In December 1860, Stephen F. Hale, Alabama's commissioner to Kentucky, wrote a letter to that state's governor about Alabama's justification for secession. In it, he voiced support for the "Dred Scott" decision, condemned the Republican Party for opposing slavery, and stated that the state's secession, which would perpetuate slavery, was the only way to prevent prospective African-American freedmen, whom Hale referred to as "half-civilized Africans" from waging a race war (noting the 1804 Haiti massacre):