Anti-slavery
Although slavery played a significant role in Kentucky's economy and culture, the state also hosted a small, but fervent, antislavery movement. As early as the 1790s, Kentuckians worked to rid the state of slavery. Early efforts at emancipation often focused on gradual emancipation and colonization, before being replaced by later calls for more radical change. Symbolized by political emancipationist Cassius M. Clay and religious abolitionist John G. Fee, the later movement began in earnest in the late-1830s and continued, albeit in a reduced form, until the outbreak of the Civil War.
"Am I Not A Woman & A Sister?" copper Abolitionsist token, 1838
Reverse: United States of America -Liberty - 1838
In the early nineteenth century, conservative emancipationists across the United States took up the banner of colonization. In the border states, colonization was particularly popular. Many whites feared that a biracial society was impossible, either because of perceived black inferiority or because lingering resentments from slavery would result in race war. Colonization was seen as a viable alternative to risking a failed integration. Kentucky's most famous supporter of colonization was Henry Clay, who served as president of the American Colonization Society from 1836 to 1849. The Kentucky Colonization Society (KCS) was founded in 1829, and within three years, Kentucky had more colonization groups than any state except Ohio and Virginia. Yet, colonization proved expensive and impractical. In the thirty years after its founding, the KCS sent only 658 free blacks to Africa. Despite its longevity, colonization lost support from many emancipationists due to its conservatism and its ineffectiveness.
The antislavery movement in late-antebellum Kentucky was marked by moderation and emphasis on change through political avenues. Although more radical than the state's other opponents to slavery, notably Robert J. Breckinridge and Henry Clay, Cassius Clay was similar to his more moderate counterparts in his insistence on achieving change through politics. Although Clay himself was a former supporter of colonization, by the 1840s, his ideology had evolved. Instead, he favored gradual emancipation without the repatriation of free blacks to Africa. Throughout the 1840s, Clay worked for the end of slavery by running for the state legislature on an antislavery platform and, later in the decade, campaigning for a constitutional convention to rewrite the state's charter. The major exception to political emancipation was Fee, whose ideology had more in common with the radical abolitionists of the North. A graduate of the antislavery Lane Theological Seminary, Fee's attack on slavery was rooted in his religiosity, and he represented the abolitionist American Missionary Association in Kentucky, founding antislavery churches. Unlike most of his counterparts in the state, Fee advocated racial equality and founded the integrated Berea College.
However, following the Constitution of 1850, Kentucky's political climate changed and antislavery advocates were less welcome in the state. Pro-slavery Kentuckians reacted against both the emancipationists in their midst as well as the national debate over slavery and began to restrict the discussion over the institution in Kentucky. As a result, antislavery Kentuckians either abandoned the cause or refocused their energies. In the subsequent decade, Cassius Clay largely focused on national endeavors, such as the antislavery Republican Party. John G. Fee, however, remained active in Kentucky until 1859, when his comments about John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry prompted a mob to drive him out of the state.
