john s. todd's cousin, polly, and woodcliff has the estate. so they're engaged in a kind of -- it's like jarndicevjarndice, going on for a decade. there are two subtexts to it. one is woodcliff is the leader of the pro slavery movement, and he succeeds in creating a new state constitutional convention to make the kentucky constitution more proslavery. there had been something call the nonimportation in kentucky which stopped selling of slaves. so, whitcliff is a powerful man. the state constitution is being rewritten. lincoln arrives as all this is happening and it happens and he watches as the -- he loses the case, loses the family fortune, he watches henry clay's legacy destroyed. john s. todd's personal financial and political legacy destroyed, and he observes slavery in kentucky up close. he'd seen it before as a boy. he's seen it in washington, dc where slavery was legal and he now sees the rise of what people call the slave power. this is a rising power in the country. a very powerful right wi