Page:Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.djvu/62

46 pursued, to this effect: "My plan is this: let the legislature of Kentucky be immediately convened by the governor, let them pass resolutions praying for a repeal of every obnoxious and unconstitutional act of Congress." This plan rapidly grew in popularity in the main. Not, however, in the call of a special session, though that was widely favored at first, but all eyes by common consent were directed towards the autumn session of the legislature as the proper place for action on these laws. Meanwhile, county after county fell into line with its resolutions, all of them closely alike in tone, most of them in form. A common formula was apparently used, and the greatest unanimity was everywhere apparent. Very bitter feeling was engendered in the State as the autumn slipped away, by letters written by over-zealous Federalists in Kentucky to eastern friends, and published by them. Some of these letters were gross misrepresentations, and when they were copied into Kentucky papers the indignation that was stirred up was such that it would have gone hardly with the writers if they had been discovered. Some of the eastern papers also gave garbled accounts of the proceedings which came to them as general news. Thus Peter Porcupine gave the following account of the meeting at Lexington which adopted the Resolutions. It was published on the 21St of September, and is an excellent specimen of its class. It will be noticed that it confuses the Clark and Fayette meetings, designating the former by all the references and locating it at Lexington.

"At Lexington (Kentucky) a mob assembled on