HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, Allen, 1872

[pg 241]

CHILTON ALLAN 

Chilton Allan was born on the 6th day of April, 1786, in the county of
Albemarle, in the State of Virginia. His father, Archibald Allan, died
while Chilton was an infant, and his mother, a woman remarkable for her
good sense and forethought, removed to Kentucky in 1797.  At that period
the means of education even to the rich in this new country were limited,
and especially so to those in humble circumstances. The subject of this
sketch was, for the most part, engaged in industrial pursuits to procure
means of subsistence and an education, having opportunities of only a few
months in the year to attend country schools.  While a boy, an incident
occurred that excited in him new hopes, and awakened new exertions of mind.
Having gone to the shop of a country shoemaker to procure a pair of shoes,
he discovered among the scraps upon the floor an old book, which, upon
taking it up, he found to be the Life Of Franklin, a book he had never seen
before, and on looking over several pages he became so interested that he
immediately made a bargain for its purchase. He opened it at the part of
the book in which Franklin's first appearance in Philadelphia is described,
being unknown, possessed of but one Dutch dollar, &c.  This made  such an
impression on his mind as to give him the first aspirations for knowledge.
He read the book over, and over again, until he became so enamored with its
contents as often to embrace it, and to sleep with it under his pillow; and
to the day of his

[pg 242]
death he rearded Franklin as the greatest man America had ever produced.
His family and friends, when he was about fifteen years of age, concluded
that it would be prudent that he should learn some useful occupation as a
means of future support; and he was accordingly placed in an excellent
family to learn the trade of a wheelwright, where he continued the
stipulated term of three years.  He acquired the business with such
aptitude, and was so good a boy, that after the first year he was allowed
to retain for himself all he could make over what was considered full work
for an experienced workman.  Under this arrangement, during the last two
years of his apprenticeship, he made three dollars and fifty cents every
week for his own use, which enabled him amply to provide himself with books
and other necessaries. He devoted part of the night and Sundays to reading,
having no taste for sports of boys aof his age, and being naturally fond of
solitude he went on Sundays to the forests to read, and was in the habit
there, without any special motive, of making speeches to the trees and the
winds.
These three years of his life he ever remembered with the greatest
pleasure.  No ill-feeling, unkindness, or word of reproach was ever
manifested by any member of the family toward him, and he never regretted
the manner in which this portion of his life was occupied, believing that
industry, with intervals for reading, afforded more solid means for the
acquisitions of practical knowledge than was to be found in the schools of
that day.
At the end of this servitude as an apprentice he had arrived at eighteen
years of age, and all the property he possessed was a horse, at that time
regarded as a fine one. The first act of his uncontrolled mind, after
finishing his trade, was to give his horse to the Rev. John Lysle, a
Presbyterian clergyman and teacher of eminence, for a year's board and
tuition in his justly celebrated school.  The time and the means before him
seemed so short, and being naturally of a feeble constitution, his grasping
efforts and the toll of study he imposed upon himself made his health give
way. His teacher being fully persuaded in his own mind that this result

[page 243]
was attributable alone to intense study and close application to books,
advised him to lay them aside, and told him he must die soon if he did not.
This announcement from his excellent and venerable teacher prostrated all
his hopes in the very morning of his life. Greatly depressed in feeling he
quit the school, unable at that time either to study or work.  After some
considerable time, however, still distressed with that inquietude that ever
attends the mind having no fixed object in view, by the advice of friends
he went to the Olympian Springs, where in a few weeks he experienced the
most rapid recovery.  Having been accustomed from childhood to private
study, he again devoted himself to self-instruction.  While thus engaged it
came in his way to form an intimate acquaintance with the late Governor
Clark, who offered him the use of his law library.
While a student of law in the town of Winchester a circumstance occurred
which gave him the first practical illustration of the liberality of our
institutions. One Saturday evening, taking a walk for exercise, he saw a
crowd of men in the suburbs, and curiosity attracting him thither he
discovered that a gentleman of long residence in the town, and a lawyer by
profession, had taken much pains to raise a company of light infantry, with
a view to its command, and the company had assembled that evening to elect
their officers. While looking on as a spectator he was approached by
several gentlemen in succession, who solicited him to stand as a candidate
for the captaincy.  This was so unexpected, and seemed so unfit and even
ludicrous to his own mind, that he regarded it as a joke, and merely
answered with a smile.  These approaches were soon repeated by others, and
finally he was approached by a friend in whom he had unbounded confidence,
whose entreaties he could not resist, and he yielded passively, and without
taking time to weigh the consequences. The vote was taken, and he was
elected by a vote nearly unanimous, only five or six out of the whole
company dissenting. His commission from the Governor was soon received, and
he now, for the first time, began to reflect upon the subject, and came to
the conclusion in his own mind that he had been too

