If that 1849 petition, which was signed by many of the Kentucky feud characters, had been honored by Kentucky, there would have been no “Hatfield and McCoy feud.”
If the three McCoys who killed Ellison Hatfield on Election Day, 1882 had faced a trial in the Valley, with Valley citizens on the jury, Devil Anse and all the rest of the Hatfields would have almost surely accepted the outcome. After all, Devil Anse was party to over two dozen court cases, some of them criminal indictments, and he accepted the rulings of the courts in every instance.
This essay, in its entirety, can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977716814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511238586&sr=1-1&keywords=Lies%2C+Damned+Lies%2C+and+Feud+Tales