shown to his fathers had been vouchsafed to him. His wife's tireless
and hope-inspiring devotion induced him to believe for awhile that he
might not only get abroad again, but be restored to health. He so
far recovered as to be removed from his bed to an invalid chair, in
which he spent a part of each day. He caused a vehicle to be made

so arranged that he could comfortably ride in it and take the air.

In anticipation of soon being able to move about unassisted, he pro-
vided himself with crutches.



*See Appendix, note F.

39



6lO ' BEN HARDIN.

But these hopes were of short duration. Fatigue and anxiety, at
length overcame the faithful wife. She was seized with a congestive
chill, and, while surviving its immediate effects, rapidly declined.
On August 4th, she was known to be dying. Mr. Hardin had him-
self carried to her bedside, and there he remained a dazed and broken-
spirited watcher till the end came.

After this event he abandoned all hope of life, and patiently waited
for his hour to come. Shortly afterward, he was attacked similarly to
his wife, and this, accompanied by his previous injury, and complicated
with gastric irritation, rapidly sapped the citadel of life. At this
period he was visited by his kinsman, Hon. Martin D. McHenry, who
thus refers to it:

" Hearing that he was so seriously afflicted, I went from my home
at Shelby ville to see him. I found him rational, composed, self-pos-
sessed, and spent the day by his bedside. He talked very freely to
me about some business matters which he wished me to understand,
and expressed himself satisfied that he should not recover, but that
slowly and surely his end drew nigh. He was always an intelligent
and firm believer in the scriptures and in the religion of Jesus Christ,
and on the occasion of this, my last interview with him, he spoke of
the subject seriously, and as such a man would on such an occasion.
He told me he had been visited by the pastor of the Methodist church
in the town, that he had conversed freely with him on the subject.
He had subsequently sent for the same minister and communicated to
him his faith and hope, and said he had requested him to enroll his
name as having united with the church. In short, though he made
no emotional professions, he had repented, believed, and trusted, and
now believed he was a subject of divine grace."

The members of his own family, who had died before him, had been
buried in the cemetery at Bardstown. His father and mother rested
in a burial place on the farm in Washington county, where they had
first settled in the wilderness. It was the understanding in the family
that Mr. Hardin had promised his mother to be buried by her side.
As the end drew nigh he became solicitous for the fulfillment of this
promise.

The following incident illustrates his filial devotion as well as frame
of mind in his last days :

He called his children and grandchildren around his bed, and his
daughter — Mrs. Riley — at his request read from the 47th chapter of
Genesis, 29, 30, and 31.



THE DYING HUMORIST. 6 I I

" And the time drew nigh that Israel must die; and he called his
son Joseph, and said unto him, if now I have found grace in thy
sight put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh and deal kindly and
truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt; but I will lie with
my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt and bury me in
their burying place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And
he said, swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed
himself upon the bed's head."

After the reading had ended, addressing those around him, in
pathetic imitation of the patriarch, he said: "All of you lay your
hands upon my thigh, and promise me that you will not bury me
here, but will take my remains to Washington county, and there bury
me by the side of my parents." Says Mrs. Riley, "We promised."

After this, he patiently waited for that guest whose coming no
longer had terror for him. The State, meantime, was agitated by a
presidential campaign. Politicians traveled their usual stages, and
stirred partisan feeling to its depths. The hosts he had led in polit-
ical conflict, were marshaled by other leaders, yet, he was not unob-
servant of current events, nor lacking interest in their result. He was
fond of hearing what was taking place and what the outlook por-
tended. His sense of the comical also existed to the last hours of
life, as the following incident illustrates:

"A few days before his death," says General Preston, "in company
with some friends, I called upon him. I found that he had great anxiety
about the state of the Whig party, of which he was a member. He was not
a litde distrustful of Mr, Fillmore, who was then enjoying the last term
vouchsafed to a Whig president. He seemed perfectly tranquil, though in
some pain, and insisted on knowing all the political news of the day.
Several of his friends present, in sympathy with his condition, were wear-
ing long countenances, when the topic came up of the appointment of
Colonel Humphrey Marshall as minister to China. Mr. Hardin, assuming
a very grave look, expressed his fears that it was a fatal mistake on the part
of Mr. Fillmore. Some one of the company inquired the reason why.
Mr. Hardin replied, that many years before he had read the account of the
English embassy of Lord Macartney to China, from which court lie was
sent away because he could not perform the kowtow, or court genuflexion ;
that it was true that for purposes of commerce, the emperor had allowed
various hongs to the barbarian nations, and, among others, one each to
England and America, but that the jurisdictional lines of these hongs were
of remarkably limited extent; and that by the terms of the compact, if any
foreio-ner wandered beyond his proper hong, he was punished with great