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precipatate in yielding his assent.  He had been elected to an office of
the duties of which he knew nothing; his exposure at the first muster, then
a month off, he feared would be the consequence.  In this dilemma he
thought of an expedient, which he immediately carried into effect.  He went
to a workshop, and made sixty small blocks of wood, with square ends, to
stand erect upon the table, making one side to indicate the front.  He then
procured a gun, and the treatise of Baron Steuben on military tactics, the
book then in use.  Thus prepared, he went to his room and placed his blocks
on the table in a form to represent his company in single lines, then
taking the book and looking at the words of command, by reiterated efforts
moved his wooden men through all the evolutions of a company muster.  In
the same manner, with the gun and book, he learned the manual exercise, so
that by the first muster he was able to go through without any manifest
blunder.  He managed to procure a box of muskets for his company, and they
were soon brought to a good state of discipline.
The duties of his office interfering considerably with his studies, he
some time afterward sent his resignation to the company at a time when from
indisposition he was unable to attend the muster, but he was again elected
to the command, and thereby almost forced to retain the office.
In the month of August, 1808, he obtained license, was admitted to the
bar, and obtained a lucrative business in the very beginning of his
professional career.  The first time he attended a court of an adjoining
county he received the appointment of Commonwealth's Attorney.  The first
year of his practice he made in fees seven hundred and sixty-five dollars,
which more than enabled him to discharge the debts he had contracted while
a student; for although without property he had no difficulty in obtaining
credit.
Our courts at that early day were fine schools in which to acquire the art
of speaking. Free discussion was allowed, as well of the law as the facts,
before the juries.  Every question was discussed. There was more speaking
then at a single term than there is now in a whole year. Readiness as a

[pg 245]
speaker was as sure a means of reputation at the bar as a profound
knowledge of the law is at this time.
Mr. Allan's professional business so increased as soon to possess him,
pecuniarily, with a competency.  As soon as he was eligible to a seat in
the Legislature (in 1811) he was elected a Representative in that body by
the people of Clark County by a handsome majority over respectable opposition.
With the exception of a few years he continued in the legislature until
the coming on of the celebrated Old and New Court controversy, which made
so prominent a figure in the history of Kentucky.  I have elsewhere given a
full history of this controversy, which brought the people of the State to
the very brink of eivil strife.  It was in this memorable part of the
history of Kentucky that Mr. Allan had first an opportunity of exhibiting
his profound knowledge of the structure of the American Government, and of
coming into the favorable notice of the people of the whole State. During
the pendency of this controversy he was transferred from the House of
Representatives by the people of his district to the Senate of Kentucky,
and that without opposition. He made there the first speech that was made
in either house against what was called the Reorganizing Act.  This speech,
and several others he made on the same subject, went through several
editions in pamphlet form by the voluntary act of the people of different
parts of the State.  They tended more to enlighten the minds of the people
on that question than perhaps the speeches of any other man.  He continued
from year to year, during the pendency of that controversy, to speak and
write in favor of what he considered the constitutional rights of the
people.  For the real question involved in the contest was, whether the
rights of the people were based on stable organic law, or depended on the
ever-shifting majorities that ruled the Legislature.  aT last he had the
satisfaction to pen with his own hand the law which put down the New Court,
and restored the constitutional Old Court to the undisputed exercise of its
duties.
The experience of the violence of unchecked majorities made such a
profound impression on his mind in favor of an

