You seem to charge that I have aided and abetted criminal classes by declining to place troops at your disposal in Breathitt County, and attribute to their absence the non-conviction of criminals. If their absence produced such a result in Breathitt County, their presence at your court in Perry County should have produced, according to your logic, a large number of convictions. But I am advised that the result was the same in both counties. We must, therefore, look for some other reason than the presence or absence of the military to account for such uniformity of results. I believe myself that the court is and ought to be, an important factor in the administration of justice, and that the presence or absence of the military should have no weight in its decisions, and ought not to influence its actions. You ask why I throw "the whole responsibility" of making an application for troops upon you? It was because you were the judge who made the application; who demanded protection, and averred you would not hold court unless I sent guards along. There was no one else with whom the responsibility could be divided, and as you must have acted from your convictions of duty, I do not see why you should seek to avoid the responsibility, or desire me to place it where it does not belong. I have no criticisms to make in reference to other judges who have asked for troops, or in reference to Judge Finley, who, you say, failed to attend certain courts. These were occurrences under former administrations, and were doubtless considered by the Executives of the time in the light of facts, which I do not pretend to know. Much less will I offer my comment upon the grave charges you insinuate against another judicial officer in connection with the Breathitt court. But I cannot refrain from expressing regret at what seems to be the manifestation of feeling on your part, which does not impress me as strictly judicial, but, notwithstanding this, I beg you to rest assured of my desire to support your authority in every way that the Executive can do, consistent with the public welfare. I have no objection to your giving the fullest publicity to your letter. Respectfully yours, S. B. BUCKNER. The last feud in Breathitt County, during which the most horrible assassinations were committed, was the Hargis-Cockrell-Marcum-Callahan vendetta. The Hargises and the Cockrells claimed that the name is a misnomer--that no feud existed. Capulet once said: "The Montagues are furnishing all the trouble and we are only innocents slaughtered." Montague said: "The Capulets are making the war. We are only defending our lives and property." An apt quotation, here.