Tag: Kentucky

Wikipedia says: Kentucky, officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered by Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to the east; Tennessee to the south; and Missouri to the west. The Commonwealth’s northern border is defined by the Ohio River. Its capital is Frankfort, and its two largest cities are Louisville and Lexington.

Kentucky was admitted into the Union as the 15th state on June 1, 1792, splitting from Virginia in the process. It is known as the “Bluegrass State”, a nickname based on Kentucky bluegrass, a species of grass found in many of its pastures, which has supported the thoroughbred horse industry in the center of the state.

The state is home to the world’s longest cave system in Mammoth Cave National Park, as well as the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River.

Central Kentucky, the bluegrass region, was the area of the state with the most slave owners. Planters cultivated tobacco and hemp (see Hemp in Kentucky) and were noted for their quality livestock. During the 19th century, Kentucky slaveholders began to sell unneeded slaves to the Deep South, with Louisville becoming a major slave market and departure port for slaves being transported downriver.

Kentucky was one of the border states during the American Civil War, and it remained part of the Union. Despite this, representatives from 68 of 110 counties met at Russellville calling themselves the “Convention of the People of Kentucky” and passed an Ordinance of Secession on November 20, 1861. They established a Confederate government of Kentucky with its capital in Bowling Green. The Confederate shadow government was never popularly elected statewide. Although Confederate forces briefly controlled Frankfort, they were expelled by Union forces before a Confederate government could be installed in the state capital. After the expulsion of Confederate forces after the Battle of Perrysville, this government operated in-exile. Though it existed throughout the war, Kentucky’s provisional government had very little effect on the events in the Commonwealth or in the war.

Kentucky remained officially “neutral” throughout the war due to the Union sympathies of a majority of the Commonwealth’s citizens. Despite this, some 21st-century Kentuckians observe Confederate Memorial Day on Confederate leader Jefferson Davis’ birthday, June 3, and participate in Confederate battle re-enactments. Both Davis and U.S. president Abraham Lincoln were born in Kentucky. John C. Breckinridge, the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President was born in Lexington, Kentucky at Cabell’s Dale Farm. Breckenridge was expelled from the U. S. Senate for his support of the Confederacy. Modern historians such as Aaron Astor, Maryjean Wall, and Anne Marshall argue that many of Kentucky’s white leaders and influential figures embraced a romanticized Southern identity, drawing from misleading and mythologized conceptions of the Old South and on the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, in the decades following Reconstruction. This phenomenon mirrors similar cultural trends in other states during the nadir of race relations.