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independent judiciary, that he viewed with the depest regret the late
changes in the constitutions of several of the States, by which the judges
were made elective.  Previous to the last Convention in Kentucky to remodel
the Constitution he wrote five essays on the subject, maintaining with
great ability, that under an elective judiciary, in high party times, the
minority has no safe protection.
After the expiration of his senatorial term a convention of the people of
his county offered him the nomination for reelection, which he declined,
and returned to the duties of his profession, in which he continued until
1829, when he was again returned to the Legislature.  In 1831, without
consulting him, he was announced in the Lexington papers as a candidate for
Congress, and was elected by a very large majority over his opponent,
receiving several hundred more votes than the usual strength of his party.
In 1833 he was re-elected to Congress without opposition, and in 1835 again
elected over an opponent of great popularity and influence.  At the close
of this term of service he voluntarily retired to private life.  Of his
speeches in Congress, those on the removal of the deposits, the division of
the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the States, internal
improvements, a review of President Jackson's administration, the
retrenchment of public expenditures, the pension law, and the tariff,
attracted most notice.  Many of his speeches were widely circulated, from
the fact that they were subscribed for by members of Congress from
different States and sent home to their constituents as valuable documents.
He brought to the consideration of Congress the propriety of conferring
upon the old States, for educational purposes, as much of the public lands
as had been given to the new; and after his retirement from Congress he
often expressed his surprise that the old States did not yet make effort to
enforce the justice of this claim. At the head of a select committee, he
was the author of a report on the pension law, which was an able document,
and obtained a wide circulation.
The chief personal satisfaction that Mr. Allan enjoyed in Congress was the
opportunity afforded him of becoming ac-

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quainted with the master minds of the nation, both houses of Congress at
that time being distinguished for the large number of great men which they
contained.
When he returned from Congress in 1837, without application he was offered
the presidency of the Board of Internal Improvements of the State.  The
system of internal improvements had been enacted in his absence, and when
he ccepted the office he was unacquainted with the provisions of the law on
that subject.  On examination he found, to his surprise, that the Board was
invested with more real power than had ever been conferred on any body of
men in the State.  In order to get the bills through, the Legislature had
made appropriations on the widest scale for improvements in all parts of
the State, with the proviso that the money should not be expended unless in
the judgment of the Board the improvement ought to be made.  Upon an
estimate in was found that the Board had discretion over contracts
involving an expenditure of more than a million of dollars.  The Board
consisted of three members besides the president, residing in different
parts of the State, who were seldom all present at any meeting.  The chief
responsibility devolved on the president, whose duty it was to be always
present, and to give checks for money.
The old friends of the president, Mr. Allan, came from all parts of the
country, claiming their respective appropriations.  At that time the
highest honors of the State in time to come were associated with his name
in common conversation.  Temptation for electioneering on so large a scale
has seldom been presented to any many -- means so ample to gratify the
people under the warrant of law, and when a refusal, to the minds of
anxious applicants, seemed a violation of law.  Thus situated, on taking a
view of the whole ground, Mr. Allan called a meeting of the Board, and told
them he was convinced, from the condition of the currency and the banks of
the United States, that there would in the course of the year be a general
suspension of specie payments, and a real turn in the monetary affairs of
the whole nation.  That if the public works submitted to their discretion
should be placed under contract, that it would, in his opinion, involve the
loss of the present means

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of the State, and that it would then be out of their power to have them
completed.  That for himself he had come to the determination to make no
new contract, and that unless the Board would give a pledge to sustain him
he would resign his office.  The Board gave the pledge.
In a few months afterward there did occur a general suspension of specie
payments by the banks, and the State, by his course, was saved from a debt,
that might have been contracted, of twelve hundred thousand dollars.  He
held this office a year, when he resigned, and remained in private life
until the year 1842, when there arose another cry for relief laws.  To meet
this crisis his old constituents again sent him to the Legislature, where
he used his zealous exertions in helping to defeat a property law, and what
was called a safety fund bank charter, without specie capital.  The
difficulties then pressing the people soon passed away, and even those who
had been most indebted were gratified that relief laws had not been again
resorted to.
Mr Allan acquired his opinions from the standard writers of the Washington
school, and always, with unwavering confidence, adhered to them.  In public
life he ever acted on the belief that there was no popularity worth
possessing that was not gained in the cause of truth; that even in point of
poliey, the steady adherence to the principles on which depended the
permanent good of the country was more sure of ultimate success than the
bending to each succe4ssive breeze of public excitement; that all assumed
character, not acted with the zeal of conviction on the theater of life,
was a counterfeit upon nature, and would soon depreciate in the public
esteem.  He denounced in unmeasured terms the fatal scheme that sought to
involve the United States in foreign alliances and wars, and maintained
that the only rational expectation of improvement in the institutions of
the other nations must be founded on the hope of gradual improvement and
the reform of abuses, and not on war and sudden revolution; that free
government is a science that must be learned, as other branches of
knowledge, by the slow developments of time; that all history, as well as
the experience of the present age,