6l2 BEN HARDIN.

torments, or decapitation. Mr. Hardin continued, that from what he could
learn of the size of the United States hong, it was already too narrow for
the accommodation of the Yankee merchants congregated there, and that if
Colonel Marshall (who was of great corporal ponderosity), went into it,
that he could not possibly perform the kowtow (as he was more than three
feet in diameter), without causing the Yankee merchants to violate the juris-
dictional line, which would lead to their arrest and execution, and this again
to a sanguinary war between the United States and the Flowery Kingdom,
which might bring the belligerents, before its termination, into hopeless
ruin. He could forgive Mr. Fillmore many things, and did forgive him,
l)ut could never forgive him if he departed from the wisdom of Washing-
ton, and involved us in such an unnecessary struggle when it was so easy for
him to find a thinner embassador.

"The seriousness of the dying humorist, during this narration, upset the
gravity of his surrounding friends."

Neighborly watchers at his bedside as time went on discussed poli-
tics and the common-place events of hfe in respectful undertone. The
weary September days slowly wore away, scattering autumnal tints over
field and forest. That persistent insect minstrelsy in the grass and
trees on the lawn, that had monotonously broken the silence of the
summer nights, floated into the sick room more faintly, as the singers
sang their la.st requiem.

The sounds of life came less distinctly to the ear of the sufferer.
His faculties became mercifully benumbed as the hour for their over-
throw approached. He talked very little, yet, what he did say was
not only rational, but showed that his thoughts were less of this
world than of that better one, for which he hoped and waited. A
day or so before his death, he called a little grandson to his bedside,
and, laying his hand upon his head, said: "Jacob blessed his sons,
and why shall I not bless you? I bless you, my son, and may God
Almighty bless you."

"One night/' says Mrs. Riley, "as he lay so quietly as to render
it doubtful whether he was awake or slept, I asked him if he desired
anything. 'No,' he replied, 'no — nothing but glory, and I have

that.'"

On Friday, September 24. 1852, rational and conscious to the last,
surrounded by children, grandchildren, and friends, he peacefully and
quietly fell into that sleep that knows no earthly waking. Thus this
man of bright humor, this skillful lawyer, powerful orator, and wise
statesman, at the end of his long career, met death in the meek and
trusting fashion befitting a descendant of the exiled Huguenots.



DIGNITY OF DEATH BEFOKK DECAV. 613

It is often said of those who die before a^e or disease have abated
the natural powers of body or mind that death is untimel\-. It could
be said of Mr. Hardin, at least, that his mental force had shown no sit;n
of decay or diminution. He fell as falls the strong warrior in the full
tide of victorious battle. There was no decrepit interval between the
end of his career and the end of his life. Is it not a blessed mercy
to go thus suddenly down to death, rather than linger a dotard on the
margin of life, and by the infirmities of a common humanity blur the
picture of one's strength and genius? " May it please the Giver of
all good," said John Ouincy Adams, "to guard me from the disgrace
of dishonoring my last days by loitering too long upon the stage." ^=
''There is a certain dignity," says Henry Mackenzie, "in retiring
from life at a time when the infirmities of age have not sapped our
faculties." f It adds a charm to the story of Him who was God man-
ifest in the flesh that, judged by mortal standards. He passed from
earth in the full perfection of all intellectual and physical powers, and to
the devotee to-day that glorified face looks down with its manly beauty
all unchanged after the lapse of eighteen centuries. Reverently, be it
said, that it is fortunate for Mr. Hardin's memory that his intellectual
manhood never fell into ruin, but while still shining in meridian splen-
dor was suddenly and irrevocably eclipsed by the shadow of death.
Thus ending life is, indeed, not dying — it is spiritual translation. The
soul is only a tenant changing houses.

" Theu steal awa}-, give little warning.
Choose thine own time ;

Say not ' good night," but in some brighter clime.
Bid me ' good morning.' "

'■'■ Memoirs, Vol. IX., page 1S7. f The Man of Feeling, page 184.



