Iowa and the first nomination of Abraham Lincoln

Glass .

Book , Hg-fe ,

IOWA AND THE FIRST NOMINATION
OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

BY F. I; HERRIOTT

Professor of Economics, Political and
Social Science, Drake University

[ Reprinted with additions ( V . 3; troin The A nnui* of Iowa, Vol VUI .

It

SOME OF IOWA'S DELEGATES
Chicago Convention. May 16-18. I860

WILLIAM B. ALLISON,
U. S. Senator

JAMES F. WILSON,
U. S. Senator

JOHN A. KASSON
U. S. Diplomat

ALVIN SAUNDERS,
U. S. Senator

IOWA AND THE FIRST NOMINATION
OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY F. I. HERRIOTT.

Professor of Economics, Political and Social Science,
Drake University.

The delegates from Iowa will go to Chicago to nominate a Presidential
ticket — the strongest ticket possible — and to this end will be glad to listen
to the suggestions of well informed friends at Washington or elsewhere,
but they go unpledged, uncommitted, and fully at liberty to hear all
suggestions and then to do what shall commend itself to their unfettered
judgment as best for the cause. As it is in Iowa, so it will be elsewhere.
— Horace Greeley (Feb. 8. 1860). 1

. . . the blot does not rest upon the history of the Union, that this
[Lincoln's nomination] the most fate-pregnant decision which an Ameri-
can convention had ever to make, was brought about by blind chance in
combination with base intriguers. Far from it. It was the conscious
act of clear-sighted and self-sacrificing patriots to whom honor and grati-
tude in the fullest measure are due. — Von Hoist (1892). 2

I.

EXPECTATIONS AND THE MEAGRE MINUTES.

The average Iowan is wont to indulge in the presumption
that Iowa's politicians and statesmen have always played
prominent parts in our national affairs. While often ex-
pressed in language more exuberant and vasty than modesty
or truth sanctions, the assumption is fairly well founded. In
recent years no one will gainsay this State's prominence in
our Federal councils. Fifty and sixty years ago the case
was likewise. Iowa's chiefs commanded attention and exacted
consideration in the conduct of the national government.

Mr. James G. Blaine in closing his characterization of the
leaders of the Senate at Washington in the momentous session
of 1850, says: "Dodge of Wisconsin and Dodge of Iowa,
father and son, represented the Democracy of the remotest

(1) New York Tribune, Feb. 17, I860.— Extract from letter dated at
Mansfield, Ohio, written after making circuit of the Northwestern States.

(2) Constitutional and Political History of the United States, Vol. VII,
p. 173.

FROM FIKE h FIKE
New ;:: u.ook»

DES WuiMca, ia.

—2—

outposts of the North-West. ... At no time, before or
since in the history of the Senate has its membership been so
illustrious, its weight of character and ability so great."1
Henry Dodge, father, was Iowa's first Governor de facto when
the State was a part of Wisconsin ( 1836-38 ).2 In the country
at large Iowa was regarded as a stronghold of the democ-
racy and her first Senators, A. C. Dodge and Geo. W. Jones,
were considerable factors in the party councils of Presidents
Pierce and Buchanan. Both men were given important diplo-
matic posts when the political revolution in Iowa enforced
their retirement from the Senate, the former at Madrid and
the latter at Bogota. At the National Democratic Convention
in Charleston in 1860, the Douglas forces triumphed in the
struggle over the platform and we are told that it was "skill-
fully accomplished under the lead of Henry B. Payne of Ohio
and Benjamin Samuels of Iowa."3

In President Taylor's short-lived administration, an Iowan,
Fitz Henry Warren of Burlington, acquired fame as Assist-
ant Postmaster-General by his swift elimination of Democratic
office-holders,4 and his resignation because of indignation
over Fillmore's apostasy on the subject of slavery.
Afterwards, in 1852, he became the Secretary of the National
Executive Committee of the Whig party in the Pierce-Scott
canvass.5 Later the pages of J. S. Pike show us that the
brilliant flashes of Warren's pen made him a forceful factor
in the determination of anti-slavery opinion and procedure.6
It was his clarion calls in 1861 that aroused the furore
in the north against the inactivity of the new administration
and forced the precipitate movement "On to Richmond"
which ended in the disastrous rout at Bull Run.7

pi R'aine's Tivntv Years of Congress, Vol. 1. p. 90.

(2) Governor Robert Lucas, first Territorial Governor of Iowa, 1838-41,
was the permanent chairman of the first National Democratic Convention,
that met in Baltimore, May 21, 1832. See Parish's Robert Lucas, p. 111.

(3) B'aine. Tbid, p. 162: McClure's Our Presidents and How We
Make them, p. 167.

' ') Bf>n Perlev Poore. Reminiscences, Vol. I, p. 355.

(5) Annals of Iowa (3d ser.), Vol. VI, p. 486.

(6) Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, pp. 483-4, 496; and Von
Hoist's Vol. VII. pp. 155. 157.

(7) Letters from Washington to New York Tribune; see Mr. E. H.
Stiles. Annals Tb., 487-410. It is not unlikely that President Lincoln's
refusal to appoint him Postmaster-General, for which he was earnestly
pushed by Iowans, made Warren's ink more acid than otherwise.

The triumph of James W. Grimes in 1854 made him a na-
tional figure. His election as Governor was a surprise to the
entire country. This was not strange for Iowa was looked
upon as a "hot-bed of dough faces,"1 and the annals of
the ante helium period contain no clearer, stronger, or more
courageous pronouncement against the aggressions of the
Slavocrats than his address "To the People of Iowa" when he
accepted the nomination for Governor.2 His election was
mostly his personal achievement and not the result, as it
would be nowadays, of organization and widely concerted ef-
fort. Senator Chase of Ohio wrote the new champion that he
had waged "the best battle for freedom yet fought."3
Giddings declared that he had made "the true issue" on
which the battle had to be fought in the northern States.4 In
the Senate from 1859 to 1869 he was distinguished "for iron
will and sound judgment"5 and became, says Perley Poore
"a tower of strength for the administration" in the crises
of the war.G

Grimes's victory in 1854 sent James Harlan to the Senate
in 1856. He, too, says a distinguished historian, immediately
made his "mark."7 His speech on the Lecompton Consti-
tution won Seward's admiration. s The Republican Asso-
ciation at Washington printed and sold at a low price Sena-
tor Harlan's speeches along with those of Collamer, Hale,
Seward and Henry Wilson.9 Harlan was a statesman the
country reckoned with, Mr. Blaine telling us that he later
became "one of Mr. Lincoln's most valued and most confiden-
tial friends and subsequently a member of his cabinet."10

No fact, in the writer's judgment, indicates more strik-
ingly the potency of Iowa's influence at Washington fifty
years ago than President Lincoln's appointment in the fore-
part of his first term of Samuel P. Miller as Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court. He was endorsed strongly by Iowa's
bench and bar and by others in States adjacent. The Presi-
dent, however, delayed making the appointment. Upon per-

(1) Von Hoist. Vol. V, p. 78. (2) Salter's Life of Grime*, pp. 34-50.
(3) lb., p. 54. (4) lb., p. 63. (5) Blaine, lb., p. 321. (6) Poore, lb.,
Vol. II, p. 100. (7) Rhodes* History of U. S., Vol. II, p. 130. (8) Pike's
First Blows, etc.. p. 417. (!)) Rhodes, lb., p. 1 3 I . (10) Blaine, lb., p. 321

— 4-

sonal inquiry, Mr. John A. Kasson, then Assistant Post-
master-General, learned that the reputation of the Keokuk
lawyer "had not then even extended so far as to Springfield,
Illinois" (a distance but little over one hundred miles).1
Nevertheless the appointment was made and Justice Miller
became almost immediately the "dominant personality" of
our great court.2 The significance of his elevation is this —
President Lincoln was not a petty spoilsman and he had no
special fondness for the office monger; but he was a politician
par excellence. He made appointments with an eye single
to the public good, which was then the preservation of the
Union, yet he always gave close attention to the influence of
the Potentialities back of the aspirants for office who pressed
their claims upon him.3 Government is not a philosophical
abstraction or an academic thesis. It is a constantly shifting
balance of contrary and divergent forces and interests. It
was essential to success in combating the nation's enemies at
the front for the President so to co-ordinate factors and con-
trol conditions behind him as to assure him at once non-inter-
ference and efficient support. Justice Miller's appointment
must have appeared to President Lincoln not only credit-
able and safe, but eminently worth while, insuring strength
upon the bench and influential support for his administration,
both in Congress and in Iowa. Besides consideration
of the influence of Iowa's leaders we should naturally pre-
sume that recollections of the prominent part taken by Iowans
on his behalf in the Convention that first nominated him for
the Presidency played no small part in deciding President
Lincoln to select the then but little known jurist of Keokuk.
This presumption, however, is apparently upset if the curi-
ous make casual inquiry. There is nothing whatever in the
record of the proceedings of the Convention showing that Iowa
did anything for any candidate worthy of special note or
remembrance. One of Iowa's delegates moved an amendment
to a motion to thank Chicago's Board of Trade for an invi-

(1) Mr. John A. Kasson to Charles Aldrich — letter dated Washington,
D. C, Nov. 10, 1893. See Annals, Vol. I, p. 252. (2) Characterization of
Chief Justice Chase quoted in Annals, lb., p. 247. (3) See Mr. Horace
White's introduction to Herndon & Weik's Lincoln, Vol. I, p. XXII.

tation to an excursion on Lake Michigan.1 Another dele-
gate secured an amendment allowing each State to choose
its member of the National Committee as it pleased.2
When the Committee on Credentials reported that Iowa had
"appointed eight delegates from each Congressional district
[Iowa had only two] and sixteen Senatorial delegates," when
entitled to but eight votes, the minutes record " [laughter]."3
In the entire proceedings of the Convention, Iowa is
credited with but one significant performance and that was
manifestly either a blunder due to excitement or a play to the
galleries — A delegate elicited "great applause" by seconding
the nomination of Abraham Lincoln "in the name of two-
thirds of the delegation of Iowa."4 Yet, on the first
ballot immediately following, Iowa gave Lincoln only two
votes, or one-fourth of her quota; and on the third ballot
even when it was clear that the candidate of Illinois was al-
most certain to be nominated Iowa gave over a third of her
vote to other candidates.5 After Mr. Cartter of Ohio
changed four of Chase's votes to Lincoln and decided the re-
sult then a delegate from Iowa joined the chorus and on
behalf of the delegation moved to make it unanimous.6
But there is nothing in all this that denotes conspicuous
achievement or influence, neither staunch service nor effect-
ive generalship such as politicians exact.

If we turn to formal histories or accounts of national cur-
rency or general use our presumption is further seriously
disturbed. Iowa's influence in the nomination seems to have
been conspicuous chiefly by its absence. There are no refer-
ences to Iowans whatever in scores of volumes relating the
events of the convention week. One would almost imagine that
Iowa's men were not present at all. In practically but one
case has the writer found mention of Iowa's influence in a
favorable connection and even here the assertion is disputed.
In two other instances distinguished national historians refer
to her representatives in Chicago in derogatory terms that

(1) Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions of
1856, 1860, 1861,, published by Charles W. Johnson, p. 91. (2) lb., p. 107.
(3) lb., p. 110. (4) lb., p. 149. (5) lb., pp. 149, 153. (6) lb., p. 154.

— 6-

seem to imply conduct not worthy of commendation or re-
spect.

In spite of appearances thus to the contrary there are sub-
stantial reasons for thinking that men from Iowa played an
influential part in bringing the Convention to what Von Hoist
declares was "the most fate-pregnant decision which an
American Convention ever had to make," verifying precisely
Horace Greeley's prediction three months before, to-wit, " As
it is in Iowa, so it will be elsewhere." In what follows I shall
deal with the animadversions referred to and then exhibit the
growth of Republican sentiment in Iowa regarding the Presi-
dential nomination, the character of Iowa's delegates, and the
nature of their work in the Convention.

II.

DID CLANS OR CHIEFS CONTROL THE CONVENTION f

Notwithstanding Professor Von Hoist's conclusive demon-
stration to the contrary1 there still prevails a wide-
spread notion that the first nomination of Abraham Lincoln
was received by the country at large with surprise and shock,
a consummation believed to be the issue of either cabals and
machinations against New York's candidate or the irrational
overwhelming influence of a shouting, surging mob round
about the delegates, or of both combined. This notion is not
a common popular prejudice merely, but the deliberate con-
clusion of academic chroniclers and savants.2 In a general
way Mr. James Ford Rhodes seems to agree with Von Hoist's
presentation of the major facts and their interpretation, us-

(1) Von Hoist, History, Vol. VII, pp. 149-186. (2) Judge J. V. Quarles
in Putnam's Monthly, Vol. II, p. 59 (April, 1907), says that the nomina-
tion was a "tremendous surprise" ; Admiral French E. Chadwick in Causes
of the Civil War, 18591861 (Amer. Nation: A History, Prof. A. B. Hart,
editor, Vol 19, 1906), says "the result was a shock of surprise to the
country at large," p. 119; Dr. Guy Carlton Lee in The True History
of the Civil War (1903), says: "The nomination was received with a
shock of surprise by the country," and he adds Wendell Phillips' harsh
exclamation in The Liberator, "Who is this huckster in politics?" Gold-
win Smith in The United States (1893), p. 241, says: "But it was mainly
to cabal against Seward that Lincoln owed the Republican nomination" ;
Professor Alex. Johnston says: "Much of the opposition to Seward came
from the mysterious ramifications of factions in New York." Lalor's
Cyclopedia of Political and Social Science (1882), reprinted in his Amer.
Political History, [edited by Professor J. C. Woodburn, 1906], Vol. II, p.
212.

— 7—

ing the same or similar evidence. But the sweep and implica-
tions of his assertions give color and substance to the general
opinion. In his account of the conditions precedent and de-
termining the developments and results during the Conven-
tion week, May 14-18, 1860, Mr. Rhodes makes the following
statements in his History of the United States, Vol. II:

Contrasting the Republican National Conventions of 1856 and I860,
he says: then [1856] the wire pullers looked askance at a

movement whose success was problematical, now [1860] they hastened
to identify themselves with a party that apparently had the game in
its own hands; then the delegates were liberty-loving enthusiasts and
largely volunteers, now the delegates had been chosen by means of the
organization peculiar to a powerful party, and in political wisdom were
the pick of the Eepublicans (p. 457).

Seward 's claim for the nomination was strong. * * * Intensely
anxious for the nomination, and confidently expecting it, he was alike
the choice of the politicians and the people. Could a popular vote on
the subject have been taken, the majority in the Republican States
would have been overwhelmingly in his favor. One day at Chicago
sufficed to demonstrate that he had the support of the machine politi-
cians (p. 460).

While much of the outside volunteer attendance from New York
and Michigan favoring Seward was weighty in character as well as
imposing in number, the organized body of rough fellows from New
York City, under the lead of Tom Hyer, a noted bruiser, made a great
deal of noise without helping his cause. All the outside pres-

sure was for Seward or Lincoln, there being practically none for the
other candidates. While many of Seward's followers were disinterested
and sincere, others betrayed unmistakably the influence of the machine.
Lincoln's adherents were men from Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, who had
come to Chicago bent on having a good time and seeing the rail-splitter
nominated, and while traces of organization might be detected among
them, it was such organizaton as may be seen in a mob (pp. 462-463).
(Italics here.)

Several important facts are clearly asserted in the fore-
going and some serious implications are no less apparent.
First, politicians and wire pullers rather than earnest self-
sacrificing patriots made up the dominant forces of the Chi-
cago Convention of 1860. Second, Seward was the choice of
the politicians and people alike. Third, honesty or sincerity
was for the most part lacking among the rank and file of
Seward's followers at Chicago; fourth, earnestness or
serious purpose was notably absent from the followers of Mr.

