secession would have been impossible, Kentucky was, I think, less
inclined to rebellion, more desirous of standing by the North, than
any other of the slave States. She did all she could, however, to
put off the evil day of so evil a choice. Abolition within her
borders was held to be abominable as strongly as it was so held in
Georgia. She had no sympathy, and could have none, with the
teachings and preachings of Massachusetts. But she did not wish to
belong to a confederacy of which the Northern States were to be the
declared enemy, and be the border State of the South under such
circumstances. She did all she could for personal neutrality. She
made that effort for general reconciliation of which I have spoken
as the Crittenden Compromise. But compromises and reconciliation
were not as yet possible, and therefore it was necessary that she
should choose her part. Her governor declared for secession, and at
first also her legislature was inclined to follow the governor. But
no overt act of secession by the State was committed, and at last it
was decided that Kentucky should be declared to be loyal. It was in
fact divided. Those on the southern border joined the
secessionists; whereas the greater portion of the State, containing
Frankfort, the capital, and the would-be secessionist governor, who
lived there, joined the North. Men in fact became Unionists or
secessionists not by their own conviction, but through the necessity
of their positions; and Kentucky, through the necessity of her
position, became one of the scenes of civil war.

I must confess that the difficulty of the position of the whole
country seems to me to have been under-estimated in England. In
common life it is not easy to arrange the circumstances of a divorce
between man and wife, all whose belongings and associations have for
many years been in common. Their children, their money, their