6l4 BEN HARDIN.



CHAPTER XLI.

CONCLUSION-.

SOME religionists believe and teach that the good of the soul after
death requires that the body rest in consecrated ground. Our
English and Scotch ancestors buried their dead in the church-yards of
their respective parishes. A similar custom prevailed in some of the
American colonies, which has not been interrupted by the great
changes on this continent since transpiring. The Protestant, no less
than the Catholic, believed — and very largely still believe — that
Christian burial can only be found in places expressly consecrated by
rites and ceremonies, or hallowed by the dust of kindred and loved
ones.

The pioneers of Kentucky, and the South and West — meeting
death untimely on the battle-field — from foes in ambuscade or other
frontier peril, or in their beds in their rude and scattered homes,
"when their appointed time came," were content to be laid anywhere
beneath the sod. Public cemeteries were rare, and practically inac-
cessible. Churches and their appendant burial places were widely
scattered ; and so, in default of any other, the early settler selected a
spot on his own lands, near his dwelling, which was set apart as a
"grave-yard." As members of his family died, they were laid there.
It was a soothing thought to the parting spirit that the mortal body
would lie in close association with those loved in life. It mitigated
the silence, desolation, and gloom of the grave, to reflect that near
by slept a father, a brother, or a child — and not far away were the
sights and sounds of the old home! The silent sunbeam of the
morning first kissed those green mounds in its swift flight to the door
ajar in "mother's room," and at evening, the gentle zephyr, straying
wearily from the west, crept down in the ivy and whispered lullabies
to the dead. A recent author, thus refers to this American custom
of private burial places: "In the scattered population of Virginia,
churchyard burial became impossible. In its place, grew up the habit
of interring the dead beside the homestead. This ground, conse-
crated by the dust of the family, was the last possession parted with ;
indeed, it almost always remained in the possession of the kindred to



THE KKXTICKIAX'S MACPELAH. 615

the farthest generation. So it came aboul ihat for a decent man to
own no acres that might receive his dust was something that appealed
strongly to his fellows. It is a social instinct, peculiar to the South-
ern States of this Union." *

Somewhat uncared for, and sometimes forgotten, are the dwelling
places of these silent families whom death has not divided. ]5ut they
will need neither obelisk nor epitaph to commemorate their names
with a worthy posterity.

On the farm, in Washington count}-, where Mr. Hardin's parents
had settled on coming to Kentucky, in 1788, their bodies had long
been laid to rest. Others of his family, dying before him, had been
interred in the public cemetery at Bardstown, Mrs. Hardin being the
last. By the side of his parents, in a spot marked by evergreen
trees (and, of late, by some intrusive locusts, in addition), in an old and
neglected field, near the public road from Springfield to Lebanon, a feu-
miles from the former, stands a stone, bearing as its sole inscription :
"Ben Hardin, of Bardstown." There his dust now reposes. The
memorial stones he had erected to his wife and his children, had been
marked with their names only. His own monument was so inscribed,
in accordance with his known wishes and simple tastes. Nothing
could have been more repugnant to him than an ill-devised epitaph,
or a pretentious and insincere posthumous eulog}'.

"Some years after his death," writes Mrs. Riley, "a committee of
gentlemen waited on my husband, to obtain my consent to the
removal of his body to the cemetery at I^Vankfort, where it was pro-
posed to erect a monument to his memor}-. I related the circum-
stance of the promise, and this ended the matter."'!

In Westminster Abbey, for several centuries past, England has
garnered the dust of her great and famous children, until something
of the atmosphere of genius and glory hovers about "the solid pil-
lars, the ponderous arches, the huge edifice with triple tower and
sculptured stones, and storied windows." ;{; Kentuck)' has no West-
minster Abbey, but, instead, has buried a goodly host of pioneers,
soldiers, statesmen, and scholars in her cemetery at Frankfort, the
State capital. The cemetery is situated on a slightl}- undulating
plateau, on Kentucky river, where the shore springs abruptl}' several
hundred feet above its limpid waters. If the field of Macpelah,
which Abraham bought for a burying-place. was anything like it. the
anxiety of Jacob not to be buried in the sands or catacombs of Egypt

* Kentucky a Pioneer Commonwealth, by Professor N. S. Sh.ilcr, page 156. f ^=c Chapter XL.

J Dean Stanley.