— 8—

Lincoln. By "adherents" he apparently refers chiefly to the
"volunteer outside influence," namely, unofficial attendants,
rather than to accredited delegates. Yet the comprehensive-
ness and variable sweep of portions of previous paragraphs
suggest that a first impression that delegates were also in-
cluded is not unwarranted. And, fifth, Mr. Rhodes would
have us conclude, we may infer, that Lincoln's nomination
was an amazing conclusion resulting from the variable but
coercive suggestions of a dominant organized mob. It is but
fair to say, however, that Mr. Rhodes seems to shrink from this
last conclusion, for later he says: "One wonders if those
wise and experienced delegates1 interpreted this manip-
ulated noise as the voice of the people" (p. 468).

Since Edmund Burke confessed his inability to discover "a
method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people,"
scholars and scientists have not deemed it appropriate or safe
to condemn institutions, parties or governments, let alone
peoples en bloc. Mr. Rhodes is not a psuedo-historian who
imagines that cynical contempt for the commonality is a solid
basis for historical scholarship; and he does not proceed on
the assumption that all men in politics are scamps or scoun-
drels, although he squints occasionally in that direction. lie
has deserved renown as a scientific historian who depends
upon extensive and minute researches and basic facts, whose
narrative is characterized by judicial balance and impartiality,
by caution and sobriety of statement. Common prudence
makes one hesitate to question his assertions or conclusions.
Nevertheless several queries are pertinent which are not
wholly academic for there are scores, probably hundreds of
men still living, men of eminence in letters and politics in
many cases, who took part in that conclave at Chicago. I
shall not here undertake to discuss all the phases of the asser-
tions referred to except indirectly as they affect the character
or conduct of Iowa's representatives at the Convention.

(1) Enlarging upon Blaine's notation (Twenty Years of Congress, Vol.
I, p 164), Mr. Rhodes gives a list of some of "the many noted men, or
men who afterwards became so," mentioning e. g. E. H. Rollins (N. H.),
John A. Anirews. George S. Boutwell, B. L. Pierce (Mass.), Gideon
Wells, William M. Evarts and George W. Curtis, David Wilmot and
Thaddcus Stevens, Francis P. and Montgomery Blair, Carl Schurz, "John
A. Kasson of Iowa," p. 469.

— 9—

We may take the statements involving the character and
conduct of the Iowans in one of two ways. Either the
writer meant all that the paragraph implies or he did not
mean to be taken strictly. In either case we may ask if char-
acter and sincerity were confined conspicuously to the unof-
ficial Seward supporters hailing from New York and Michigan
and hence his discrimination of them in the forepart of the
paragraph whence the quotation. There were ardent admir-
ers of the statesman of Auburn from Iowa as well as from
Massachusetts who mingled in the throngs that surged the
lobbies of the Tremont and Richmond Hotels; such men as
Fitz Henry Warren of Burlington and Samuel A. Bowles of
The Springfield Republican. Men of like character and local
fame by scores and hundreds were with them from the same
States and from Wisconsin and Minnesota, and other States
as well ; men who worked just as earnestly for Senator Seward
and felt the bitter disappointment of his defeat as keenly as
did his followers from Michigan and New York. Seward sen-
timent in Iowa, as will be shown in some detail later, was
intense, staunch and wide-spread and when the news of his
non-success came his partisans in many a community almost
wept in grief and vexation and gloom held them for
awhile.1

Another implication that seems to be necessarily involved
in the discrimination made in the citation under review is
that there was an utter absence of weighty character and
sincerity among the "outside volunteer" followers of other
candidates. Such a conclusion doubtless wTas not contem-
plated nor desired perhaps. If so, it may seem unkind to
take the statement in all its rigor, but words are rather flinty
substances and if thrown recklessly and they strike, hurt and
mar. Such a construction is not a captious inference. The

(1) Hon. W. G. Donnan, a Representative of Iowa in the Forty-Second
and Forty-third Congresses (1871-75), was born and educated in New
York. He came to Iowa in 1856. In 1860 (as now), he resided at Inde-
pendence, and was a strong admirer of Seward. In a letter to the writer
(February 4, 1907), he says: "Went over from Union College, where I
was then a student, and heard Seward's great speech, organizing the
Republican party. Could have wept when 'the Great New Yorker' failed
of the nomination. How fortunate for the country and the party that
Lincoln was made the nominee."

—10—

uninformed or undiscriminating reader usually rests with first
impressions and the impression made is not favorable to the
people and representatives of other States. In these halcyon
days we are used to wholesale indictments of public men and
political conventions in our partisan press and periodicals
that retail the ' ' literature of exposure ; ' ' but we do not ex-
pect them from scholars who work in the clear, cool air and
the dry, white light of a library.

But what is the significance and what is the justification
of the assertion that "Lincoln's adherents were men from
Illinois, Indiana and Iowa who had come to Chicago bent on
having a good time?" Why such a discrimination? Were
the admirers and promoters of the "Rail-Splitter" more in-
clined to that sort of thing than the crowds that shouted for
"Old Irrepressible?" What is meant by a "good time,"
harmless diversion or reprehensible license?

With pious and proper persons a good time implies noth-
ing more serious than an excursion or picnic with its mild
ecstacies and hysterics. No doubt hundreds and thousands,
when they joined the throngs bound for Chicago, thought
only of the cheap rates and seeing the crowds and "the
sights" of the city. Among gay lords and certain politicians,
however, a good time signifies often, if not generally, fun
and frolic that begins with huge fuss and noise and reckless
abandon that, unless curbed, rapidly runs the leeways into
riot and carousal. If the latter is meant is there any special
reason to suppose that Lincoln's adherents had a greater pre-
disposition in that direction than the workers for Sewrard
from the same States or from other States !

Mr. Rhodes is usually careful to give his authorities, chap-
ter and verse, for his important assertions. He cites accounts
of several participants in the Convention, Messrs. Greeley.
Welles and Halstead for statements in the first part of the
paragraph, but there is none given upon the point here re-
ferred to. Their reports, however, do not seem to warrant any
such differentiation. If we are to believe Mr. Halstead 's par-
ticular and synchronous account there were few if any States
whose representatives were not largely given to noisy demon-
stration, intemperance and rowdyism. If any State achieved

—11—

sorry pre-eminence in this respect it was New York and not
any western State.1

If the truth, and nothing but the truth, should be told
in its painful particulars anent this common phase of politi-
cal conventions some excerpts from Halstead's racy narrative
should have been reproduced. On board the train carrying
easterners to Chicago, including New Englanders probably.
New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians and Ohioans certainly, he
found a degree of intoxication that was "much greater" than
that he witnessed on trains entering Charleston at the Demo-
cratic convention a few weeks before. The number of "pri-
vate bottles" was "something surprising;" and "our West-
ern Reserve was thrown into prayers and perspiration last
night by some New Yorkers who were singing songs not found
in hymn books. " As to conditions in Chicago he avers : " I do
not feel competent to state the precise proportions of those
who are drunk and those who are sober. There are a large
number of both classes ; and the drunken are of course the
most conspicuous and according to the principle of the nu-
merical force of the black sheep in a flock the most multitu-
dinous. ' ' 2 He was compelled to sleep in a room in his
hotel that was full of revellers in a state of "glorious" exhil-
aration "o'er all the ills of life victorious;" and "irrepressi-
ble" until a late hour. In the morning he was aroused by the
"vehement debate" of a galaxy of volunteers or delegates
sitting up in bed "playing cards to see who would pay for
gin cocktails all around, the cocktails being considered an in-
dispensible preliminary to breakfast."3 He does not in-
form us whether those assiduous patriots were adherents of
Bates or Chase, Seward or Lincoln. Another paragraph writ-
ten later may indicate: "The New Yorkers here are of a
class unknown to western Republican politicians. They can
drink as much whisky, swear as loud and long, sing as bad
songs and 'get up and howl' as ferociously as any crowd of
Democrats you ever heard or heard of. " 4

All of which, if true, only makes for tears. But the fact is

(1) Halstead's Conventions of I860, p. 121: See also Carl Schurz's
Reminiscences of a Lone; Life. McClnre's Magazine, Vol. XXVITT. p. 11 :'.
(February, 1907). (2) Halstead, p. 121.

(3) lb., p. 122. (4) lb., p. 1 10.

— 12—

utterly fallacious if it suggests the conclusion that such men
numerically predominated in the Chicago Convention or that
noise and the maudlin influence and inanities of hysterical
and intoxicated men chiefly controlled the deliberations or
decisions of the duly accredited representatives of the Repub-
lican party into whose hands the freemen of the north had
committed a great cause. The people everywhere throughout
the north were conscious that the Convention held the Na-
tion's fate in its hands. Old party lines had fast disap-
peared. One common cause, one common fear lest slavery
should engulf them, made partisans forget their differences
and unite. They knew that fortune was with the Republicans
if wisdom controlled their councils. Lincoln's searching
questions at Freeport in 1858 and Douglas' fatal answer "no
matter what may be the decision of the Supreme Court" had
split the Democracy in twain at Charleston.1 The people
of the north with common impulse journeyed to Chicago be-
cause they were certain as were the yeoman and gentry jour-
neying to Naseby that a spectacle was to be witnessed — their
leaders and their cohorts in contention for championship and
the right to lead the Lord 's hosts against a common foe. As to
the character and conduct of the throngs and contestants the
reports of two eye-witnesses may suffice. Writing home to his
paper The Gkiardian (May 16) Mr. Jacob Rich, then of Inde-
pendence, one of Iowa's most forceful editors in those days
and later a Warwick himself in our politics said :

It is a matter of universal comment that if the whole country had
been methodically picked over, there could scarcely have been procured
a concourse containing the same amount of ability and respectability
as is manifested by the immense crowd in attendance on the Conven-
tion. The great mass of the men on the platform as delegates are
men of age, of experience, of reputation, of judgment. Gray heads
and bald heads are in the ascendant which bespeaks for the action of the
Convention calmness and deliberation. In fact, inside and outside there
seems to be less of boisterous enthusiasm than earnest, thoughtful ac-
tion—fewer ebulitions of zeal than exhibitions of determination and
confidence. Still, livelier demonstrations are not wanting.

( 1 ) On his train going to Charleston, Mr. Halstead says : "The Mis-
sissippians have the Freeport speech of Douglas with them and intend to
bombard him in the Convention with ammunition drawn from it." Ib.f
p. 6.

—13—

Mr. Rich was young then and perhaps prejudiced as young
men sometimes are, and he may not have estimated correctly,
but the late Carl Schurz, who always saw clearly and spoke
his mind, essentially agrees with his conclusions. Reviewing
in the evening of his life the events of his great career Mr.
Schurz says of that Convention in which he took no small
part:

The members of the Convention and the thousands of spectators as-
sembled in the great Wigwam presented a grand and inspiring sight. It
was a free people met to consult upon their policy and to choose their
chief. To me it was like the fulfillment of all the dreams of my
youth. i

There is another assumption or implication in the narrative
quoted above that is common in the majority of accounts of
the Chicago Convention, namely, that the crowds in the city
at the time consisted chiefly of the friends of the "Rail-Split-
ter." New York's candidate had his workers to be sure,
but they were, so to speak, mostly organized troops or regu-
lars, bands and marching clubs, e. g., Gilmore's band from
Massachusetts and Tom Hyer's contingent from New York,
whereas the militia, the masses, the crowds, "the mob" that
surged the hotel lobbies and the streets were the plain people
who had come to Chicago to work for Honest Abe.

It is difficult to reconcile this common notion with ante-

(1) McClure's Magazine, lb., p. 416.

Besides Fitz Henry Warren, Mr. Jacob Rich, and Governor S. J.
Kirkwood mentioned above, Iowa's volunteer attendance at the Chicago
convention included among others — -Mr. James B. Howell, then editor
of The Gate City of Keokuk and later U. S. Senator from Iowa ; Mr.
James B. Weaver of Bloomfleld, soon afterward Brevetted Brig. General
for distinguished gallantry at Ft. Donelson, Shiloh and Corinth, who
represented Iowa several times in Congress, and in 1880 and 1896 was
a nominee of a national party for the Presidency receiving, in 1896,
1,042,531 votes and 22 ballots in the Electoral College; Mr. James Thor-
ington, of Davenport, a member of Congress from Iowa 1855-57; Mr.
Hiram Price also of Davenport who represented Iowa for eight years in
Congress ; Judge John F. Dillon, likewise of Davenport, then a judge of the
district court, afterwards Chief Justice of Iowa, U. S. Circuit Judge
1869-79, Professor in Columbia Law School, distinguished writer on legal
subjects — the author of a classic on Muncipal Corporations and an in-
spiring treatise on the Laws and Jurisprudence of England and the United
States; Mr. Amos N. Currier, then instructor in Central University of
Pella, who a few days since retired from active service as Dean of
the College of Liberal Arts of the State University of Iowa ; Mr. F. W.
Palmer then of Dubuque, who had served two terms In the legislature of
New York and who later represented Iowa for two sessions in Congress
1869-1873, and later editor of The Inter Ocean of Chicago.

-14—

cedent probabilities resting on sundry facts that were noto-
rious at the time and that are obvious in nearly every account
of the Convention extant. Historians and biographers of the
chief candidates all declare with little or no qualification that
the country at large expected Mr. Seward's nomination. Most
of them assert that the country was "shocked" at least "sur-
prised" at his defeat. Col. A. K. McClure has always main-
tained that "two-thirds of the delegates" wanted to vote for
Seward.1 Being in a large sense direct representatives of
local sentiment in their several States is it probable that the
crowds which poured into Chicago along with them from all
points of the compass to cheer and support their delegates
were contrary minded ! Lawyers would pronounce this notion
a violent presumption.

Outside of the delegates who finally voted for Lincoln all
the visitors from New England, excepting probably Connecti-
cut, were almost certainly friends of Seward. New York's
contingent, excepting the few following the lead of Greeley
and Dudley Field, was all for "Weed and Seward. So it must
have been with the crowds that poured in from Michigan, Wis-
consin, and Minnesota. "Bleeding Kansas" was staunch for
their champion in the Senate. Northern Indiana and Illinois
were both strongly tinctured with Sewardism, those sections
having been settled largely by New Englanders and New
Yorkers, the leaders of both delegations from those States
having hard work to hold some of the delegates from breaking
away.2

Three-fourths of Iowa's Republicans probably went to Chi-
cago desiring and expecting Seward's nomination because such
was the hope in the strongly Republican communities of Iowa.
Down in Lee county round about Keokuk a "perfect revolution
in sentiment" in favor of Seward took place between March
15-30. His Senate speech (March 1) says an Iowan's letter
quoted in The Tribune, March 30, "seems to have set our

(1) Leonard Swett's Letter to Joshua H. Drummond, May 27, 1860,
partially printed in Oldroyd's Lincoln's Campaign, p. 71 ; McClure's Lin-
coln and War Times, p. 28; Our Presidents and How We Make Them, p
155 ; and a letter to the writer, May 6, 1907. (2) Authority for statement
as to Indiana, a letter of Col. A. C. Voris, of Bedford, Ind., (one of her
delegates) to the writer, May 3. 1907.

—15—

prairies on fire with Republican enthusiasm for him and his
teachings."1 Writing Governor Kirk-wood May 13, three
days before the delegates convened in Chicago, Eliphalet
Price, of Elkader, in northeast Iowa, a keen and earnest Re-
publican, declared ''that nine-tenths of the Republicans north
prefer Seward there can be no doubt." Out in then remote
Sioux City the Republicans "expected" Seward's nomination
at Chicago.2 When the news reached Sioux City "a feeling
of incredulity and disappointment," says The Times, May 25,
" ' prevailed at first. Here where party ties are weak and party
lines loose most Republicans favored the nomination of Bates
and Hickman. Seward had some admirers."

