CHAP.XII.] ADVANCE OF CONFEDERATES INTO KENTUCKY, ETC.

In January the house of representatives of Kentucky passed anticoercion resolutions, only four dissenting.

The governor in May issued his neutrality proclamation. The address of the Union Central Committee, including Mr. James Speed, Mr. Prentice, and other prominent Union men in April proclaimed neutrality as the policy of Kentucky, and claimed that an attempt to coerce the South should induce Kentucky to make common cause with her and take part on her side, "without counting the cost."

The Union speakers and papers, with few exceptions, claimed up to the last election that the Union vote was strict neutrality and peace. These facts and events gave assurance of the integrity of the avowed purpose of your State, and we were content with the position she assumed.

Since the election, however, she has allowed the seizure in her ports (Paducah) of property of citizens of the Confederate States. She has by her members in the Congress of the United States voted supplies of men and money to carry on the war against the Confederate States. She has allowed the Federal Government to cut timber from her forests for the purpose of building armed boats for the invasion of the Southern States. She is permitting to be enlisted in her territory troops, not only of her own citizens, but of citizens, of other States, for the purpose of being armed and used in offensive warfare against the Confederate states. At Camp Robinson, in the county of Garrard, there are now 10,000 troops, if the newspapers can be relied upon in which men from Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are mustered with Kentuckians into the service of the United States and armed by that Government, for the avowed purpose of giving aid to the disaffected in Confederate States and of carrying out designs of that Government for their subjugation.

Notwithstanding all these and other acts of a similar character, the Confederate States have continued to respect the attitude which Kentucky had assumed as a neutral and forborne from reprisals in the hope that Kentucky would yet enforce respect for her position on the part of the Government of the United States.

Our patient expectation has been disappointed and it was only when we perceived that this continued indifference to our rights and our safety was about to culminate in the seizure of an important part of her territory by the United States forces for for offensive operations against the Confederate States that a regard for self-preservation demanded of us to seize it in advance. We are here, therefore, not by choice, but by necessity, and as I have had the to say in a communication addressed to his excellency Governor Magoffin, a copy of which is herewith inclosed and submitted as a part of my reply, so I now repeat in answer to your request, that I am prepared to agree to withdraw the Confederate troops from Kentucky, provided she will agree that the troops of the Federal Government be withdrawn simultaneously, with a guarantee (which I will give reciprocally for the Confederate Government) that the Federal troops shall not be allowed to enter nor occupy any part of Kentucky for the future.

In view of the facts thus submitted, I cannot but think the world at large will find it difficult to appreciate the "profound astonishment" with which you say the people of Kentucky received the intelligence of the occupation of this place.

I have the honor to be, respectfully, your obedient servant,

L.POLK, Major-General, Commanding.