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demonstrates the total incapacity of people who have derived their ideas,
habits, and morals from the double despotism of church and state, either to
understand or to reduce to successful practice such a government as ours;
that it would be just as impossible by war and sudden revolution to
communicate to such a people the knowledge of the science of free
government, as it would be by such means to teach them astronomy or any
other science; that history furnishes no example of such a people having
ever come to the enjoyment of a rational liberty by mere successful war;
that the American Revolution furnishes no exception to the general rule,
because our people had been educated for previous ages in the school and in
the enjoyment of liberty -- a science they understood as well before as
after the Revolution, which was not undertaken in search of new rights, but
in defense of old ones from the encroachment of unconstitutional power;
that all the real liberty the world ever enjoyed was brought to light, as
was ours, by the improvement of the human mind in the school of progressive
ages; that all the revolutions by war, even among the most enlightened
people of continental Europe, from the year 1789, have been mere contests
among leaders for absolute power, the result of all which has been that the
people of France, by universal suffrage, have voted themselves a Dictator
to save their property from the hands of robbers, and their throats from
the daggers of anarchy; that while the reasoning aculties of man are of
slow growth, his passions are developed with the rapidity of instinct, and,
consequently, the nations of the world have for the most part been governed
by their passions and seldom by their reason; that each nation, owing to
the circumstances under which it was formed, is subject to be governed by
some peculiar enthusiasm.  The origin of our people, their history, their
prosperity, their individual vanity, and national glory, all stand
associated in their minds with the idea of human liberty.  Hence the case
with which our enthusiasm, connected with the rights of man, can be made to
blaze across the world.  A noble enthusiasm, if guided by reason, may
perpetuate American liberty.  Enthusiasm is the force that moves the world
of mankind.  Misguided, it is the 

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power by which ambitious men have bound the world in chains.  Our peculiar
national enthusiasm, diverted from its appropriate object, our own liberty,
and misguided by its application to foreign nations, has, in va\rious
forms, been the scourge of our land from the year 1789, when it required
all the influence of Washington to keep us out of the fires of the French
Revolution which desolated Europe.  That while our enthusiasm for foreign
nations has been of no assistance to any people, it has been chiefly
excited for political capital and applied to domestic use.  That the only
real assistance in the power of the United States to furnish to the
progress of rational liberty in the world is by example, literature,
intercourse, commerce, peoce, and kindness; that it will require our
anxious and sleepless vigilance to preserve our own liberties from discord
and foreign intrusion. That while we indulge the hope of seeing our
institutions spread over the world, we should ever have before our minds
the danger that the words anarchy and despotism will be transferred to
America.  That there are more than five in the old world, for one in the
new, whose interest it is to come here; and now, when space is annihilated
by steam, and the nations brought in proximity, the despots of the earth go
to the surplus, generous, and depraved part of the population and say to
them -- go, take their ballot box, and through it seize the property of
America, reduce all to anarchy, and drive the nations to seek shelter under
despotism, a task you have already performed in Europe.  A cheap mode of
conquest.  The tax-payers say to the millions of paupers who live on the
public charge -- go and relieve us of the burden of your support.  The
property-holders say to all clans of robbers and thieves -- go and relieve
us of your depredations.  Hunger says to millions -- go, satisfy the
cravings of your appetite.  The Pope and the priests of all sects say to
their countless followers -- go and erect the true banner of the cross
under a Western sun, on the ruins of the temples of revolted heretics.
That when these facts are flashing their terrible warning in our faces,
instead of the question of intervention, the question should be -- Lord,
what shall we do to save the religion Jesus Christ and the politics of George

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Washington from misguided enthusiasm and the rude shock of the foreign
world, ripened for mischief by the corruption of ages?


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