Now Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Maryland and Mis-
souri, certainly did not send Lincoln delegations or crowds
to Chicago. Connecticut sent a Bates delegation. So did In-
diana. Although neighbors it took three days' hard work on
the part of Messrs. Davis, Judd, Logan, Palmer and Swett
to persuade Indiana's delegates to abandon Bates and go to
Lincoln. It is true that all of the delegates of the States
mentioned turned to Lincoln eventually, but that is another
matter.

Reason and rhyme alike require us to expect that the
crowds which played such a conspicuous role at the Conven-
tion were either predominantly for Seward or not prima facie
for Lincoln. One fact makes it almost necessary to think so.
Abraham Lincoln was not formally put in nomination for
the Presidency by the Illinois Republicans until May 10, six
days before the Convention was to assemble. His managers, as
Mr. Blaine long ago observed, had "with sound discretion"
kept his name back.'1 A few papers of Illinois had advo-
cated his nomination, but not with such vigor as to prevent the
resolution instructing the delegates to work for his nomination
being declared a "surprise" to the Decatur Convention it-
self.4 "Lincoln's own delegation from Illinois," says Col-
onel McClure, "embraced one-third of positive Seward men.
They were instructed for Lincoln with no hope of his nomina-

1 New York Tribune (semi-w. ) March 30. - Hon. E. H. Hubbard to
writer, April 22, 1907. The writer is indebted to Mr. J. C. C. Hoskins of
Sioux City for the extract from the Sioux City Times. 3 Blaine's Twenty
Years, p. 167. ■* lb.. 168.

— Na-
tion at the time." x The mass of the people in northern Illi-
nois and through the north — the general promiscuous pop-
ulation we call the ' ' public ' ' — who swarmed to Chicago were
hardly alive to the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a candidate
of high potential. Even after reaching the city the crowds
could at first see few or no signs that would normally impel
the miscellaneous and irresponsible elements that make up a
convention crowd to join Lincoln's cohorts with enthusiasm.
Up until midnight preceding the nominations the chances
were clearly in favor of Seward. Thursday midnight says
Mr. Halstead "Greeley was terrified" and sent his celebrated
dispatch conceding Seward's victory and Mr. Halstead tele-
graphed The Cincinnati Commercial likewise.2

This discouragement of the anti-Seward men was no less
decided among Lincoln's adherents. Anxiety and depression
among them were general and obvious. They slept scarcely
at all, they were so fearful and active. Col. Alvin Saunders,
Mr. Chas. C. Nourse and Gov. S. J. Kirkwood were probably
the most influential Lincoln workers among the Iowans.
"Early in the evening of the night before the nomination
was to be made," says Mr. Nourse, "I had gone up to my
room to get some rest. I was fagged by the long strain of the
day. The outlook for Lincoln was gloomy, indeed. I recall
Saunders coming in. He was depressed and dubious about
our chances of overcoming the New Yorkers. Kirkwood came
in later. He was nervous and very uneasy and glum. " 3 It
was not until the small hours of the next morning that their
hopes of success became energetic.

If these facts have any significance whatever they seem to
compel the conclusion that in the forepart of the week at
least and in all probability on Wednesday and Thursday the
crowds or mobs were more inclined toward Seward than
toward Lincoln. It can scarcely be doubted that the corre-
spondent of The New York Times signing himself "Howard"
was correct when on Monday night, May 14, he telegraphed

i MeClure's Our Presidents, p. 155 ; Leonard Swett says there were
eight out of the twenty-two Illinois delegates favorable to Seward, Old-
royd, p. 71.

2 Halstead, p. 141. 3 Interview with Hon. Chas. C. Nourse, Attorney-
General of Iowa, 1861-1865, Des Moines, Iowa, April 26 and May 12f
1907.

SOME OF IOWA'S DELEGATES AT LARGE
Chieago Convention, May 16-18, 1860

JOHN W. RANKIN,
State Senator

m. l. Mcpherson,
State Senator

L. C. NOBLE,
Merchant

COKER F. CLARKSON,
State Senator

NICHOLAS J. RUSCH,
Lieutenant Governor

H. P. SCHOLTE,
Minister

JOHN JOHNS,
Minister

\

— 17—

that "Illinois alone works hard for Lincoln."1 Comment-
ing in 1883 on his grandfather's defeat (viz. "Weed's),
Greeley's defection and the fast flying rumors of a " break"
in the New York delegation in consequence, Mr. Barnes says :
"But streets and hotels were crowded with enthusiastic
friends of Seward and even his opponents did not appear to
believe that he could be defeated."2 Seward's latest biog-
rapher declares that "excepting the applause received from
residents of Chicago all the other candidates together had not
popular support enough to equal the enthusiasm of the "irre-
pressibles." 3

On Thursday the second day when the platform was
adopted and the Seward men were confident and sought to
secure a ballot before adjournment Mr. Halstead reported
that "the cheering of the spectators during the day indicated
that a very large share of the outside pressure was for
Seward. There is something irresistible in the prestige of his
name."4 And even on the third day when the crisis was
culminating and all knew that the nominee was to be Lincoln
or Seward, notwithstanding Lincoln's managers had shrewdly
crowded the Wigwam with their shouters while Seward's
phalanxes were parading the streets, the same authority, de-
scribing the scene following the mention of Seward's name
says, "Above, all around the galleries, hats and handker-
chiefs were flying in the tempest together. The wonder of
the thing was that Seward outside pressure should, so far
from New York be so powerful. ' ' 5 One of Lincoln 's
chief field managers, Leonard Swett, says that Seward's nomi-
nation in the Wigwam "was greeted with a deafening shout
which, I confess, appalled us a little. ' ' 6

i New York Times, May 15 : Some may suspect this assertion because
of the known prejudice of the management of The Times for Mr. Seward.
Mr. Henry J. Raymond being Weed's first or second lieutenant at Chicago,
but the impartiality of subsequent dispatches disarms such doubt.
2 Barnes' Weed, Vol. II, p. 269. 3 Bancroft's Seward, Vol. II, pp. 531-532.

4 Halstead, p. 140. ■"■ lb., 145. Colonel McClure, who took part
in the Convention scenes, seems to contradict Mr. Halstead In his Our
Presidents, etc. (1900) ; he says: "As the ballots were announced, every
vote for Lincoln was cheered to the echo while there were but few cheers
for Seward except from the delegates themselves." p. 158. The two ac
counts are not reconcilable. 6 Oldroyd. p. 72.

—18—

If we are not seriously in error the glamour surrounding
the memory of President Lincoln has produced a notable con-
fusion in the explanations of his astonishing success at Chi-
cago. Logicians define it as reasoning post hoc ergo propter
hoc. Mr. Seward's nomination was expected; Mr. Lincoln's
was not. Crowds were conspicuous at the Convention ; noth-
ing like their numbers or performances had ever before been
witnessed. Popular feeling, excitement and uproar were phe-
nomenal. But as one chronicler puts it, it was the unex-
pected that happened. When the clans and tribes assem-
bled, keen-eyed chiefs soon perceived that the real contest lay
between the candidates of Illinois and New York. The op-
ponents of Seward in the doubtful States months previously
had realized the necessity for his defeat. The chiefs of the
clans had no sooner assembled than they discovered that Lin-
coln was the only man on whom all could concentrate. Later
the crowds hailing from the States whence the leaders came
began to respond to the appeals of their chiefs. Then the
ground-swells of partisan enthusiasm began to run heavily
in Lincoln's favor. By the time the balloting began the surge
and the roar of the anti-Seward sentiment became portentous
terrific, overwhelming. The result, however, was not ergo
propter hoc. There was, of course, much of local fondness for
Abraham Lincoln, there was perhaps somewhat (but little)
of "the West versus the East." Engulfing and overmaster-
ing all was a Cause, its success and the Nation's safety.

Crowds and mobs, now and then, do exert a potent influ-
ence upon the decisions of deliberative bodies. But we utterly
misconceive the nature of the result at Chicago if we conclude
that the shouting throngs determined the votes of the dele-
gates. The outcome was not the ordering of the clans and
tribes clanging their spears and shields, but the decision of
their chiefs in council. It was a battle of captains and not
a plebiscite of the militia's rank and file. The clans and the
ranks listened to the pleadings and protests of Greeley and
Field of New York, of Curtin and McClure of Pennsylvania,
of Welles of Connecticut and the Blairs of Maryland and Mis-
souri, of Lane and DeFrees of Indiana, of Davis, Judd and
Swett of Illinois, of Kirkwood and Saunders, Nourse and Wil-

—19—

son of Iowa, and their favor turned. Convinced soon that
the champion of their choice could not triumph such chiefs
and captains as Mr. John A. Kasson and Judge Reuben Noble,
Mr. John.W. Rankin and Mr. Wm. P. Hepburn, Mr. Coker
F. Clarkson and Mr. William B. Allison concurred.

Their concert was not the prejudice of the crowd nor the
changeable opinion of a mob. It was the conviction of men
trained in the tactics and strategy of party strife — of men
who knew that the People's Cause was not to be won merely
by the recognition of a theory or the exaltation of a favorite
champion, of men who knew that the imperative condition of
success wras the conquest of stubborn adverse conditions. They
were not idealists or prophets simply, but practical politi-
cians. They knew that victory perches upon the banners of
the best organized and best led battalions. Sanguine antici-
pations and zeal are needed but are not enough. A study of
maps and regions in dispute, a specific knowledge of the battle-
fields and a certain commissariat are also prerequisites.

Politicians in their hysterics and rhapsodies following suc-
cess are wont to regard victory as vox populi. Thus Leonard
Swett exclaimed a few days following the convention: "The
nomination is from the people and not the politicians. No
pledges have been made, no mortgages executed, but Lincoln
enters the field a free man."1 Enough has been exhibited
to make one skeptical of his assertion. If ever politicians
controlled, or rather directed, a convention, if ever leaders
courageously resisted the emotional and erratic impulses of
the mob or if you please "the people" the Chicago Conven-
tion was a case in point. We know now that Abraham Lin-
coln was of all the leaders in view the best that could have
been chosen to guide our ship of State through the storms
about to break. So much so that all will incline to agree with
Admiral Chadwick that if an All- Wise Providence directs the
destiny of these United States His favor was manifest indeed
on May 18, I860.2 But the decision was not the voice of the
people that spoke but the judgment of patriotic politicians
who saw or felt the steady ingathering of black nnd fearful

1 Oldroyd, p. 73.

2 Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, p. 123.

—20—

forces whose terrific momentum was to wrench the very foun-
dations of the Deep itself. In choosing their pilot some of
the methods of politicians were exemplified. Abraham Lin-
coln sought the nomination but he wished it without lien
or prejudice. But the prize was not so awarded. Leonard
Swett either did not know or he forgot about the negotiations
of Lincoln's field officer, Judge David Davis, with Indiana
and Pennsylvania, whereby Caleb Smith and Simon Cameron
were assured of position in the Cabinet if the Rail-Splitter
was nominated and victory perched on the party standards
on the Ides of November following. If he was not privy to
them his Shade must have suffered distress on reading the
revelations of Lamon and Herndon.1

III.

WERE IOWA'S DELEGATES ON THE TRADE?

Addressing the Republican State Convention of Iowa at
Des Moines in 1904 Senator William B. Allison said that of
all the events in his long career as a public servant he was
most proud of the fact that as a young man he enjoyed the
confidence of his fellow republicans to such a degree that he
was selected as one of Iowa's delegates to the convention that
first put Abraham Lincoln in nomination for the Presidency.

Fame in the last analysis is chiefly the historian's favorable
verdict. The patriot's ambition is the hope that he may
serve his country in great affairs and be thought well of by
his compeers and his successors. But it seems to be the fate
of the patriot or statesman to suffer much from the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune. In the clash of political strife
he expects and endures with what patience he may bold as-
persions or gross hints adverse to his honor. He knows that
good men suffer because evil men work, flourish and escape.
When, however, the storm and stress are over and passion is
still he does not expect their reiteration in cool blood and
unless amply justified he resents it. Obviously the greater

i Lamon, Life of Lincoln, pp.449-450, 457-461 — Herndon, lb., p. 181.

—21—

i
a man's eminence and the finer his type of character the more

sensitive he is to charges or suggestions implying reprehensi
ble conduct or petty behavior in matters of great concern.
Irritation is not lessened when a reflection comes via a partial
statement that discreetly hits no one in particular but in gen-
eral each and all thereby involved. It mitigates the smart but
little when it appears in the sober narrative of an erudite and
distinguished historian, buttressed by the awesome authority
of quotation marks. The greater the headway the greater is
the leeway to twist a quip of Oliver Wendell Holmes. The
situation is enhanced of course if perchance it turns out that
no facts justify the allegation or give it even the color of
justification. Resentment then becomes indignation.

In a biography of Salmon P. Chase, written by Dr. Albert
Bushnell Hart, professor of American History in Harvard
University, a few years since for the well-known series of
"American Statesmen," appears the following paragraph:

As the time for the Convention approached, Chase found a few
friends and staunch delegates from other States; but he got glimpses
also of a stratum of intrigue into which he could not descend. The
Spragues were said to have bought the Ehode Island State election for
$100,000, and some of the Ehode Island delegates were "purchaseable; "
some delegates from Iowa were on the "trading tacTc," and in In-
diana there was "a floating and marketable vote." A Philadelphia
editor wrote to him with unblushing frankness that he had worked for
Cameron but that "if any little subcontract could be given us which
would enable us to realize a little profit, we would endeavor to serve
Ohio to the full extent of our ability." But neither Ehode Island,
Pennsylvania, Iowa nor Indiana gave any votes for Chase at Chicago,
(pp. 189-190. Italics here.)

One receives two decided impressions on reading the fore
going. First, there was an astounding amount of corruption
prevalent in the preliminaries, if not in the proceedings, of
the Republican National Convention of 1860. Second, the
character or conduct of Iowa's delegates was smirched with
the same pitch that soiled the delegates from other States.
All of which, in the classic phrase of Horace Greeley, is
"mighty interesting, if true."

The paragraph, however, is a sort of omnibus of damna
tory citations and sinister suggestions. As is usual with the

contents of such vehicles the assortment cannot with ease be
precisely defined or interpreted for the reason that the state-
ments are somewhat ill-conditioned and indefinite in their
suggestiveness. A sharp scrutiny of the paragraph leaves
one in some perplexity. It is not quite clear whether trans-
actions prior to the assembly of the National Convention are
referred to only or the proceedings during the Convention
week are included. It is immaterial for the terms offered
Chase by the thrifty patriots clearly contemplated specific
performance in the Convention and thereafter delivery of the
benefits or goods bargained for, whether cash, contracts, or
patronage. There is perhaps a distinction but certainly not
a difference between a delegate who impudently insists upon
a quid pro quo in the form of an office before supporting a
candidate or measure and a man who openly resorts to bar-
gain and sale for cash on delivery. The unlikeness is scarcely
important, it being merely a sugar-coating or veneer disguis-
ing a disagreeable thing.

Although reprehensible conduct is plumply asserted none
of the statements it is instructive to note are direct or positive
so that an explicit charge is posited or particular individuals
are pinioned or pilloried. The Spragues "were said." What
Spragues ! The family into which Miss Kate Chase married !
"Some" of Rhode Island's delegates; "some of Iowa's dele-
gates were on the trading tack;" and Indiana had "a floating
and marketable vote." Does the latter relate to the electors
or to the delegates? Was the trading of the Iowans with a
view to cash, contracts or offices?

