JOHN M. HARLAN IN KENTUCKY, 1855-1877 THE STORY OF Hm ...

36 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 14the Federal Courts for the protection of their lives, their libertyand their property." Had "the Federal Government, afterconferring freedom on the slaves, left them to the tender merciesof those who were unwilling to protect them in life, liberty andproperty, it would have deserved the contempt of freemen theworld over.",,. Twelve years later Haxlan was to issue substantiallythe same view from the Supreme Bench.'"Primarily it was a defensive battle that Harlan waged withhis Democratic opponents over the Reconstruction measures.Nor could much of,the tactical value of the offense be drawn fromthe already hackneyed charge that the "Democratic Party ofKentucky is in its management, nothing mere or less than theold Southern Rights Party of 1861 which sought to drag thisstate out of the union."m An issue more vital and more compellingwas needed if the Republicans were to seize a vigorousoffensive, an issue that would turn the eyes of Kentuckians awayfrom the bitternesses of war and reconstruction.Harlan and his associates discovered it in the vast undevelopedresources of the state. They mapped a comprehensiveprogram for the exploitation of Kentucky's economic wealth andcoined slogans urging a shift of interest from past to future. Ofprimary significance in that program was the plea for increasedimmigration to Kentucky that her great "agricultural, mineral,and manufacturing resources may be developed."•,0 Chargingthat "Democratic policy had driven immigration to otherstates",,, Harlan revealed how Illinois and Ohio were outstrippingKentucky in population and hit at the last legislature for refusingto appropriate funds for the assistance of a German society whichsought to induce immigrants to Kentucky from abroad.•,, Yetonce again the past rises up to hinder him. His Democraticopponent Leslie "reminded . . . Harlan that it was only so longago as 1857 that he as a Know-Nothing opposed all kinds ofemigration," and opposition papers made immense capital of theKnow-Nothing experience.,,, Again seizing the issue head-on,Harlan frankly admitted his earlier nativistic connections,pointed out that he was a young man of but twenty-two years at•t* Louisville Daily Commercial July 29 1871.,to See his dissent The Civil Righ• Cases, 109 U. S. at 34.l,s Louisville Dai•y Commercial, July 28, 1871.,,e /b/d., May 18, 1871.It7 Louisville Courier-Journal May 31, 1871.ns Louisville Daily Commercial, May 24, 1871.n* Louisville Courier.Journal, May 28, 1871.