The argument has been advanced that the lawlessness which has disgraced Breathitt and other mountain counties is directly traceable to the contempt for law instilled in the growing up generations during the period immediately following the Civil War.
It doubtless furnished the foundation for the deadly feuds which have in times passed ravaged the border counties of Bell and Harlan. These counties were frequently subjected to invasion by rebel and Union troops, with their attendant elements of lawless camp followers, deserters and guerillas.
Kentucky attempted to remain neutral at the outbreak of the war. But the people divided sharply. The State Guards and Home Guards frequently clashed. They ravaged the country without regard to military proprieties or discipline. The civil authorities had been superseded by military courts which often dealt more harshly than wisely with the people they attempted to govern. In Harlan and Bell Counties bad blood was caused by these retaliatory invasions of rebels and Home Guards. Many men took advantage of the opportunity to wreak vengeance upon an enemy they had feared to attack single-handed and did so under the protection of the mass. Crimes went unpunished because committed under the guise of military operations. But in Breathitt County there did not exist a border war.
After all the matter sifts itself down to what has been pointed out in the introduction: Lawlessness can exist only so long as the good element of a community refuses to rise up against it, and suffers itself to be intimidated.
It should be needless to say that in a republic the people must rule supreme. By their formation of republican form of government they have declared themselves capable and willing to govern themselves, and to enforce the laws they have themselves made. If a people fails to discharge the duty of properly governing themselves, they forfeit their right of citizenship.
If a community persists in its refusal to avail itself of the right of self-government, that right should be abrogated until such time as it shall be able to guarantee not only willingness, but capability for self-government. Where anarchy exists, government has fled. Where a people supinely lay upon their backs and permit anarchy, are they longer entitled to the citizenship of a great state and of a greater nation?
The people of Breathitt County, by their long years of inaction and submission to terrorization by a few, have shown that they do not or did not consider themselves longer the most potent factor in the conservation of order in society. Public sentiment had lost its health. The people of Breathitt County owe it to their manhood, their county, their state, to the nation, to redeem themselves. For the horrors of strife there have been published broadcast to the world. “Breathitt” has become synonymous with blood, murder, anarchy, the world over. We have read of it in foreign newspapers.
The United States only recently demanded of Mexico that the disorders there, especially along the borders, must cease. The Federal government threatened that republic with war even, unless citizens of this country and their property are protected. Government might have found as good grounds for intervention in Breathitt during the past, and may yet—if the murder mills there do not some of these days shut up shop.
America demands of foreign governments protection of the lives and property of our citizens. Yet, owing to the complexity of our governmental structure, it may not extend that protection to its citizens within her own territory.