Stated ordinarily in common political discussion the ref-
erence to Iowa would be taken to mean but little else than
the prosaic practice of making combinations or "deals" in
the final clinch of a convention. But the context with its
serious accusations or assertions of gross misconduct makes
the casual reader and the student alike conclude that Iowa's'
delegates were guilty of crass venality.

No one needs to be told that in nearly every case Professor
Hart in effect flatly charges conduct that smacks of crimin-
ality. No effective corrupt practice act would tolerate such
proceedings. Disgrace and ouster, if not fine and imprison-

—23—

mt 'lit, would promptly ensue, upon the submission of proofs.
Disagreeable truth must now and then be told. If this is or
may be necessary the particular persons chargeable with of-
fensive conduct should be explicitly referred to.1 Otherwise
associates free from blame are equally involved, being be-
smudged or damned by implication. "Professor Hart should
not make the charge against the honor of our State," says one
of the delegates yet living who enjoys international fame in
Diplomacy, Letters and Politics, "without producing some
proof of its own verity. Indeed, his charge is made in the
lowest terms. 'Some delegates from Iowa were on the trad-
ing tack. ' Such indefinite charges it is difficult to answer. ' ' :
Who were the traders? The delegates who voted for
Chase, e. g., Judge Wm. Smyth of Marion, and Mr. William
B. Allison of Dubuque? Or the delegates who did not and
would not vote for Chase, e. g., Mr. Wm. Penn Clarke, of
Iowa City, or Col. Alvin Saunders of Mt. Pleasant, Mr. Jas.
F. Wilson of Fairfield, or Mr. Henry 0 'Connor of Muscatine,
Mr. Wm. P. Hepburn of Marshalltown, or the Rev. H. P.
Scholte of Pella, Mr. Coker F. Clarkson of Metropolis or
Lieut. Gov. Nicholas Rusch of Davenport, or Messrs. C. C
Nourse and John A. Kasson of Des Moines? Such inquiries
are not idle or irrelevant but intrusive and inevitable; both
on the part of the delegates living and the relatives and
friends of the dead, and on the part of associates and citizens
interested in the good name of the commonwealth ; for as we
shall see later few States sent delegations to the Chicago Con-
vention having greater caliber and character than was found
among the official representatives of the Hawkeyes.

Professor Hart enjoys great fame as a historian. He is at
once an indefatigable student and narrator and a leading au-

i If Professor Hart cares to examine an instructive illustration of
the sort of direct and explicit charge that justice requires if wrong-
doing is to be asserted, he will find it in the pages of Mr. Charles E.
Hamlin's Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin, where in the latter*s
defeat in the Baltimore convention in 1S64 and the nomination of An-
drew Johnson for the Vice-Presidency is specifically charged to the
"unscrupulous action" of the then Governor of Iowa — the charge being
accompanied by exhibits of very damaging evidence that seem to sub-
stantiate the accusation. (See pp. 477-479.)

2 Mr. John A. Kasson, to the writer. Letter dated Nahant, Mass.,
August 28, 1906.

thority in historical criticism and scientific procedure. He is
therefore entitled to the presumption that he means what he
says or he does not ; that he must have examined the official list
of Iowa's delegates and realized that many of them afterwards
acquired celebrity in our national history or he did not; that
he must have carefully sifted the evidence for his statement
or he did not In all cases either alternative entitles us to call
for specific references and proof, so that the innocent shall
not suffer with the guilty or to insist upon retraction or modi-
fication, if his animadversion is unsupported.

The offense against good men is not lessened in these pre
mises but increased by the fact that Professor Hart utilized
and apparently wholly depended upon Salmon P. Chase's pri
vate correspondence. An eminent public man like Chase is
daily in receipt of letters from scores of friends, admirers or
strangers, freely relating their views of men and measures.
Such epistolary declarations are usually colored greatly by the
prejudice of the writer's personal or partizan friendships or
desires; and are often heedless or reckless. As they are not
intended for the public eye the indiscriminate statements
matter but little as the recipient is seldom so heedless or reck
less as to give them publicity. We certainly may presume
that Chase did not give much currency to the revelations of
his various correspondents. Certainly he did not expose them
to the hurt of official and party contemporaries whom he held
in great esteem or respect ; and he no more would have desired
to have any use made thereof even after his death during the
lives of his associates. Messrs. James F. Wilson, John A.
Kasson and William B. Allison were the official and party
associates of Chase between 1861 and his death in 1873 and
each one of them enjoyed national fame for ability and high
character. And the two last mentioned were living in 1899
when the biography in question was published and they are
still living ! Something of a very serious character exhibit-
ing elaborate or enormous iniquity affecting adversely either
the public welfare or actually thwarting Chase's ambition as
regards the nomination at Chicago alone can justify the ex-
posure of that correspondence in such wise as needlessly to

besmudge the good names of honorable delegates yet living in
Indiana and Iowa, and perhaps Rhode Island.

Inquiry develops the fact that the whole basis for the state
ment affecting Iowa is the following letter!1 Its contents are
given entire. Their use or misuse in the foregoing is the only
justification for their exhibition here. Only the initials of
the subscriber are given although as will be apparent, there
is really no particular reason for withholding his name :

Gate City Office, Keokuk, Feby. 24, '60.
Hon. S. P. Chase,

Dear Sir: Some time since I had your views on the Tariff pub-
lished in the Gate City, and I have just republished the New Orleans
Bulletin's notice of your election to the Senate.

I was at our State Convention, but I found the delegates, who were
all aspiring politicians, very wary, & it was difficult to sound them,
though I judged you had about as many friends as anybody.

We have just received The Tribune of the 20th, which comes out
for Bates. We were not unprepared for such a move, & yet it rather
strikes us with surprise. Our impression now is that it will not damage
you or Seward in this State.

The Chicago delegates from this (Lee) county are Senator Rankin,
of this place, & Dr. Walker of Ft. Madison, — both, no doubt, in
favor of Cameron first & both of them rather on the trading tack.

I am sorry to say that, as a politician & with leading politicians of
the State, our friend Ex-Governor Lowe has little influence.

Will you do me the favor to send, if convenient, a copy of your
first inaugural — or the one which contained your argument on the
Single District System.

Mr. Denison and family are well ; Mrs. R. is not very well, but
joins me in kind regards.

Respectfully,

W.— R.

P. S. At present, I have no pecuniary interest in the Gate City
Office. But as the Editor-in-Chief, Mr. Howell, broke his leg last
November, & is still on his back, and his partner, Mr. Briggs, was
gone to Washington to fill some place obtained for him by our Col.
Curtis, — I am left here in full charge for present, but am not certain
as to my future. W. R.2

As a base for a serious reflection upon a body of delegates
we are greatly mistaken if most persons will not regard the
foregoing letter as utterly inadequate. It is a basis so narrow
and thin that few persons even in the heat of bitter partizan
debate would venture to make use of it adverse to any one.
Prom beginning to end there is nothing whatever in it either
directly or by fair inference warranting Professor Hart's use
of the letter in the connection exhibited above. It relieves

1 Professor Hart to writer, Aug1. 24, 1906.

2 From Papers of Salmon P. Ohas<- in the Library of Congress. Wash-
ington, D. C.

the two delegates actually mentioned, as well as all of the
others from adverse criticism or judgment. The letter, to-
gether with a communication of a contemporary of W. R
yet living, gives us the following facts:

W. R. was a personal friend or old-time acquaintance of
Salmon P. Chase. He came to Keokuk in 1854 and until
1861 was business manager of The Gate City. He admired
Chase much, became a watcher and worker in behalf of the
Ohioan's candidacy for the presidential nomination and pro
moted his interests so far as feasible. He attended as a dele-
gate the Republican State Convention that met at Des Moines
January 18, 1860, to select delegates to the Chicago Conven-
tion. He evidently found the delegates — it is not clear wheth
er he refers to delegates to the State or to those to the national
convention — chary of expression and wary of questions as to
their preferences or probable course in regard to the national
convention. He found, however, or felt, that Chase enjoyed
about equal favor with the other candidates mentioned.
Horace Greeley's advocacy of Edw. Bates he did not seem to
regard very seriously, yet he confesses some surprise. Fin-
ally, he found the delegates to Chicago selected from his own
district and county to be both favorably disposed towards
Cameron of Pennsylvania but both of them rather on the
trading tack. The next year (1861) W. R., it is interesting
and instructive to note, secured a position in the Treasury
Department at Washington under Secretary Chase, wherein
he continued many years until his death a decade ago ; an
appointment that was very appropriate, too, for my informant
says that his "mind was completely wrapped up in finances
and he wrote almost entirely on that subject" while in Keo-
kuk.1

The exact language of W. R. has not been quoted by Profes-
sor Hart and it is highly significant. Evidently W. R. had
pressed Senator Rankin and Dr. Walker for an expression of
their preferences and probable course without much success
for he concludes that "no doubt" they were for Cameron,
that is, they had not told him so explicitly, but he, W. R.
had inferred so; and further from their manner and perhaps

i Mr. J. W. Delaplaine of Keokuk to the writer, Jan. 22, 1907.

—27—

bits of conversation he suspected that they were "rather" on
the trading tack. He does not so much as intimate that they
had broached or hinted at a trade or mercenary transaction.
What W. R. refers to he does not assert as a fact — he merely
intimates a surmise of his whereas Professor Hart omits the
"rather" and absolutely asserts that "some of Iowa's dele-
gates were on the 'trading tack,' '' his assertion being a bold
presumption wholly his own, with no substantial proof offered
therefor.

In fine, Professor Hart apparently is clearly subject to
criticism on several counts. First, he misuses Chase's corre-
spondence while official colleagues and party associates are yet
alive. Second, he has by a partial statement imputed repre-
hensible conduct to thirty-two prominent citizens of Iowa
when only two, if any, were by any manner of means derelict.
Third, he does gross injustice to the two delegates in question
for he asserts as a fact what the authority on whom he de-
pends, does not so assert and intimates nothing that gives even
color to such a charge of misconduct. Fourth, by an impor-
tant omission of a qualifying word he perverts the sense of W.
R. 's statement and thus seriously misrepresents the authority
he relies upon. Fifth, Professor Hart's language in the last
sentence of the paragraph quoted above indicates that he did
not scrutinize the tally sheets of the Convention very care-
fully.

Professor Hart says that "neither Rhode Island, Pennsyl
vania, Iowa nor Indiana gave any votes to Chase at Chicago. ' '
The statement is correct as to Pennsylvania and Indiana, but
it is grossly in error as to Rhode Island and impliedly so as to
Iowa. On the first ballot Rhode Island gave Chase one vote,
on the second three votes, and on the third one vote.
Iowa gave Chase one of her eight votes on the first ballot and
one-half a vote on the second and third ballots.1 The
vote of Iowa represented four Chase delegates on the first and
two delegates on each of the other ballots. If Professor Hart
means to be taken literally, Iowa, of course, gave Chase no
"votes" because she cast but one for him, but Rhode Island
certainly gave him votes.

i Proceedings, pp. 149, 152, 153.

—28—

Responding to the writer's inquiry as to the meaning of
his statement and the authority therefor, Professor Hart in
closing his letter says : "I did not suppose when I quoted the
phrase that any one would take it to mean that the delegates
were trading for money. They were probably trying to get
some assurance as to cabinet appointments, a vice presidential
candidate, or something of that kind." Professor Hart's
disclaimer of harmful purpose in quoting W. R.'s harmless
phrase must be accepted as complete and final. But the ex-
planation, while it relieves the situation somewhat, does not
restore the status quo. It does not abolish the paragraph
with its positive declaration, with its ugly implication. There
are few libraries in the country that lack the classic volumes
of "American Statesmen," the series in which Professor
Hart's Life of Chase appears. Thousands have read and
thousands will yet read that, when patriots were called upon
tc make the "most fate-pregnant decision" a national con-
vention ever had to make, Iowa's notables were mere huck-
sters and petty traders and they will conclude that they were
worse.

In view of the exhibit and analysis of the evidence for the
adverse charge under consideration a defense of the character
or conduct of Senator J. W. Rankin of Keokuk, or of Dr. J.
C. Walker, the former a delegate-at-large, and the latter a
district delegate is superfluous. Senator Rankin was the law
partner of Samuel F. Miller, whose elevation to the Supreme
Bench has already been referred to. Tradition has it that he
was Keokuk's most brilliant lawyer in the days when the
Gate City shone with such brilliants. Dr. Walker we shall
see was a man who enjoyed the confidence of his fellow towns-
men and was held in high esteem. Characterizing them in a
personal interview with the writer, Hon. Charles C. Nourse,
now as in 1860 of Des Moines, one of the leaders of Iowa's
Lincoln forces before and during the Convention says of his
associates: "Dr. Walker and Senator Rankin were both men
of great ability and solid character with a fine sense of honor
in public matters. Neither pettiness nor desire for private
gain were moving motives with either."1 Whatever Dr.

i Interview with Hon. Charles C. Nourse. lb.

—29—

Walker's preference may have been in February, in May and
at Chicago his voice and votes were from first to last for
Abraham Lincoln.1 Senator Rankin, on the other hand, was
a firm advocate of the nomination of Simon Cameron. One
of Keokuk's noted lawyers labored for several days prior to
the Convention to persuade him to vote for Lincoln but with-
out effect.2 At Chicago, however, Senator Rankin turned to
Illinois' candidate as soon as he realized that Cameron's
chances were nil.

Taking the phrase ' ' trading tack " in a large and honorable
sense, and a common sense, and it is not improbable that the
two delegates mentioned did have certain ambitious plans in
contemplation for securing vice presidential honors for Iowa.
As will be shown in a subsequent section, there are reasons for
thinking that friends of James Harlan, Iowa's distinguished
senior senator at that time, were not unmindful of a political
situation that contained many chances in favor of such a con-
summation. The matter was broached both privately and pub-
licly and may have been in the minds of Senator Rankin and
Dr. Walker.

IV.

MEN AND METHODS IN CONVENTION..

A political convention in a Democracy like ours is of ne-
cessity a fortuitous concourse. No one ordinarily expects to
find such an assembly composed only of philosophers and
cientists, saints and statesmen. On the other hand such con-
claves are seldom made up of shysters, knaves or fools. For
the reason, in both cases doubtless, that neither would be tol
erated by the general public. If the area of interests involved
is extended or *\e issues at stake vital and momentous, the
confluence of forces at the common center, no matter how
quietly they may originate or serenely they may flow in, must
produce commotion. If the currents thus concenter with
great momentum a convention in the nature of the case eon
eludes in a maelstrom. To the unemotional onlooker in lobby
or gallery and especially to the scholastic who coolly studies

i Mr. J. P. Cruikshank of Ft. Madison to the writer, April 26, 1907.
2 Mr. Henry Strong, now of Chicago, to the writer, June 4, 1907.

—30-

the records, the din and noise, the excitement, tempests and
uproar seem utterly absurd and dangerous. Nevertheless they
are not unnatural. Wisdom does not always predominate in
their proceedings but no more does irrationality, or stupid
perversity always prevail.

Two classes of persons compose our political conventions
be they state or national. One class consists of those who
care only for issues or principles. The other class is prin-
cipally concerned with individuals or personalities — namely
champions, or themselves. Such gatherings if they are to
prove efficient must be composed of both classes in about equal
proportions ; since cranks and visionaries are as certain to run
amuck and make success impossible, as petty heelers and
sordid spoilsmen are to offend the law and the prophets.

