This meant the
dissolution of the old Confederation, so that there was no longer any
object in admitting Kentucky to membership, and Congress thereupon very
wisely refused to act further in the matter. Unfortunately Brown, who
was the Kentucky delegate in Congress, was one of the separatist
leaders. He wrote home an account of the matter, in which he painted the
refusal as due to the jealousy felt by the East for the West. As a
matter of fact the delegates from all the States, except Virginia, had
concurred in the action taken. Brown suppressed this fact, and used
language carefully calculated to render the Kentuckians hostile to the
Union.

Naturally all this gave an impetus to the separatist movement. The
district held two conventions, in July and again in November, during the
year 1788; and in both of them the separatist leaders made determined
efforts to have Kentucky forthwith erect herself into an independent
state. In uttering their opinions and desires they used vague language
as to what they would do when once separated from Virginia. It is
certain that they bore in mind at the time at least the possibility of
separating outright from the Union and entering into a close alliance
with Spain. The moderate men, headed by those who were devoted to the
national idea, strenuously opposed this plan; they triumphed and
Kentucky merely sent a request to Virginia for an act of separation in
accordance with the recommendations of Congress. [Footnote: See Marshall
and Green for this year.]

The Kentucke Gazette.

It was in connection with these conventions that there appeared the
first newspaper ever printed in this new west; the west which lay no
longer among the Alleghanies, but beyond them. It was a small weekly
sheet called the _Kentucke Gazette_, and the first number appeared in
August, 1787. The editor and publisher was one John Bradford, who
brought his printing press down the river on a flat-boat; and some of
the type were cut out of dogwood. In politics the paper sided with the
separatists and clamored for revolutionary action by Kentucky.
[Footnote: Durrett Collection, _Kentucke Gazette_, September 20, 1788.]

Failure of the Separatist Movement.

The purpose of the extreme separatist was, unquestionably, to keep
Kentucky out of the Union and turn her into a little independent
nation,--a nation without a present or a future, an English-speaking
Uraguay or Ecuador. The back of this separatist movement