As a border state, Kentucky remained politically pro-Union. In the past, Kentucky offered the country with great pro-Union political leaders, including Henry Clay, "who developed the idea of the 'American System' to promote unity through national development, and who was the principal founder of the Whig Party, whose principles were union first and foremost… In electing representatives and senators to the U.S. Congress, they cultivated seniority and consequently political power in the hope of bringing federal government funds and benefits to Kentucky. That power reached its high point in the 1930 to 1940s when Alben Barkeley was a US senator and then vice president. (Penny Miller. Kentucky Politics and Government. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994, xv-xxv.)
"Sectionalism--the expression of social, economic, and especially political differences along geographic lines--is part and parcel of American political life." Kentucky is a border state, both Southern and Mid-Western. Because of its position in the Ohio River Valley, the population along the Ohio River, in particular, have similarities the Mid-West. Yet, when all is said, its 'Southerness' is what is critical. "In a sense, Kentucky has always belonged to the South with its sentimentality and in its culture, but has often reacted to national circumstances and trends with its head, as a kind of new Western extension. Indeed, the state's 'personality' is a product of that particular mixture of head and heart." (Miller; xv-xxv.)
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