Each class divides into two groups. The first class con
sists of the extremists who insist strenuously upon explicit
and heroic measures, and declarations of doctrine regardless
of contrary considerations of time or place, and of the mod
erates whose foremost interest is always the success of their
cause but who realize that conditions determine success and
should control practical measures — hence they support this
or that champion of their principle believing that their cause
will attain success more speedily by his promotion. Some of
the latter type stand staunchly by their champion through
thick and thin, hoping all things and doing all things in his
behalf. Others deliberately canvass the situation, coolly cal-
culate the chances of this or that representative candidate,
and if they perceive that fortune does not favor their own
preferences throw their influence in the direction that seems
most likely to assure approximate success. Further, if their
first estimate proves wrong they then change. The claims of
friendship or admiration are not their chief concern; it is
consideration for the success of their cause that dominates
them. Iowa had some excellent illustrations of these types
in the Convention at Chicago.

Judge Wm. Smyth cast votes for Chase at each ballot even
when he must have seen that the Ohioan did not have a ghost
of a show but he was staunch for a principle. Wm. Penn
Clarke, Rev. H. P. Scholte and six or seven others stood firm

—31 —

for Seward throughout the balloting notwithstanding the
breaks in his columns in the New England States on the
second and third ballots. The Lincoln men under the lead of
Col. Alvin Saunders and Mr. C. C. Nourse, in spite of heavy
odds, worked from the first for the candidate of Illinois. Mr.
Coker F. Clarkson was a steadfast admirer of both Judge
McLean and Governor Chase, having enjoyed personal and
political associations with each in Ohio. In the Convention,
however, he cast his vote on the first and second ballots for
Judge McLean. On the third ballot he went to Lincoln.

The second general class instead of contemplating chiefly
general principles and grand results is interested principally
in personalities, either champions or themselves. They in-
sist lpon and care for correct principles and righteousness in
a practical way, as do the former class, but they visualize
then, more in tangible leaders. This class probably comprises
usually the larger numbers in conventions. This class too is
easily discernible in two groups or kinds. One kind is made
up of hero-worshipers, the major number perhaps. They
feel and see the issues of right and wrong only through per-
sonalities. A leader who champions their cause they ardently
admire. There is little or no analysis, no comparison, no
synthesis of view's or points of conduct. The champion's
ability, his looks and manner, his prowess in debate, his suc-
cesses, his steadfastness in the faith, his sacrifices for the cause
enthrall the mind and energize heart and hand. They join
his forces and work and proselyte in his behalf. Ardor and
sentiment are likely to characterize their performances rather
than cool calculation and reasoning, youth rather than age ;
and in the progress and culmination of a canvass they are
wont to hear vox dei in the noise of the shouting throngs of
the street and the amphitheatre. But enthusiasm and zeal
if faults are exceedingly common — indeed, most normal per
sons regard them as commendable virtues. Few regard the
character of those so delinquent as worthy of indictment on
the score of sincerity or intelligence for the reason probably
that it would include most of us. "I was," says Henry Vil-
lard, "enthusiastically for the nomination of Wm. H. Seward
***** The nois\r demonstrations of his followers

— :w—

and especially of the New York delegation in his favor made
me sure, too, that his candidacy would be irresistible."1

Most critical persons with a cynical turn of mind are wont
to sneer much at this sort of thing. But it is not so irrational
or illogical as may seem at first flush. Large numbers united
and vocal for a candidate or cause indicate decided unanimity
of opinion or general concurrence of interests or views. Such
concurrence of numbers is presumptively the result of rational
considerations and sensible conclusions. Most men are too
busy to give particular attention or devote time to the study
of conditions and causes, of the pros and cons of men and
measures in issue. They turn to the men of "light and lead-
ing" to whom they have been accustomed to look and defer.
They do not supinely follow their leadership but generally
the consideration that decides them is the feeling that the
numbers indicate a better or more informed judgment than
their own.

The second sort who are interested in personalities rather
than causes or principles is the group that think of their own
individual welfare. They may be manifest in that aggravat
ing species who seek to be on the winning side — they flit and
flutter between the lines, anxious and uncertain lest they de
cide unwisely. This class is discouragingly numerous, not
only in conventions but everywhere else. They mean well
and usually are harmless in intent; they lack acute intelli-
gence and steady nerve. They seek popularity and cannot
endure the idea of defeat or nonsuccess. Another species
comprises those who follow politics for a livelihood or as a
profession. Not all or for that matter the major portion are
petty and sordid in seeking their own interest. There are few
men who do not covet public honors and promotion, and all
must live. Affiliation with a party is the chief mode of ad-
vancement in politics. One ambitious for honors or anxious
for a livelihood in politics must align himself with some fac-
tion, interest or issue. Otherwise such an one will be vox
clamantis in deserto. Hope of immediate personal success may

i Memoirs, Vol. I, 137. Mr. Villard later became the President and
creator of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He also was a financial backer
if not a decisive factor in the management of the two great journals ot
New York, The Nation and The Evening Post.

—33-

be and usually is coupled with the noblest aspirations for
human welfare. Some thus animated, however, are willing,
if need be, to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the cause, as
witness Lincoln's deference to Trumbull and his insistance
upon putting the Freeport Questions. Others permit the ardor
of desire to blur the vision and impel disregard of the niceties
of conduct as was the case with Ohio's noble Roman, Salmon
P. Chase, in his later relations with his great rival and coad-
jutor.

There are, of course, in conventions, no small number who
are narrow, petty and sordid in their calculations and strife
for immediate benefit. They regard such a conclave as a sort
of fair or market where hucksters gather for bargain and sale
and higgling and haggling is the rule. Oftentimes, alas, the
dickering is corrupt and utterly vicious. Shakespeare de-
scribes the conduct of this miserable fraternity in his bines
depicting the species of human kind that

Dodge
And palter in the shifts of baseness.

The latter class are an abomination and should be given
short shrift. The former class exhibit a low order of political
intelligence and virtue. They are simply petty and stupid
but not necessarily shysters or scoundrels.

Academicians and arm-chair critics are wont to over-em-
phasize or misjudge the numbers and the significance of the
huckstering or corrupt politicians in conventions. A few
black sheep in a flock makes most persons reach hasty and
sweeping conclusions whence one infers that the entire num-
ber is discolored. Taking the daily occurrence of horrible
headlines in our sensational press they talk as if crime and
divorce were universal and rampant. Pettiness, sordidness
and corruption are found in politics and conventions and per-
haps are more impudent and obtrusive but they are discover-
able and prevalent in all other walks of life in similar meas
ure. Again it is not easy to differentiate the bad or unde-
sirable from the necessary. Petty trading in offices is not
particularly laudable. Yet combinations or "deals" in the
large, adjustments of forces and compromises of conflicting
interests are imperative if a convention is to avoid futile con-

3

—34—

troversy that easily invokes serious estrangements or concludes
in disruption.

Among the men from Iowa in the Convention of 1860, were
a number who possessed rare powers of discernment and
achievement. They were masters in political tactics and
strategy; men who shortly thereafter attained great eminence
in public life and just fame. They severally had their pref-
erences but the triumph of anti-slavery principles and success
of the party at the polls were the predominant considerations
with them. Mr. John A. Kasson preferred Edward Bates of
Missouri and Mr. Wm. B. Allison's choice was Salmon P.
Chase ; but after they realized ^he futility of their hopes both
threw their votes and influence in favor of Lincoln. Col.
Alvin Saunders at heart would have rejoiced if Seward could
have been made the candidate but an extended correspond
ence prior to going to Chicago with leaders in Illinois, Indi
ana and Pennsylvania convinced him that the nomination of
the New Yorker put success in jeopardy. Consequently
notwithstanding his attachment to Senator Harlan, who earn-
estly desired Seward's selection, Colonel Saunders went to
Chicago and did yeomen service for the Illinoisan. Governor
Kirkwood, at bottom prejudiced in favor of Chase because
of early associations as Democrats in Ohio, frankly wrote
Iowa's senior Senator that if long and able service were de-
cisive Mr. Seward was entitled to the nomination, especially
because he had long been the "best abused man" in the party.
Nevertheless he concluded that other matters had the right
of way. Saunders and Kirkwood were perhaps Iowa's lead-
ers in promoting Lincoln's candidacy: One or the other prob-
ably taking part in the "Committee of Twelve" whose decision
doubtless exercised a potent if not decisive influence upon the
final result.

A fact of the greatest significance in the conduct of all the
Iowans in the Convention was their staunch stand and sturdy
fight in the presence of overwhelming odds. Two of the Chase
delegates, all of the Seward delegates stood fast throughout
the three ballots. All of the others apparently decided to go
to Lincoln, when his chances were not favorable, when Horace
Greeley had telegraphed The Tribune that the opposition to

—35-

Seward could not unite and conceded the latter 's nomina-
tion. If Iowa's contingent had been petty traders and huck-
sters, or politicians of the weather-vane sort, they certainly
would not have aligned themselves with the "Rail-Splitter"
and his uncertain prospects. They would have joined the
supporters of Seward the "popular" man, the man whose
forces were led by the wizard Weed, the man for whom Col.
A. K. McClure says "two-thirds" of the delegates really,
wanted to vote.

V.

CONDITIONS ATHWART THE PLANS OF WEED, GREELEY. AND THE

BLAIRS.

If one inquires of Iowans who were contemporary observers
of political events in 1860 as to the state of the public mind
respecting the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, he receives
various answers. One of Des Moines' leading citizens who
was an influential Democrat in the capital city in 1860, de-
clared orally to the writer : ' ' Everybody 'round here was for
Mr. Lincoln." "Before the Convention?" "That's my rec-
ollection." Professor Jesse Macy, of Iowa College at Grin-
nell, writes: "Lincoln before the Convention was unknown
or he made little impression. . . . Lincoln struck us as a
surprise." An attendant on the Convention, Mr. J. H. Mer-
rill, of Ottumwa, says that many from Iowa were present at
Chicago during the Convention week and they were "almost
without exception in favor of Seward. ' ' Dr. William Salter
of Burlington, whose intimate associations with the State's
dominant men were exceptional and his interest in anti-
slavery propaganda alert and active, states, "Both parties are
in the fog now [February, 1907] as to who will get the nom-
ination for the next presidential election ; it was just so in
1859-60. Things were very much mixed and confused."1
Doctor Salter but re-eehoes the editorial expression of a keen
observer in those days, Mr. Charles Aldrich, in The Hamilton
Freeman, April 21, 1860: "It is proverbially the darkest
just before day. . . . The great Conventions of the
three parties are on the point of assemblying and yet at no
time during the past twelve months have the indications of
their actions been more confused and indistinct. And it is

i Citations above, except first, from letters to the writer.

—36—

plain that the wise heads at Washington are fully as much
in the dark about the prospects as the people in Aroostook."

Mr. Aldrich's observations were not only aptly put but
accurate. In August, 1859, Congressman James M. Ashley,
of Toledo, traveled in various States to ascertain the chances
of Gov. Salmon P. Chase for securing the nomination, and he
informed Charles A. Dana, then associate editor of The New
York Tribune, that "the Northwest is quite as much for
Chase as for Seward," but Dana wrote to J. S. Pike that he
had "the best information to the contrary, particularly from
Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Indiana, where the Germans
who hold the balance of power, are hot Seward men."1 The
New York Herald, on March 7, 1860, in forecasting the result
at Chicago gave Iowa's entire vote to Cameron, and on May
16th its columns contained two dispatches from Chicago, one
dated May 11th, asserting that "Minnesota and Iowa are for
Seward," and the other, May 15th, declaring that a majority
of the delegates of Iowa would go to Lincoln. In Greeley's
Tribune, May 15th, the day preceding the Convention, its
Chicago advices were ' ' Iowa is discordant and uncertain. ' '

When Iowa was called on the first ballot for the nomination
for President, Friday morning, May 18, 1860, the immense
throng in the Wigwam was in a state of intense expectancy.
William H. Seward, contrary to expectation, had received
only 1471/2 votes, and Abraham Lincoln 100 votes, more than
twice the number received by any of his competitors. The
votes of the Hawkeyes, though few, were important, as their
state was known to be within the sphere of doubtful territory,
possession of which was essential to the party's success in the
ensuing election. Mr. Wm. Penn Clarke, a lawyer and leader,
of Iowa City, whose fame exceeded the borders of the State,
arose as chairman to announce the vote of the delegation. He
essayed to speak, but not a word was forthcoming. His effort
was obvious but vain. The delegation sat by in astonishment
and general wonderment began to be manifest. It was soon
realized that Mr. Clarke was suffering from an impediment in
his speech that was serious only when he was laboring under
great excitement. Perceiving that utterance would be futile

i Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 443.

—37—

or painful, a delegate came to his relief and announced that
Iowa gave one vote each to Edward Bates of Missouri, Simon
Cameron of Pennsylvania, Salmon P. Chase and John Mc-
Lean, both of Ohio, two votes to Abraham Lincoln, of Illi-
nois, and two votes to William H. Seward, of New York.1 Each
of Iowa 's votes represented the concurrent preferences of four
delegates, as her delegation numbered thirty-two.

This division of her vote among six candidates was note-
worthy. No other northern or free State parcelled out its
vote so variously as did Iowa. Connecticut, New Hamp-
shire, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island gave their votes to four
candidates on the first roll call; all other States to three can-
didates or less. In three of the States mentioned the chances
of victory for the Republicans in the Fall campaign were far
from certain. It is interesting to note, and significant withal,
that one southern or slave State, Kentucky, on the same ballot,
gave her thirty-three votes to six candidates, favoring four
that Iowa did, but voting for Wade and Sumner instead of
Bates and Cameron. On the second ballot, Iowa gave her vote
to four candidates, Chase, Lincoln, McLean and Seward; and
on the third and decisive ballot, the delegation was still di-
vided— Chase received x/2 vote, Lincoln 5y2, and Seward 2
votes.

Such marked and persistent division among Iowa's men
must have reflected not only lack of harmony, due to stubborn
personal preferences of the delegates, but sharp factional dis-
sensions in the party's ranks in Iowa. Or that distribution of
votes may be looked upon as evidence of the tactics of trading
politicians, maneuvering for position so as to insure favor
from the successful champion. However Iowa's action may
be considered, we cannot realize its significance until we ap-
preciate the people and the politics of the State whence the
delegation hailed; for, even if trading was their primary
concern, politicians seldom act in such a wise as to run seri-
ously athwart the inclinations of their constituents, since Suc-
cess is the deity they are wont to worship. This fact is usu-
ally overlooked by academic historians as well as by ordinary
lay chroniclers.

i Interview with Mr. Charles C. Nourse.

—38-

Antecedent conditions as well as causes control results in
politics ; factions no less than factors ; popular prejudices as
much as persons. The action of Iowa's delegation at Chicago
was an issue of the character, traditions and local interests of
the people they represented. Iowa had been a State but
fourteen years. Her corporate existence did not span a quar-
ter of a century. Her population, consequently, was made up
of pioneers. Public opinion among them consisted largely of
the keen predilections or prejudices of their ancestral stocks,
modified somewhat by the conditions of life in a frontier State.
This complex of local prejudices and interests, together with
the composition and strength of the political parties, must be
understood if we are to appreciate correctly Iowa's action at
Chicago. As neither the facts nor their significance has ever
been directly pointed out, the conditions and various phases
of the politics of Iowa in the formative days of the Republican
party, prior to the pre-convention campaign of 1860, will be
exhibited with considerable detail.

1. Abolitionists Aggressive but not Dominant.

The stand taken by Iowa, or rather by many of her men of
"light and leading," against the aggressions of the Slavocrats
between 1850 and 1860 has created the notion that abolitionism
generally prevailed throughout the State. This belief is mani-
fest in Major S. H. M. Byers' stirring account, John Brown
in Iowa} "His career during those Kansas days," we are
told, "was watched in Iowa as no other State. . . . Iowa
afforded him his first refuge place after contest. ... It
was across her prairies and past her loyal towns he wandered
by day and by night carrying liberty for the oppressed. . .
He was so often and so closely connected with the State
that people almost forgot that he was not an Iowa man. ' ' 2
Von Hoist seems to give warrant for such an opinion when he
says of the elections of 1854 : ' ' Iowa hitherto a veritable hot-
bed of dough-faces now reinforced the little band of 'aboli-
tionists' in the Senate by Harlan." 3

i Byers' Iowa in War Times, ch. 1.

