Abolitionism
The abolition movement had existed in the state since at least the 1790s, when Presbyterian minister David Rice unsuccessfully lobbied to include slavery prohibition in each of the state's first two constitutions, created in 1792 and 1799. Baptist ministers David Barrow and Carter Tarrant formed the Kentucky Abolition Society in 1808. By 1822 it began publishing one of America's first anti-slavery periodicals.
Conservative emancipation, which argued for gradually freeing the slaves and assisting them in a return to Africa, gained substantial support in the state from the 1820s onward. Cassius Marcellus Clay was a vocal advocate of this position. His newspaper was shut down by mob action in 1845. The anti-slavery Louisville Examiner was published successfully from 1847 to 1849.
Read more about this topic: History Of Slavery In Kentucky