6i6



HEN HAKDIN.



was, no doubt, heightened by recalling the soul-comforting peace
that lingered around the tomb of his fathers. Overlooking the
river and the little city below, and in view of picturesque hills beyond
(not unlike those bordering the valley of Hebron), yet these sights
seem far away, and the blue heaven above, somewhat closer by !
From Boone, the pioneer, to Hart, the sculptor, is a long and illus-
trious roll of Kentuckians that will be called among men until the
An'^lo-Saxon race and all it has achieved — like prehistoric man — shall
be blotted from the chronicles of time.




APPENDIX.



617



APPENDIX.



NOTE A. PAGE 4.



GRANT FROM LORD FAIRFAX TO MARTIN HARDIN IN 1748.*

(NOTE I. )

The Right Honorable Thomas Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, in that part of
Great Britain called Scotland, Proprietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia: To all to
whom this present Writing shall came, Lends Greeting. Know Ye that for good Causes
for and in Consideration of the Composition to the paid and for the annual Rent here-
after reserved, I have given, granted, and confirmed, And by these presents for me, my
Heirs and Assigns, do Give, Grant, and Confirm unto Martin Hardin, of the County of
Prince William, a certain Tract of Waste and ungranted Land, lying in the Great Fork
of the Rappahannock River, Orange County, and is Bounded according to a Survey
thereof made by Mr. George Hume, as followeth : Beginning at a large Hickory and
Red Oak Corner in a Line of Colonel Francis Thornton, and runs thence with the said
Thornton's Lines So. 27°, Wt. twenty-eight poles, to one red Oak and Hickory, So. 15°.
Et. Forty-two Poles, to a Poplar, So. 48°, Et. Sixty-four Poles to a Red Oak, So. 76°,
Et. Forty Poles to two Spanish Oaks, So. 32°, Et. Fifty Poles to one Hickory, one white
Oak, and a red Oak Corner to the said Thornton's; thence leaving his line So. 8°, Et.
Thirty-six Poles to one Hickory and three white Oaks in the line of another Tract of
the said Thornton's, thence with the said Thornton's line So. 40°, Wt. Two Hundred
Poles to one Hickory and two white Oaks Corner to the said Thornton and William
Green, thence with the said Green's Line No. 70°, Wt. Sixty Poles to Two White Oaks
and one red Oak Corner to the said Green and John Weatherhall, thence with the said
Weatherhall line No. 40°, Wt. Three Hundred Poles to one red Oak, on a Ridge, thence
North Sixty-two Poles to a Chestnut, Oak, and Hickory, at the foot of a Mountain ;
thence over the said Mountain East Two hundred and thirty-four Poles to the Begin-
ning, containing Four hundred acres. Together with all Rights, Members, and Appur-
tenances thereunto belonging, Royal Mines excepted, and a full third part of all Lead,
Copper, Lime, Coals, Iron Mines, and Iron Ore that shall be found thereon : To have
and to hold the same Four hundred acres of Land, Together with all Rights, Profits,
and Benefits to the same belonging or in anywise apptirtaining. Except before Excepted.
To Him, the said Martin Hardin, his heirs and assigns for Ever. He, the said Martin
Hardin, his heirs and assigns, therefor, Yielding and Paying to Me. my Heirs
and Assigns or to my certain attorney or attorneys, agent or agents, or to the
certain attorney or attorneys of my Heirs or Assigns, Proprietors of the Northern
Neck, Yearly and every Year on the Feast Day of St. Michael, the Archangel, the
Fee Rent of One Shilling Sterling Money for every Fifty acres of Land hereby Granted,
and So proportionably for a Greater or Lesser Quaniit\ . Provided that if the said Mar-

* Transcribed from the original in possession of Hon. Horatio A\'. Uriice. of Louisville.



6l8 BEN HARDIN.

tin Hardin, his Heirs or Assigns, shall not Pay the before reserved annual Rent, So that

the same or any Part thereof shall he behind or unpaid by the Space of Two whole
Years, after the same shall become Due, if Lawfully Demanded. That then it shall
and may be lawful for Me, my Heirs and Assigns, Proprietors as aforesaid. My or their
certain attorney or attorneys, agent or agents, into the above Granted Premises to Reen-
ter and Hold the same, so as if this Grant had never Pass'd. Given at my office, in the
County of Fairfax, within my said Proprietary, under my Hand and Seal. Dated this
twentieth day of June, in the Twenty-second Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord
George, the second by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King,
Defender of the Faith, the A. D. one thousand seven hundred and forty-eight.