2 lb., p. 18.

3 History, Vol. V, p. 78.

—39—

Sundry facts give color and substance to such a belief. Fore-
most, perhaps, has been the prominent roles played by New
Englanders and New Yorkers in the development of the State.
In polities there have been few more important factors than
Fitz Henry Warren, James W. Grimes, John A. Kasson, Jo-
siah B. Grinnell, Nathaniel B. Baker, Judges Asahel W. and
Nathaniel M. Hubbard, John H. Gear, William Larrabee and
Horace Boies. In the courts Charles Mason, Stephen Whicher
and Francis Springer, Austin Adams and John F. Dillon,
stand out. In railway construction Grenville M. Dodge and
Peter A. Dey are pre-eminent. In journalism Charles Al-
drieh, Coker F. Clarkson, Clark Dunham, A. B. F. Hildreth,
Frank W. Palmer, and Jacob Rich have been conspicuous ; and
in education and religious life Father Asa Turner and the
"Iowa Band," George F. Magoun, Samuel A. Howe, Josiah
L. Piekard, A. S. Welch and Henry Sabin loom up. Not all
who came out of Yankeedom were abolitionists by any means,
but abolitionism flourished most vigorously in New England
and in the other States westward, peopled largely by her
emigrant citizens. Furthermore, if not abolitionists in the
strict sense of the term, they were almost certain to be stout
opponents of the extension of slavery northward beyond the
bounds set by the Ordinance of 1787 and the Compromise
of 1820.

In the first decision rendered in 1839 by the territorial su-
preme court of Iowa, Chief Justice Charles Mason, speaking
for the court, declared that the great Ordinance and the
Compromise worked a forfeiture of rights in rem in human
kind within the State of Iowa — and squarely announced that
''when the slave owner illegally restrains a human being of
his liberty, it is proper that the laws . . . should exert
their remedial interposition."1 The Court realized the vital
import of their holding — especially as they observe that its
consideration was "not strictly regular" — but as the case
involved "an important question which may ere long, if un-
settled, become an exciting one," they so decreed. In 1859
Judge Taney reversed Judsre Mason in the case of Dred Scott.

i Iowa Reports, Vol. I, pp. 6-10.

—40—

There were .soon numerous underground railway routes
through Iowa — main lines, branches and spurs. Southern of-
ficers and slave catchers found their rights under the Fugi-
tive Slave Law nullified by Iowa's "law breakers." Governor
Grimes himself wrote Mrs. Grimes concerning the first case in
Burlington, namely the seizure and trial of the slave "Dick,"
June 23, 1855 : "lam sorry I am Governor of the State, for,
although I can and shall prevent the State authorities and
officers from interfering in aid of the Marshal, yet if not in
office, I am inclined to think I should be a law breaker. . . .
Judge [later Governor] Lowe was brought from Keokuk
Monday in the night, and a writ of habeas corpus was ready
to be served if the decision went against us."1 Fitz Henry
Warren exhibited a willingness to take the law into his own
hands in that affair.2 The exaltation of such leaders as
Grimes and Harlan, the practical support of John Brown and
his men,3 Governor Kirkwood's ringing message on the Bar-
clay Coppoc affair, the extraordinary enlistments of Iowa's
sons in the Union army — all these facts seem to indicate that
abolitionism was rampant in Iowa in those troublesome times.
The careers of some of Iowa's delegates to Chicago in 1860
confirm the notion that abolitionism was prevalent. The
chairman of the delegation — Mr. William Penn Clarke — early
acquired fame or infamy as a "nigger worshipper."4 In
1850 he received 575 votes from the Abolitionists for Gover-
nor. He was a conductor on the Underground Railway.
During the warfare in Kansas he openly and effectively as-
sisted Eli Thayer and Col. T. W. Higginson in transporting
"Liberty" men and Sharpe's rifles to Tabor to protect the

1 Salter's Grimes, pp. 72-73.

2 lb., p. 73. Mr. George Frazee, Commissioner of the Court to hear the
case, practically asserts that both Governor Grimes and Colonel Warren
Were "principal movers" in gathering "the crowd of sympathizers with the
unfortunate fugitive." The abolitionist who was aiding "Dick" to escape
was a New Englander, the celebrated botanist and historian of the Long
Expedition, Dr. Edwin James, then living a few miles west of Burlington.
See Frazee's article, "The Iowa Fugitive Slave Case," Annals, Vol. IV,
118-137.

3 Brown's company for Harper's Ferry was organized and drilled at
Springdale, Iowa. Iowa furnished more men than any other State. See
Gue's History of Iowa, Vol. II, p. 2.

4 Upon the occasion of Mr. Clarke's failure to make his appointment
to speak in the campaign of 1848 The Gate City observes: "Wm. Penn
Clarke, candidate on the "codfish and cabbage ticket," concluded to skip
our city in his tour of love for the darkies." (October 26, 1848.)

SOME OF IOWA'S DELEGATES
Chicago Convention, May 16-18, 1860

WM. P. HEPBURN,
U. S. Representative

CHARLES C. NOURSE,
Attorney- General of Iowa

WM. PENN CLARKE,
Supreme Court Reporter

HENRY O'CONNOR,
Attorney-General of Iowa

—41—

freedom of the New England emigrants beyond the Missouri.
In the Constitutional Convention of 1857 the irrepressible
champion of the proposal to strike "white" from the supreme
statute of Iowa and grant the electoral franchise to negroes
was a doughty New Englander, R. L. B. Clarke of Mt. Pleas-
ant, Senator Harlan's home town. On the hustings another
valiant champion of that measure was a dashing, brilliant
son of Erin, Henry O'Connor of Muscatine, "the best Repub-
lican stump speaker in the State. ' ' 1 Mr. Jacob Butler, like-
wise of Muscatine, was another "Abolitionist" whose flag was
up and his work on the Underground Railway known ; 2 like
his law partner, O'Connor, he, too, was regarded as one of
"the ablest and most popular speakers in the state."3 An-
other Abolitionist in the delegation was the Rev. John Johns of
Border Plains, "Webster county, of whom more later. All five
of those men "died in the ditch" at Chicago, voting for "Wm.
H. Seward for President.

The delegation contained at least three other "Black"
Republicans of the notorious species, all of them trainmen on
the Underground Railway : a State Senator, M. L. McPherson,
then of Winterset,4 Mr. H. M. Hoxie of Des Moines, who
had been an expert as to the best time and route for shipping
' ' fleeces of wool ' ' 5 and was then secretary of the Repub-
lican State Central Committee ; and Mr. J. B. Grinnell, whose
home in Grinnell was a way-station where "old Brown's"
chattels were rebilled and trans-shipped.6 John Brown wrote
a part of his Harper's Ferry proclamation to the Virginians
while at Mr. Grinnell 's home.7

The forwardness of New Englanders in radical anti-slavery
propaganda was shown at the annual session of the State
Congregational Association in 1859. A resolution was passed
June 2d expressing sympathy with brethren under arrest

i Dubuque Express and Herald, September 3, 1858 : See also editorial in
The Democratic Enquirer, Muscatine, October 7, 1858, under caption
"Henry O'Connor is in Favor of Negro Suffrage."

2 Byers' Iowa in War Times, p. 20.

3 The Hamilton Freeman, September 24, 1858.

4 History of Madison county, p. 353.

5 J. B. Grinnell's Men and Events of Forty Years, p. 217.

6 lb., pp. 210-220.

7 Byers, lb., p. 24 ; also Grinnell, lb., p. 214.

—42—

in Ohio on account of their resistance to the Fugitive Slave
Law, "an unchristian enactment" ; bidding them "be courage-
ous in enduring wrong," as their martyrdom would "call out
and increase the humane and Christian opposition ... to
the whole system of American Slavery, with all its attendant
evils, whether established by the Ge^cnl Government, sanc-
tioned by the Supreme Court, or enforced by Federal Of-
ficers. " 1 It further called for the raising of funds to aid the
martyrs. The resolution was deftly worded, so as to avoid ex-
plicit encouragement of law breaking but the Association was
sharply criticized ; the Dubuque Express and Herald per-
tinently asking, "How can such a body of men find fault with
any other body, whether composed of religionists or not, who
may urge resistance to a law which they dislike. ' ' 2

The most vigorous type of abolitionism within the regular
Republican party organization developed or "broke out" in
Muscatine county — a county that has produced many lusty
radicals in the course of its history. In the mass convention in
Muscatine, January 7, 1860, to select their delegation to the
Republican State Convention, in Des Moines, to choose the
delegates to Chicago, the committee on resolutions "recom-
mended" Helper's Impending Crisis as a book "eminently
worthy of an extensive circulation in this county." Coming
close on the heels of the executions at Harper's Ferry in which
Iowa was but too closely involved, the Convention could have
exceeded its display of belligerent radicalism only by com-
mending Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, for the burden of
Helpers' book was "Slavery Must be Abolished."3 Such an
action, as may be imagined, did not pass without comment.
The attitude of Iowa in the great political contest then ap-
proaching was a matter of national interest for her political
complexion was by no means clear or dependable. A corres-
pondent of the New York Herald visited the State to determine
the drifts of sentiment, his visit coinciding with the discussion
pursuant to the Muscatine Resolutions. Writing from Iowa
City, January 27th, he says :

i See Proceedings in Muscatine Journal, June 6, 1859.

2 Dubuque Express and Herald, June 10, 1859.

3 "As much was now said [1859] and written about Helper's 'Impending-
Crisis' as formerly about "Uncle Tom's Cabin' ; as much but in a different
way," etc. Von Hoist, VII, p. 8.

—43—

Next to Michigan, Iowa is the most completely and thoroughly
abolitionized State in the Northwest; it is therefore not surprising that
Brown here found practical exponents of Sewardism, or that Helper
finds champions in the deliberative councils of the rulers of the State.
Whatever dodges the Eepublican party elsewhere may resort to to cover
their participation directly or indirectly with Brown's attack on Harper's
Ferry or shield themselves from complicity with the circulation of
Helper's book, the Republicans of Iowa feel themselves strong enough
to throw off the mask and boldly avow their sympathy with the one
and their approval of the other. . . . This [action at Muscatine]
is the first public endorsement of the book I have yet heard of; but I
have yet to meet with the first Republican here or elsewhere who has
read the book who does not endorse it and recommend its circulation.!

That the foregoing was a veracious report of impressions
received we need not doubt, but the correspondent's conclus-
ions as to the prevalence and potency of abolitionism in Iowa
or among Iowa's Republicans in 1860 are not to be accepted.
The Abolitionists made up a very considerable company in
respect of ability, character and courage, but they did not pre-
ponderate, even in the Republican party, let alone in the State.
They were, in the language of our military experts, out-
flankers and skirmishers, or better, a flying squadron of re-
markable efficiency, but they were not the main body of troops.
The mass of the Republicans were strongly anti-slavery in
sentiment and theory, but hostile only to the extension of
slavery north of Mason and Dixon's line, the Ohio river and
36° 30'. They were not clamorous for abolition in States where
slavery was fixed or formal.2 There was no favorable echo of
the resolution of the Muscatine Republicans so far as the
writer can discover, either in the press or in party conven-
tions.

But while Abolitionists, as we shall see, did not prevail
in the State at large or predominate in the Republican
party, their affiliation with the Republicans and their activity
in propaganda put on the party the onus and odium thence re-
sulting. The Democratic press of Iowa teems with screaming

1 New York Herald, February 19, 1860.

2 In the debate, February 23, 1857, on the proposal to strike "White"
from the State constitution, Mr. Wm. Penn Clarke in repelling the charge
that his party was fathering abolitionism, said : "I understand the doctrine
of the republican party to be opposition to the extension of slavery."
Debates of the Constitutional Convention, vol. II, p. 675.

—44—

epithets: "Abolitionist," "Amalgamationists," "Miscegena-
tionists," "Black Republicans," "Freedom Shriekers," "Nig-
ger Thieves," "Nigger Worshippers," "Woolies," hurtle
through their pages ad nauseam. Their editors see frightful
visions of "white and negro equality."1 The organ of
Buchanan's administration, The Washington (D. C.) Union,
pronounced Senator Harlan's sober presentation of the north's
objections to the aggressions of the southern leaders in the
Senate, March 27, 1856, "an elaborate defence of abolitionism"
and declared the "one great object" in his speech to be to
establish "equality between the two races."2 The Republi-
can leaders of Iowa were more or less indifferent to such flouts
and taunts. Nevertheless one perceives an extreme sensitive-
ness to such accusations — the rank and file and most of the
leaders constantly declare their hostility to abolitionism. Not
only were they sensitive concerning the charge of abolitionism
but the dominant men of the party realized that the potent
fact chiefly determining the continuance or cessation of Re-
publican supremacy in Iowa was no less dread of abolitionism
than dread of slavery. This was a basic condition and assidu-
ous attention thereto was imperative. The reason therefor,
arose out of the ancestry of Iowa's population which we must
understand if we are to realize the significance of the conduct
of Iowa in the great Council in the Wigwam.

2. Southern Stocks and Prejudices Predominant.
The immigration prior to 1850 came chiefly from south of
Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio river. Between 1850
and 1860 the settlers hailed mostly from southern portions of
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the major number
of which were either natives of, or descendants of pioneer
emigrants from slave States who in their northern habitats
were by trade closely affiliated with the southern peoples.
There was at the same time a strong infusion of energetic
northern stocks from New England and New York, and of
their westernized descendants from northern portions of Penn-
sylvania and Ohio, and from Michigan and Wisconsin. The
influx of the northerners reached high tide between 1855 and

i See editorial in Express and Herald, Dubuque, September 3, 1858.
2 Quoted in Iowa Democratic Enquirer, Muscatine, April 10, 1856.

-45-

1860. It is the popular notion that the latter elements pre-
dominated in Iowa prior to 1860 ; and, it is true, they were the
energizing forces and aggressive factors in public discussion
and in the "forward" or progressive movements of those days,
both in industry and politics. But they did not constitute the
preponderant political population.1

Coincident with the incoming of the native Americans was
a heavy immigration into Iowa of foreign born peoples, mostly
Germans and Irish. In 1850 the native born inhabitants con-
stituted 89 per cent, of the aggregate population and in 1860
they had declined to 84.2 per cent. Of the 21,232 foreign
born in 1850, the Germans made up 7,152 and the Irish 4,885,
both together constituting 56 per cent, of the total. In 1860
the Irish numbered 28,072 and the Germans 38,555, making
63 per cent, of the 106.081 foreign born citizens. The total
population of Iowa in 1860 numbered only 674,913. It is
manifest that if the political party in power in Iowa had a
narrow margin of popular support the foreign immigrants
could easily control the fate of the predominant party if, for
any reason, the foreign born citizens were clannish and were
aggravated into political concert by threatened partizan action
adverse to their welfare.

The geographical and industrial distribution of the popula-
tion was a potent factor in the politics of the ante helium
period. Speaking generally, the settlers of southern anteced-
ents, although scattered thickly in the northern counties, pre-
vailed in the southern half of the State and in the interior and
western counties. For the most part they were farmers, much
given to hunting and trapping and but comparatively little to
commercial or manufacturing pursuits. They lived along the
streams and in the wooded lands and pursued farming in an
easy-going fashion. The Yankees, on the other hand, were
found mainly in the northern and eastern counties, inhabiting
the cities and towns, pre-eminent in the advancement of educa-
tion, especially in promoting schools and colleges, following
commercial and industrial pursuits, or farming the uplands or

l In The Annals, Vol. VII, pp. 367-379, 440-465, April and July, 1906, the
writer has set forth some facts in justification of the assertions above —
reprinted with additions under caption Did Emigrants from New England
First Settle Iowa.

