal authorities have essayed its depreciation by the circulation of millions of counterfeits. Both of the parties to this unnatural war, are constrained to deal on credit. The war debt of the Southern Confederacy does not exceed at the largest calculation, five hundred millions, while it is a notorious fact, that the debt of the Federal Government, is five times as great. The ability of each, to meet their promises to pay is known to the country. The great staples of southern industry are of the highest value in foreign countries, while the manufactures and mechanic arts of the North, constitute its greatest source of income, and while they find no markets abroad are utterly destroyed in the South.

Let us forget if we can my fellow countrymen. the old and minor issues which have hitherto divided us. The most important of these, have been about matters of fact. The people have been told that a majority of the Southern States, would come back to he Fedetal Union by the aid of military forces. It is now a truth and a fact, that the late Union cannot be restored.

The people were told, that the Federal Government did not intend to destroy the titles to slave property. It is now a truth and a fact. that the great aims and purposes of this war of subjugation, are the abolition of African Slavery.

Let us then forget if we [can] the past minor issues and plant ourselves on the one side or the other of this Abolition war. -- I have lived in your midst from my boyhood to the age of seventy-five years, and I have utterly misconceived the characters and souls of Kentuckians if they hesitate as to the side they will take in this Abolition war.

You know, fellow-citizens, what African slavery is. You know that emancipation would be the most unmitigated curse which could be inflicted on the slave race. You know that the abolition of slavery would crush and desolate the planting States. You know that a war of subjugation, to be successful, must be ruthlessly borne over the dead bodies of millions of the most chivalrous devotees of liberty, who are bone of sour bone, and flesh of your flesh.

I assume the duties devolved on me as Provisional Governor, to give you an opportunity to take your stand and make your choice in this Abolition war, and to decide fully and fairly whether you will cast your destiny with the North or the South.

I shall endeavor to inculcate and practice the utmost regard for the property, persons, and even the feelings of those politically opposed to our Government, which may be consistent with our self-preservation. I deprecate the awful retributive justice which may be aroused if our enemies persist in their past savage and unchristian mode of warfare.

I know the irregular and revolutionary times in which we are called to act. The old government of Kentucky, holds its power under the forms of law and constitution, to destroy your liberties and chain you to a Northern despotism, while we seek to restore our Commonwealth to the true basis of constitutional liberty.

The State has been for more than a year subjected to the rod of federal despotism. The Confederate armies now occupy the fairest and best portion of the State, and will as I hope and believe drive the Northern forces across the Ohio River.

We have now no civil law or government in Kentucky, and it is the purpose of the Provisional Government, to institute as far as possible such civil inftitutions, as will protect persons and property, until the people in the sovereign capacity can establish a permanent Government founded on the will of a majority.

May a kind Providence incline your minds and hearts to conciliation and peace, and to the establishment of your personal and political liberties on a solid basis.

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