FAIRFAX.

Registered in the Proprietor's Office, in Book G, Fol. 70.



SOME SCOTCH HAKDINS.
(notf: II.)

The name of Hardin was known in Scotland from an early period. An ancestor of
Sir Walter Scott was known in border story as Auld ^Yat of Hardin. Auld Wat's son
William, captured by Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank during a raid of the Scotts on
Sir Gideon's lands, was, as tradition says, given his choice between being hanged on Sir
Gideon's private gallows, and marrying the ugliest of Sir Gideon's three ugly daughters,
Meikle-mouthed Meg, reputed as carrying off the prize of ugliness among the women
of four counties. Sir William was a handsome man. He took three days to consider
the alternative proposed to him, but chose life with the large-mouthed lady in the end,
and found her, according to the tradition, which the poet, her descendant, has trans-
mitted, an excellent wife, with a fine talent for pickling the beef which her husband
stole from the herds of his foes. Meikle-mouthed Meg transmitted a distinct trace of
her large mouth to all her descendants— Sir Walter, among others, thus betraying his
pedigree.*

From this marriage sprang sons, wdio, by inexplicalde coincidence, bore the names
of John Hardin, Mark Hardin, and Ben Hardin. The reader will note that these are
family names among the Hardins of Yn-ginia and Kentucky.



NOTE B, PAGE io8.



PREAMBLE, WRITTEN BY HON. JOHN ROWAN IN SUPPORT OF THE
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE RELIEF LAWS.

The late decision of the Court of Appeals, pronounced in the cases of Blair vs.
Williams, and Lapsley vs. Brashear, having been referred to in the communication of the
governor, demands the attention of the Legislature. In that decision, the existing
remedial laws of the Stale are declared to be unconstitutional and void, in relation to
all contracts made anterior to their enaction. The principle which it establishes,
whether viewed in relation to its practical effects upon society, in its present embar-
rassed condition, or in relation to the exercise of legitimate power by the departments,

"■Biography of Sir Walter Scott, by Richard H. Hatton.



APPENDIX. 6[Q

according to its distribution and apportionment, in the Constitution of the Stale, is
entitled to such calm and vigilant scrutiny of the Legislature, and if, upon that scrutiny,
those laws should be found to have been enacted, in contravention of any provision of
either the Constitution of the State, or that of the United States, they should be forth-
with repealed, and their place supplied by valid enactions. But if, on the contrary,
they should be found to be not in confliction with any restraint imposed upon legislative
power, by either of the constitutions, and it should appear that the judges, in proclaim-
ing them void, have transcended the limits assigned by the constitution to the exercise
of judicial power, they should be informed of that fact, and admonished that their
decision does not, as it ought not to, vacate those laws. Their concurrence was not,
by the constitution, necessary to their enaction. Their veto can not vacate them ; and
they themselves have declared, in the case of Banks vs. Oden, that, while they would
feel it their duty to pronounce any act of the Legislature void, which was manifestly in
confliction with the constitution, they feel a strong disinclination to encroach upon the
province of the Legislature, by attempting to narrow its sphere of action, or thwart its
will. They can not do it by construction or intendment. The confliction of the law
with the constitution must be obvious and palpable to induce them to make such decla-
ration. (See I Marshall, 551.) There is, therefore, high authority against the arrival,
by construction, at the conclusion that a law is unconstitutional. The impulses of
charity and the dictates of reason, alike proclaim that the judges, when they entertain
doubts as to the constitutionality of a law, should presume that those who enacted it
were not less obliged than themselves to preserve the constitution inviolate, and should
give effect to the law. All the judges concur in the opinion that the existing remedial
laws are void, in relation to contracts which were in existence at the time of their enac-
tion — one of them declares all laws to be void whicli authorize replevins, or sales on
credit, in any case whatever. Each supports his opinion by his construction of the
tenth section of the first article of the Constitution of liie United States, which, in the
latter clause of it, provides "that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation
of contracts."

It will, perhaps, subserve the purposes of this inquiry into the correctness of the
decision, and accord better with correct notions of fitness, that it should be confined
mainly to the reasoning of the chief-justice, as he is the official organ of that court.