—46—

prairies with the latest devices in agricultural machinery.
The foreign born population for the most part inhabited the
counties bordering on the Mississippi. They were more
numerous relatively in the northern counties than in the
southern. Thus in 1850 the foreigners in Dubuque county
constituted 40 and in 1860 42 per cent, of the population,
whereas in Des Moines county (containing Burlington) they
were only 15 and 21 per cent, for the respective decennial
censuses. In Davis and in Dallas counties the foreign born
amounted in each county to but 3 per cent. Even in Polk
county, with the capital city, the native born made up 90
per cent, of the population.1

The political, religious and social animosities and prejudices
of such a mixed population under the conditions of intercom-
munication of those days were in the nature of things lively
and various, and usually stubborn if not violent. The primary
prejudices of the native stocks related to slavery. Their
secondary prejudices pertained to the foreign immigrant.

The people of southern antecedents had left the south main-
ly for two reasons. Either economic pressure or hostility to
slavery, or both, had induced them to emigrate. The major
number had come north to better their economic condition.
Many would have brought slaves with them had their owner-
ship and control been feasible. A large proportion were not

i Below are given the returns of nativity for six counties on the
sissippi and for six counties bordering on the Des Moines river for
and i860 :

Mis-
1850

1850

1860

Counties

>

cd
Z

#

a

u
o

a so

U O

dJVH

Ph

>

a

M

'S3
u
o

♦j a
a 6o

fc.O

(D»-c

Dubuque

637

6,512
2,077
4,452
11,008
16,514
7,186
5,885
1,255
4,399
842
C67

140

4,301

525

1,520

1,955

2,287

71

103

25

114

12

68

18
40
19
25
15
12

1—

2—

2

2.5

1

9

8,295
18,206
13,565
16,706
15,536
22,747
13,296
14,109

9,437
10,498

5,082

3,999

3,942

12,958

5,373

9,253

4,075

6,485

468

707

4t5

1,127

162

233

32
42

Clinton

28

Scott

Des Moines

36
21

Davis

22
3

5

4.5

Polk

10

Dallas

3

Boone - —

5.5

* Includes some unknown.

—47—

particularly concerned about the matter, but were strongly
pro-slavery in their sympathies. The more influential and
industrious immigrants from the south, however, were de-
cidedly hostile to the extension of slavery, because their ad-
versity in their ancestral States was due to the pressure of
slavery and the severe and relentless social discrimination
against white labor. Small farming was almost impossible in
the south and decent and independent social existence other-
wise was so difficult as to be virtually impossible.1 The agita-
tion for the extension of slavery and the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise aroused the intense antagonism of such emigrants
in Iowa. It was this element among the southern stocks that
joined forces with the New England folk and elected James
W. Grimes Governor in 1854, to the utter astonishment of the
country at large.

Those who emigrated from the south because of personal
hostility to slavery, were usually out-and-out Abolitionists.
Such notably were the Friends or Quakers who for the most
part cameinto Iowa in consiclerablenumbersdirect from Mary-
land and North Carolina or roundabout via Ohio and Indiana.
The Friends church at Salem in Henry county was known far
and wide as the "Abolition Meeting House" 2 and their settle-
ment at Springdale, as already noted, was John Brown's ren-
dezvous, previous to his attack on Harper's Ferry. There was
at least one representative of the Quakers on the delegation to
Chicago, Senator M. L. McPherson of Winterset. He was a
North Carolinian and an Abolitionist. One of the most in-
teresting men among Iowa's delegates at Chicago was Rev.

i The following extracts from an able speech of John Edwards of Chari-
ton in the Constitutional Convention of 1857 illustrate the paragraph
above :

"I am glad that I have an opportunity here of speaking upon this
slavery question. Born in a slave State [Virginia], educated with all the
prejudices of a slaveholder, I have been contending for twenty years with
the institution of slaverv. It was slavery that drove me from my native
State." Debates, vol. II, p. 681.

"There were iJe:t ocats in my section of the State who took the ground
that slavery was. right; that it was a great moral and political blessing
i.i iliac it ov.fi • it t> ije extended throughout the Union." p. 683

". . . slavery is a foul political curse upon the institutions of our
•ountry : it is a curse upon the soil of the country, and worse than that it
is a curse upon the poor, free laboring white man. . . . they have been
driven away [from Virginia] in consequence of the degradation attached
to labor as the result of this system of slavery. That is the reason that
\i fi ii is becoming ^enopulated. . . ". p. 682.

See also speech of George Ells of Davenport, March 2, p. 907.

2 See testimony and arguments of attorneys in "An Iowa Fugitive shin
Case " Annals, VI, pp. 16, 27, 30-31.

—48—

John Johns of Border Plains, Webster county. He was a
native of Kentucky, an old line Whig, a Free Will Baptist
preacher and an Abolitionist. From his youth he had stead-
fastly promulgated his views, at camp-meetings and on the
hustings, alike, in Ohio and Indiana before coming to Iowa
in 1848.

But Abolitionists were extremists and did not dominate in
Iowa's southern stock. The preponderant number was hostile
alike to the extension of slavery and to its abolition and the
resulting Negro Equality involved or dreaded. "We hated an
abolitionist as we hated a nigger," wrote a pioneer preacher
of Iowa to the writer a short time since.1 Grimes was keenly
alive to this stubborn prejudice in 1854 when he sought the
suffrages of the people in his candidacy for Governor. He
took pains to guard against the imputations of his opponents
to the effect that he would echo "the mad-dog cry of abolition-
ism."2 The heated debates in the Constitutional Convention
of 1857, over the admissibility of the testimony of negroes in
courts, their rights to property, their admission to the State
and the Franchise, show us how deeply rooted and potent were
the prejudices of the southerners in Iowa's public opinion.
The proposal to strike "white" from the Constitution and thus
admit the negro to the Franchise was overwhelmingly defeated
at the polls. It obtained a majority in but two thinly settled
counties, Humboldt and Mitchell, the former near and the
latter on the border of Minnesota and the latter over fifty miles
back from the river; receiving approximately, in the State at
large only 14,000 votes out of 64,000 cast.3

The numbers and political significance of the southern stocks
is indicated forcefully in the following observations of Daniel
F. Miller a Marylander, who played a conspicuous part in
the pioneer politics of Iowa from 1839 to 1860, being the first

1 The correspondent quoted above, was born in Newark, Ohio, near
the center of the State. His parents were Virginians. He told the writer
once that he had almost attained his majority before he began to realize
that people were or could be born elsewhere than in Virginia, if not in Ohio.

2 Salter's Grimes, p. 49.

s The exact figures cannot be given as the returns from some of the
counties seem to be incomplete. See "Record of Elections" on file in the
office of the Sec. of State.

—49—

Whig Congressman from southern Iowa,1 one of the organizers
of the Republican party and the party's first Presidential
elector in the campaign of 1856. His communication was
indited near the close of the Fremont campaign.

When you are informed, sir, that full one-third of all the voters in
this (Hall's2) district were born in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North
Carolina, and other slave holding States, and that in fact, a very large
majority of this portion of our voters are the most ardent and active
Eepublicans, and fought best for the defeat of Hall, you will be able to
properly appreciate how much of the non-slaveholding portion of the
South hate the extension of slavery, and will speak out their sentiments
on the subject where they can do it with safety. Having come to Iowa
to enjoy the blessings of free labor and progressive industry and by
experience learned how superior are Free Institutions to those of
Slavery, we never can nor will consent, but oppose to the bitter
end, every effort of the Slave Oligarchy to extend Slavery over our
Sister Kansas. The Missouri Compromise was the common charter
of Freedom for both Iowa and Kansas, and, though the letter of it has
been violated as to Kansas, you may rest assured we will maintain the
equity and spirit of it at all hazards.3

Three instances of the potency of southern prejudices in
Iowa's politics in ante helium days may be cited because they
exhibit in an interesting fashion the practical consideration
given them by some of the men who played prominent roles
not only in the struggles between 1856 and 1860 but at
Chicago. Mr. Charles C. Nourse, a Marylander by birth, was
one of the original advocates of Abraham Lincoln's nomina-
tion among the Iowa Delegation, and he ascribes the original
impetus to his career in State politics to the adverse prejudices
of the southern stock in Iowa. In an interview with the
writer, he says: "In 1852 I was elected county prosecutor
of Van Buren county as a Whig. In 1854 I was renominated.
The Free Soilers were numerous enough in the north half of
the county to cause the Convention to put a Free Soiler by
the name of French on the ticket. For several reasons I was
strong enough to win on my own strength, but my friends soon
told me that I could not carry the Free Soiler along with me.

i Wm. H. Thompson. Democrat, was first seated, the canvassing board
having excluded the Mormon vote of Kanesville, which Fitz Henry Warren
had secure 1 for the Whigs : Miller contested, the election was voided, and
at a snecial election Miller regained his seat.

2 Augustus Hall.

a The St. Charles Intelligencer, October 2. 1856.
4

—50—

You see a great number of the people of Davis and Van Buren
counties had moved to Iowa when they supposed that region
was a part of Missouri. In the contest over the boundary, the
decision was largely in our favor. The fact that those south-
erners were in Iowa, did not, however, reconstruct their notions
or ways of thinking. A Free Soiler to them was an abolition-
ist— an equal suffragist who proposed to force on us negro
equality, both political and social. I worked manfully on be-
half of French but I could not disabuse their minds and I
was beaten. It was my defeat that induced my friends to
make me Clerk of the House of Representatives in 1854 as a
sort of compensation or consolation prize."1

Mr. John A. Kasson, although a New Englander, had spent
six years in law practice in St. Louis, 1851-57, before coming
to Iowa (hence his prior preference for Judge Bates for Presi-
dent in 1860). His political sagacity and capacity for gen-
eralship were so soon exhibited that in 1858, he was made
chairman of the Republican State Central Committee. In the
gubernatorial canvass of 1859 he planned an extended itin-
erary for Kirkwood in the counties of southern Iowa and
writing him July 18th, about the pitfalls to be avoided and
local prejudices to be dealt with, he advised: "You are
doubtless informed that the population of the southern tier
[of counties] generally, commencing with Davis and Wapello
and west, embrace people from southern Illinois, Indiana,
Ohio, some from Kentucky and Maryland, a few from Ten-
nessee. . . . Those people are generally scared at the
idea of abolitionism, particularly in Davis, Appanoose,
Decatur and Wayne. It will be well for you to run your
Maryland birth a little down there and to pitch into Democ-
racy, the real agitators of the slavery question who have
thrust it upon the country perpetually since 1844, and have
refused to leave it quiet in any part of the country not even
north of 36:30."2

Six months later the correspondent of Horace Greeley's
Tribune writing from Des Moines (Jan. 9, 1860) concerning

i Interview with Mr. Nourse, Ibid.

2 The citations above and others subsequently given unless otherwise
stated are to be found chiefly in MSS., correspondence, memoranda and
newspaper files in the Aldrich Collections of the State Historical Depart-
ment at Des Moines.

—51—

Governor Kirkwood's Inaugural Address, a copy of which
he had secured in advance of the delivery, observes : ' ' His
remarks on the John Brown matter are satisfactory and are
all that could be expected from a Marylander by birth; a
Democrat by association up to 1854, and a successful can-
vasser before the people His sentiments, I think,

are reflective of the tone of feeling in the northwest in the
Republican party."

3. The Clash of Native and Foreign Prejudices.

The prejudices of the native born population adverse to
the foreign born immigrant developed mainly in three forms :
First, dread lest the foreigner should gain undue power in
politics, and promote his interests at the expense of the gen-
eral welfare; second, antagonism to the doctrines and prac-
tices of the Catholic church ; and third, opposition to liberty
or license in the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors as
beverages. In such matters human nature is so constituted
that if greatly aroused race prejudice, religious fanaticism
and extreme measures for social reform engender fierce
animosities that sweep aside equity, logic and law and utterly
disconcert politicians calculating the force and direction of
the normal currents in the spheres of human interest.

KNOW-NOTHINGISM AND THE REPUBLICANS.

There seems to be a general opinion that the Know-Nothing
or American movement, that incorporated the native prej-
udice against foreigners in the older eastern and southern
States in the fourth and fifth decades of the last century,
did not seriously affect Iowa. Discussing the significance of
Grimes' success in 1854, Mr. Rhodes says: "The Know-
Nothing wave had not reached Iowa."1 Recently a writer
has told us: "The American party reached the zenith of its
power and influence [in Iowa] in 1855;" 2 and, again, "The
passing of Know-Nothingism from the political stage is closely
associated with the origin of the Republican party"3 (at Iowa
City February 22, 1856). Governor Grimes' vigorous decla-

i Rhodes' History. lb., Vol. II, p. 59.

2 Mr. Louis Pelzer, "The Origin and Organization of the Republican
Party in Iowa," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. IV, 495.

3 lb., p. 503.

—52—

ration at Burlington in January, 1856, that "Anti-Know-
Nothingism and Anti-Slavery must be two great planks of
the Republican organization ' ' l and other like expressions
from him are cited to indicate that Know-Nothingism was
not supreme in politics in Iowa as it was in States of the
east and the south. Such a conclusion, however, while justi-
fied in considerable measure seriously misleads as to the prev-
alence and force of Know-Nothingism in Iowa during its
flow and ebb in the country at large. There is reason for
thinking that the tide of anti-foreign feeling overflowed into
Iowa between 1852 and 1856 with some vigor.2 The events
precede too much the period in which we are immediately
concerned to justify their recital here, but the receding waves
disturbed very decidedly the currents of party strife in Iowa
and constituted one of the decisive factors, in the writer's
judgment, in bringing about the nomination of Abraham
Lincoln.

The anti-foreign influence in party politics in Iowa and the
anxiety of the politicians respecting its force and manifesta-
tion were pronounced up to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Editors and politicians, then, as now, expressed views publicly
that indicated what they wanted or thought ought to be rather
than what they thought actually was the case. The acts and
the private conversation and correspondence of the political
leaders spoke louder than formal words designed to hold or
attract the doubtful voter or delude the opposition. They
show us that political forces of great potency may operate
effectually and yet not receive much public recognition such
as ceremonial consideration in conventions in the way of
party resolutions and tickets. Moreover, the dread of an
indefinite, unpretentious but prevalent and perverse force

1 lb., p. 504.

2 Col. Joseph Eiboeck, editor since 1874 of Der Iowa Staats Anzeiger of
Des Moines, spent his youth in Dubuque between 1849 and 1859. In a
statement (MSS. ) given the writer, August 12, 1907, after describing a
physical encounter between the editor of The Express and Herald and the
postmaster of Dubuque, also editor of The Observer, a paper devoted to
Know- *» othittgism Co onel Eiboeck says of 'evelopments in that city:
"But the Know Nothing days were stormy ones. In 1853 and '4 there was
scarcely a day but fist fights and rows between Know Nothing rowdies
and German and Irish born citizens took place. Every house in which a
foreign born citizen lived was chalked with an X and thus marked far
espionage and persecution, those of Irish and German Catholics in par-
ticular."

—53—

disturbs all calculations producing sharp reactions within
party lines, to the distraction and woe of party organizers.

