representing the Jewish High Priest, was not unwilling to have it thought that there was no impropriety in the act; and this infamous procedure Gesenius was guilty of repeatedly. Surpassingly illustrious as he was in the department of lexicography, and deeply and sincerely as we feel our obligations to him, we insist, most emphatically, that his great name and reputation shall not be allowed to give him authority in the decision of questions wherein his inveterate prejudices against the truth of God were plainly in operation, as they were in the case before us, and as all the facts evince.

Some excuse may be pleaded for our English translators, in consideration of the state of Hebrew lexicography two hundred and fifty years ago, though with all the allowance that can be made for them on this ground, the act must be pronounced unjustifiable and unaccountable. Nor can we imagine what can be pleaded in their defense, unless it be the fact that the Bible published by Beck, in 1549, had here rendered the word borrow, (though the Greek yersion had rendered it, as above stated, by ask; and the Latin vulgate by postulo, to require, or demand; and the Geneva Bible, whose renderings they follow, in thousands of instances, by aske,) and the fact, moreover, that the pernicious dogmas of the Supralapsarian theology flourished in England somewhat extensively at the time when our translation of the Bible was made. Those dogmas taught that morality is founded in the will, rather than in the moral nature of God; and that, if he saw proper to do so, he could reverse all the requirements of the Decalogue, and make those reversions equally obligatory on the human race. To those who entertained such views, it would certainly appear to be a matter of comparative indifference whether the Hebrew terms, in the passages referred to, were rendered by ask and give, or by borrow and lend; since, according to those views, God might require His people to practice deception and fraud on one day, and on the next day prohibit their doing so. And this, we have thought, may, after all, be the true solution of the otherwise unaccountable procedure by which the Hebrew term in those passages has been so strangely misapprehended and misapplied in our translation.

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, June 4, 1864.

ART. III.-Struggles in Kentucky during Three Years succeeding the First Overthrow of the Secession Conspiracy in 1861.

A Memoir of Civil and Political Events, Public and Private, in Kentucky; to serve as an Outline of the Struggles of Parties, Loyal and Disloyal, with their Relations to the Fate of the State and the Nation; commencing with the outbreak of the Civil War in that State, in 1861, and extending to the end of the Summer of 1864.

1. In the year 1862, the writer of this article published in this Review, in the months of March, June and September, three articles, which, in fact, constituted one historical paper, under the general title, " The Secession Conspiracy in Kentucky, and its Overthrow." It was, in effect, a memoir of political events, public and private, in that State, commencing in the year 1859, when the Democratic party became predominant there, as well throughout the nation; and it extended to the breaking out of the civil war in Kentucky, in 1861. The period embraced extended over somewhat more than two years. Nearly three years more have passed since the date at which the political events disclosed in that memoir, stood at the point where it closed. In the mean time, the writer of that memoir, and of this continuation of it, has, on various occasions and in many forms, laid before his countrymen his views of public affairs, and of the duty of this great nation, and of every loyal person in it; as the immense convulsions of which we have been eye-witnesses, have exhibited aspects constantly varying, but always presenting one and the same alternative, the single terrible issue—namely, the utter destruction of our national life, or the utter conquest, by arms, of the insurgent States and people. It is not probable that we should, under ordinary circumstances the ordinary circumstances even of a most bloody insurrection-have considered it necessary to recall public attention to the comparatively narrow affairs of a single commonwealth, while the fate of so many commonwealths, and of the mighty nation they constitute, was being worked out before us. But the circumstances of Kentucky are every way unusual and remarkable; the bearing of these circumstances, however local they may appear to be, is very nearly decisive on the progress of the war and its issue, as well as upon the future development of national politics; and the ultimate triumph in Kentucky of

the party of treason or the party of loyalty, is apparently obliged to have results intensely national, and of the widest influence. We propose, therefore, to resume the narrative of civil and political events in Kentucky, as connected with the cause of the nation and the rebellion, at the breaking out of the civil war in that State, in the autumn of 1861; and to bring it down over the three succeeding years to the present moment. Our object is that, for the present, all loyal men may understand our danger and their own, our hopes and their own duty, and that posterity may have the means of knowing, if they desire to know, exactly how this extraordinary episode, in the center of the nation and the revolution, was worked out, and with what effect upon the fate of the war, and the destiny of the American people.

