[lbo-talk] Democrats '04 Strategy Fails Its First Tests

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Wed Nov 5 09:57:54 PST 2003


--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Both Kentucky and Mississippi are states of the old
> Confederacy that
> Bush carried in 2000. The Reps pretty much have a
> lock on the region
> now.
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

Well, the situation with Kentucky was complicated. KY was not really an Old Confederacy state, but a border state. It was admitted to the Confederacy, but its won legislature cast its lot with the North. Here's from a Civil War site:

http://www.confederateflags.org/FAQ/FOTCfaq4.htm

Kentucky's neutrality was broken when CS Gen. Leonidas Polk moved his troops to Columbus, Kentucky, one day before US General Ulysses Grant moved his army into Paducah, Kentucky. The legislature of Kentucky had been elected on a pledge of neutrality backed by a secondary pledge to go with the South if neutrality proved impossible. However, when the neutrality was broken, the legislature cast its lot with the North, on the grounds that the Confederacy had been the first to break the neutrality. Southern sympathisers in Kentucky were furious. They replied that Polk's move had been necessitated by Grant's preparations, and that the pro-Union members of the legislature had broken their campaign pledge.

As a result, a convention with delegates from most of Kentucky's counties met at the town of Russellville and adopted a Declaration of Independence. In the same fashion as the pro-Union convention in Missouri, the pro-Confederate convention in Kentucky deposed the elected state government and created a provisional government loyal to the Confederate States. By an Act of Congress approved on 10 December 1861, Kentucky became the 13th state admitted to the Confederacy. So Missouri and Kentucky had representatives in both Congresses and regiments in both armies.

I would add that unlike Tennessee, there was relatively little Civil War fighting in KY.

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