A large meeting in Louisville, addressed by James Guthrie, ex-secretary of the treasury; Hon. Arch. Dixon, Hon. John Young Brown, and other strong Union men, advocated a similar policy. The Southern Rights men of Kentucky, anxious to avert war, and believing that united action in Kentucky on the lines proposed by the Union men would do so, accepted the terms proposed, and Gen. John C. Breckinridge, just then entered upon his term in the Senate and acknowledged as the Democratic leader, clasped hands with Mr. Crittenden with the assurance of hearty co-operation, and his followers sustained him in his efforts to maintain for Kentucky a position of strict neutrality. Had he declined to adopt the neutrality proposition and insisted upon the State's taking immediate action with the South, there can be no doubt that all opposition would have been overcome and Kentucky would have become an active and integral factor in the Southern Confederacy by formal State action.
But with the most patriotic purpose he yielded to the seductive persuasions of those who proved afterward that their protestations were only a plea for delay, and whose subsequent acts showed that the compact was scarcely sealed before it was broken. It is sickening to recall the duplicity which ensued. Many Southern men, foreseeing the result, yet abiding the pledge, left the State singly or by squads and entered the service of the South instead of maintaining hostile organizations within her limits. Unionists of prominence visited Washington and returned with assurances alleged to have been given by Mr. Lincoln that the neutrality would be respected. The Union press of Kentucky lulled the apprehensions of the people. The Louisville Journal said emphatically that Mr. Lincoln ‘knows that he cannot have troops from Kentucky to invade the South,’ and in every form in which assurance could be given, asseveration was