2. At the close of the third and last portion of the first memoir, published in this Review for September, 1862, one year after the close of the history contained in that paper, we expressly declined to write the military history of the period which had elapsed between the summer of 1861 and the fall of 1862; the military history, we mean, of which Kentucky was the center. It was, nevertheless, a very glorious history; and the battles of Wild Cat and Mill Spring, the storming of Forts Henry and Donaldson, the terrible battles at Shiloh, and the operations before Corinth, were all illustrious for Kentucky, and for the nation; and all had a connection, more or less important and direct, with the facts disclosed in the memoir so often alluded to. It always seemed to us that after those victorious operations the war in Kentucky, and in central Tennessee, was, in effect, and upon every principle of the military art, ended. It always seemed to us, and we so published more than three years ago, that a column of thirty to fifty thousand men pushed into East Tennessee, at that time, or even much earlier, could not have failed to change, immediately and finally, the whole aspect of affairs south and east of that key to seven States. All men know how fearfully the reverse of these just and moderate expectations, has been the course of military affairs in Kentucky, in Tennessee, and in the whole of the vast region which, at the right time, and in the right way, it would have been so easy to overcome and hold, in large part, and from it to menace and overawe every thing, through seven States,

On

from the flanks of that great and loyal mountain region. Posterity will know who is to be held accountable for so much folly, producing so much danger and misery; as well as who is to be made illustrious for repairing and redressing the infinite errors which crowded months of disasters, after a year of victories. Nevertheless, we will not now, any more than formerly, write the military history of those times, nor introduce military events any further than is necessary to illustrate the subject we have in hand. We do not know the precise number of Kentuckians who have taken up arms during this war. the Federal side, this State has furnished from sixty to seventy thousand soldiers; on the side of the rebellion, from twenty to thirty thousand; in addition to those on the Federal side, probably twenty thousand black troops; in the whole, from a hundred to a hundred and twenty thousand fighting men; being more, according to the usual estimates, than one-half of her entire fighting men, white and black. And it may be added, that her officers and white soldiers on both sides have not only fully maintained the martial character of their ancestors, but have proved themselves equal, in every warlike quality, to any troops that were ever brought into the field. For our part, while we condemn, without reserve, every act of treason, and every one guilty thereof, we know how to appreciate a hero, and to sympathize with gallant men who are ready to die for their convictions, even when they are wrong. Compared with them, there are men worthy to be abhorred, traitors who shrink from open danger, who resort to secret conspiracies, and deal in perjury; who are spies upon society, excusing robbers and assassins, leading lives of falsehood, and betraying every trust, public and private, which their habitual perfidy can seduce society to repose in them! These are the men, and not rebel soldiers in the field, whom the nation has most reason to dread. They are the sort of men who, by reason of a deplorable course of events, may, at this moment, be thrown into the commanding position of directing the leaders of factions, and so of holding the balance of political power in Kentucky.

3. The general political elections in this State, under the constitution of 1849-50, occur every second year, in August; the governor and the senators being elected for four years, and the members of the House of Representatives for two years; one

half of the senators being elected every second year. Different arrangements exist concerning all judicial and ministerial offices, of which it is not necessary to speak at present. Governor Magoffin was elected in August, 1859; and the Legislature chosen at the same time, elected, before its two years. expired, John C. Breckinridge, then Vice President, to be a Senator in Congress-Governor Powell, whose term of service. will expire on the 4th of March, 1865, being already the other Senator from Kentucky. General Breckinridge sat in the called session of the Senate after the 4th of March, 1861, but was expelled by the Senate which met in December, 1861, and Garrett Davis, Esq., was elected to supply his place, by the Legislature which was elected in August, 1861. The term of Beriah Magoffin, Esq., extended from August, 1859, to August, 1863, four years. He did not, however, serve out his entire term of office. The latter part of it-about one year, perhaps-was filled by James F. Robinson, Esq., then and still a Senator from a central district in the Blue Grass regionsupposed to be as decidedly pro-slavery, and as doubtful, politically, as any Union district in the State. It is probable

that both of these considerations operated upon the mind of Governor Magoffin in causing him to designate Mr. Robinson, as it is said he did, as his successor, and this as a condition sine qua non of his own resignation. On the other hand, it is said that the resignation of Governor Magoffin was hardly voluntary, but the alternative to very serious proceedings against him on the part of the Legislature elected in 1861. The process was curious, at any rate. The regular Lieutenant Governor, who had been elected in 1859, and who was, ex officio, Speaker of the Senate, had died; and the Senate had elected one of its members to be Speaker, and, ex officio, Lieutenant Governor, in case the Governor should vacate his office. The Governor did not vacate-the Speaker resigned-Mr. Robinson was elected Speaker-the Governor resigned-Mr. Robinson became Governor, ex officio-the previous Speaker, who had so lately resigned, was thereupon re-elected Speaker. After a time a new Governor was elected by the people-(Col. Thomas E. Bramlette, in August, 1863)—and then Governor Robinson fell back upon his unexpired senatorship for the district of Fayette and Scott counties. Verily, the ways in which laws and