When the officers gathered and tried to evolve some
plan of operations, they found that they were helpless. They were merely
the officers of one of the districts of Virginia; they could take no
proper steps of their own motion, and Virginia was too far away and her
interests had too little in common with theirs, for the Virginian
authorities to prove satisfactory substitutes for their own. [Footnote:
Marshall, himself an actor in these events, is the best authority for
this portion of Kentucky history; see also Green; and compare Collins,
Butler, and Brown] No officials in Kentucky were authorized to order an
expedition against the Indians, or to pay the militia who took part in
it, or to pay for their provisions and munitions of war. Any expedition
of the kind had to be wholly voluntary, and could of course only be
undertaken under the strain of a great emergency; as a matter of fact
the expeditions of Clark and Logan in 1786 were unauthorized by law, and
were carried out by bodies of mere volunteers, who gathered only because
they were forced to do so by bitter need. Confronted by such a condition
of affairs, the militia officers issued a circular-letter to the people
of the district, recommending that on December 24,1784, a convention
should be held at Danville further to consider the subject, and that
this convention should consist of delegates elected one from each
militia company.
Pages:
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287