Politicians and political parties indicate their perplexity
as to the best course to pursue respecting an "issue" that
burns in the public mind as much by silence as by public
pronouncement thereupon or deft or timid reference thereto.
In 1855 the Democrats of Iowa spoke out plumply against
the anti-foreign propaganda, denouncing the attempts to re-
strict the rights of naturalized citizens and bespeaking re-
sistance similar to that accorded the Alien and Sedition laws.1
The Whigs were silent. At the formal organization of the
Republican party at Iowa City, February 22, 1856, there was
again silence. Silence upon that subject was essential to
success but it did not allay the suspicions of the Germans.
Mr. L. Mader, editor of Die Freie Presse of Burlington had
joined the original chorus of calls for the organization of an
anti-slavery party in Iowa. Nevertheless the Germans found
the Convention far from congenial.2 Their resolution de-
claring in favor of the naturalization laws then in force was
refused consideration, notwithstanding Governor Grimes
favored it.3 The result was that they withdrew from the
Convention. Three or four days later, Mr. Mader with
Theodore Guelich, editor of Der Demokrat of Davenport, and
J. Bittman, editor of Die Stoats Zeitung of Dubuque, jointly
issued a formal letter to their fellow countrymen in the
State, exposing the treatment they had received and urging
opposition to the new party until it was purged of its malev-
olent elements.4 This episode has not been considered as
significant or serious because of the predominant influence of
Governor Grimes in giving color, tone and direction to the
growth of the Republican party. It was, nevertheless, in-
dicative of a high degree of discontent and suspiciousness
among the foreign population, which did not disappear until
the clash of arms on Southern Battle-fields demonstrated that

1 See Platform Section 7 : Fairall's Manual of Iowa Politics, Vol. I, p. 39.

2 See letter of "Germania" in The Iowa Democratic Enquirer (Musca-
tine), March 13, 1S56.

3 See Grimes' letter to Salmon P. Chase, March 28, 1856, Salter's Grimes,
pp. 79-80.

i Daily Journal, Muscatine, March 17, 1856.

—54—

love of the stars and stripes was a common impulse alike of
scions of Cavalier and Puritan and sons of Erin and Ger-
mania.1

Governor Grimes lived in Burlington where Germans were
both numerous and justly influential; and although he recog-
nized that the partisans of American exclusiveness had real
grievances in some of the eastern States and were a beneficent
force in breaking up the old party alignments that had be-
come irrelevant as respects the great issue of slavery, he
fairly abominated Know-Nothingism as a principle of public
policy.2 But we err greatly if we conclude that his broad
views animated or controlled all the Republican leaders of
Iowa in those formative days. On the contrary the reverse
is largely true of the majority of the prominent men of the
State. Fifty miles west of the river, the Republican leaders
and anti-slavery men were saturated with the sentiments of
Know-Nothingism.

In Davis county, Mr. James B. Weaver, then an active
young lawyer of Bloomfield, first became known as an
ardent advocate of American principles. Judge William
Luughridge of Oskaloosa was Iowa 's member of the committee
of correspondence of the Know-Nothings that met at Phila-
delphia on June 15, 1855, and signed the "call" for the
National Convention in Cincinnati, November 30, 1855. 3 R.
L. B. Clarke of Mt. Pleasant 4 and John Edwards, editor of
The Patriot of Chariton, were avowed Know-Nothings;5 Mr.
Wm. Penn Clarke, who was a delegate to the National Repub-
lican Convention in Pittsburg in 1856, who had general charge
of the Republican campaign in Iowa that year, and in 1860
was the chairman of Iowa's delegation at Chicago, was a
noteworthy leader among the Know-Nothings, being sent to

1 The Germans of Iowa claim the honorable distinction of offering the
first troops ("The Burlington Rifles," Christian L. Mathies, Captain) to
aid in suppressing the threatening rebellion in January, 1861. See Eiboeck,
Die Dutchen von Iowa, p. 84. Major Byers is not disinclined to concede
the claim. Iowa in War Times, pp. 39-41.

2 Concerning the Know-Nothing Convention in Iowa City, March 5th,
Grimes wrote Clarke : "I was so disgusted with their proceedings . . .
that I have disliked to read, talk, write, or hear about it." Burlington,
April 3, 1856.

3 See The Oskaloosa Herald, September 14, 1855.

4 Debates of the Constitutional Convention, 1857, Vol. II, p. 862.

5 lb., Vol. I, p. 187.

—55—

the celebrated Grand Council that met at Philadelphia on
February 19, 1856. Wells Spicer, editor of The Tipton
Advertiser, was a staunch American and outspoken in his
advocacy of a policy of foreign exclusion, going so far as to
express regret at the failure of the Americans in the Repub-
lican Convention at Iowa City to express themselves vigor-
ously when they had the majority to do so. Iowa probably
never had a more acute observer and tactician or a more re-
sourceful political leader than the late Judge N. M. Hubbard
of Cedar Rapids. He was one of the original movers in the
organization of the Republican party, he and Mr. C. C. Nourse
being the secretaries of the Convention at Iowa City. Writing
Penn Clarke, December 24, 1855, from Marion, Judge Hub-
bard asked whether "we — republicans — had not better call
our State Convention at the same time the K. N. 's have theirs.
I believe a fusion is necessary and must be had." Two weeks
later (January 9, 1856) he wrote, "If we can secure you
[Clarke] the nomination of the Republicans (for Attorney
General) and the other good men from the K. N.'s and Repub-
licans about equal, can't your Convention resolve to make no
nomination and support ours? I am satisfied unless we can
make a union on the Nebraska question of the Republicans
and the K. N.'s we shall all be in danger of getting our bot-
tom knocked out . . . Let us do all possible to effect a
fusion." Were his proposals realized? Not entirely pro
forma but in substance and effect they were.

The Germans, as we have seen, revolted because they felt
that the Convention was dominated by Know-Nothings. The
Democrats flouted the Republicans with the charge of being
mere Know-Nothings in masquerade.1 On March 5th, the
American Convention of 100 delegates or representatives, met
in Iowa City and "confirmed" the ticket agreed upon by the
Republican Convention two weeks preceding, except that
different national electors were nominated.2 Mr. John Mahin

1 Referring April 12th to Mr. Martin L. Morris, the Republican nominee
for State Treasurer who was elected by the Democrats in 1852, The Guthrie
Sentinel of Panora said that he owed his present nomination to "Know
Nothing Woolies of Iowa." See also Dubuque Herald, September 18, 1859,
editorial, German Republicans of Wisconsin and Iowa.

2 Letter dated at Iowa City, March 6, 1856, to The Des Moines Valley
Whig, March 12th.

—56—

of Muscatine on February 29th, placed "at the mast head"
of The Journal, the American National Ticket of which he
said, "it is the best the party could have chosen", together
with the "Republican State Ticket" and the "American City
Ticket." On March 15th, without comment, he removed the
first. The Republicans however through many of the party
organs, denied the charge o collu-io" stoutly. Th^ Cincinnati
Times, however, declared that three out of the four nominees
on the Republican ticket in Iowa for State officers were
Americans.1 The Americans became restless at the recreancy
of the Republican press. Judge Loughridge in some indig-
nation wrote Clarke concerning the course of the Republican
editors : ' ' The State ticket nominated by both parties, they
denominate the 'Republican' ticket instead of claiming, as
the fact is, that it is a 'Union' or 'Peoples' Ticket'." He
informs Clarke that immediately following The Oskaloosa
Herald's declaration or pledge that Mr. S. A. Rice, the can-
didate for Attorney General was opposed to Fillmore and a
Republican, "the Davis County American paper took Mr.
Rice's name from the ticket." It was, no doubt, in part
anxiety concerning the consequences of this alleged double
dealing and the revolts occurring or threatened, that induced
N. M. Hubbard on March 28th to write Clarke: "What do
you think of politics now? Are we going to unite or burst
all up? Give me some advice. I am editing a paper. I
hardly know what to do." On the same day, Governor
Grimes wrote Salmon P. Chase of Ohio : ' ' The Fillmore
nomination will damage us considerably in this State, and I
fear will render the result doubtful. I think it will affect
us here as much as in any other State in the Union, especially
in the southern part, where the people are mostly southern by
birth. ' ' 2 His anticipations were verified.

An exceedingly interesting sign that Know-Nothingism was
a blazing phenomenon high in the political heavens of Iowa
in 1856, even, if it be true, that it had passed its zenith in
1855, was the commotion produced in the ranks of the Demo-
cratic party in March, 1856, by the public charge and sub-

i Quoted in The Guthrie Sentinel, September 13, 1856.
2 Salter's Grimes, p. 80.

—57—

stantial demonstration that George W. McCleary, then Secre-
tary of State, was a member of a Know-Nothing Lodge in
good standing. He was a popular official, and a prospective
candidate for renomination, with no serious opposition ap-
parent. The exposure seems to have paralyzed him and dazed
his party friends, for he soon formally announced that for
sundry reasons he would not be a candidate for re-election,
and thanked his friends for their kindness to him in the
past, etc.1

SENATOR HARLAN \S FEARS AND PROPOSAL.

In some respects, the most striking evidence the writer
has come upon, showing the existence in those formative days
of a strong undertow of anxiety among Republicans of Iowa,
lest the influx of Europeans untrained in the arts of self-
government, should overwhelm our free institutions is the
following letter of Senator Harlan to Clarke, dated at Wash-
ington, D. C, December 1, 1856 :

"It probably has occurred to you that the construction of
four parallel lines of railroads through Iowa, will enable the
opposition to flood the State with foreigners, who will prob-
ably swamp us at the polls in 1858 and 1860. Would it not
be well to provide a Registry law by act of the Legislature or
to require it in the Constitution ? Unless something of this
kind is done, I fear we will be unable to maintain our position
in the galaxy of Republican States."

Several facts make Senator Harlan's letter conclusive proof
of the prevalence of the fears that made up the warp and
woof of the American creed or cult. First it was written
three weeks following the victory of his party, both in Iowa
and generally throughout the north in the Fremont campaign.
Second, he suggested the consideration of the wisdom of act-
ing adversely towards the promotion of railroad construction
in Iowa when the whole population of the State was feverishly
pushing their congressmen to advance Iowa's interests by
federal land grants. Third, he exhibited his proposal when
the agitation for constitutional revision was culminating and
he must have contemplated serious consideration of the limi-

i The Daily Journal (Muscatine), March 6, 1856.

—58-

tations affecting the electoral privileges of the naturalized
citizens in the forthcoming convention. Fourth, he wrote
the letter when he was under no stress of mind as to his own
political fortunes, his term as Senator not expiring until 1860,
three years thereafter. Fifth, he communicated his sugges-
tion to an active, ambitious leader, not only of his own party
but of the American or Know-Nothing division thereof, and a
known aspirant for senatorial honors. Senator Harlan was
not a trimmer in politics nor a tight-rope-walking type of
statesman, but one who thought earnestly upon public matters
and spoke guardedly. We may conclude that he suffered
from no hallucinations as to the political conditions of his
constituents and urged no temporizing expedient for the sake
of short-sighted party advantage. The letter was not made
public at the time but it must have been written with a con-
scious expectation that it would influence Mr. Clarke and
through him the leaders of the party in the State, first in
legislative halls and second, in the constitutional convention
in which Mr. Clarke was to be facile princeps.

PROTESTANT VERSUS CATHOLIC.

The second great fact that provoked the animosities of the
native born immigrants was dread of Catholicism. Here again
ancestral traditions and geographical and industrial distribu-
tion mainly account for the prejudices and performances of
Iowa's Republicans between 1856 and 1860. Excepting the
French, German and Irish the pioneers were chiefly communi-
cants or adherents of Baptist, Campbellite or Christian,
Methodist and Presbyterian churches ; these churches in 1850
numbering 139 all told. Congregationalists, Episcopalians
and Lutherans, Moravians and Quakers made up the balance
of a vigorous protestant population, the reported numbers of
all their churches being only 31 in 1850. The Catholics were
reported as having 18 churches in that year and 16 of that
number were located in counties on the Mississippi. There
were none farther west than Johnson and Wapello counties.1

Such disproportions in relative numbers and such localiza-

i U. S. Census, 1850.

—59—

tion in the regions controlled by the natives and foreign citi-
zens and sundry other conditions engendered strenuous com-
petitive proselytism and much malevolence. In those days
churchmen and preachers generally believed in their creeds
intensely and enforced or sought to enforce their tenets
strictly. Those professing religious faith or in the active
affiliation with its adherents did not await a morning news-
paper to determine their belief and state of mind, but felt
firmly and were terribly in earnest. Congregations were in
truth churches militant. Now the mystery, the silent and
the self-sufficient procedure of the priests of the Catholic
church created huge phantasies in the minds of the Protes-
tants. To nine out of ten churchmen in Iowa the Catholic
church was an organization they had known or heard of
somewhat "down east" but which was almost unfamiliar to
the pioneers west of the river counties. Moreover the potent
influence of the foreign citizen in politics — bidden and pushed
thereto, be it noted, usually by designing and unscrupulous
native politicians in the cities — and the coincidence of the
Catholic faith with their political activity aggravated and
superheated the natural antipathy of the native American
stocks against the Catholics. The foremost factor in this
anti-Catholic or anti-foreign propaganda were the preachers
and adherents of the Methodist church, the dominant church
in point of numbers and influence in Iowa prior to 1860.
Senator Harlan was a conspicuous member and staunch pro-
moter of the faith of that church, a fact that brought him
many flings from anti-Know-Nothing critics.1 Two illustra-
tions taken from the first manifestations of Republicanism in
Guthrie county will substantiate the foregoing and at the
same time show how intimately the persons involved in the
fateful decision at Chicago May 18, 1860, were likewise pre-
viously associated.

On March 16, 1856, the Republicans of Guthrie county had
their first convention at Panora, the county seat. Their com-
mittee on resolutions reported the following declaration of
principles among others, which was adopted apparently with-

i See letter of Col. Louis Schade of Burlington in Iowa Weekly State
Reporter, June 8, 1859.

—60—

out dissent: "That we stand for the constitution and the
principles therein guaranteed, and we deny the right of
foreign despotisms — ecclesiastical or otherwise, to interfere
with the rights or dictate the action of Freemen in the exer-
cise of religious or political principles granted to us by that
sacred instrument. ' ' L One of the committee signing that dec-
laratiun was Thomas Seeley, who a few months later was
chosen by Dallas, Guthrie and Polk counties as their delegate
in the Constitutional Convention of 1857, defeating M. M.
Crocker a lawyer of Ft. Des Moines, who later had a brilliant
army career in the Civil War. Thomas Seeley was one of the
original Lincoln men at the Chicago Convention. On the
very day the Convention met at Panora, Judge James Hen-
derson of Panora, a member of the Methodist church wrote
a letter setting forth his ' ' disgust with members and ministers
of the M. E. church. I have good reason to believe that there
is a large majority of them [who] have joined that disgrace-
ful organization commonly called Know-Nothings. "2

THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW.

The advent of the Republican party in Iowa was coinci-
dent with the culmination of a campaign for the suppression
of intemperance — a vexatious problem that always tends to
split political parties asunder. Here again the cleavage of
interests and opinions broke in large part along racial lines;
yet with much confusion and counter rifts within the native
citizenship. The native stocks in religious professions were
as we have seen, chiefly Baptists, Campbellites or Christians,
Methodists and Presbyterians. These forces with the aggres-
sive Congregationalists constituted the vanguard in the agita-
tion that resulted in 1855 and 1856 in the adoption of the
"Maine law" prohibiting the manufacture and sale of spirit-
uous liquors except via a local State agent for "mechanical,
medicinal and sacramental purposes." The Whigs in 1854
had first declared for such a law. The Republicans in 1856
became sponsors for prohibition as they have been ever since.

It is doubtless true in the large, as Mr. Rhodes declares,

i The Guthrie Sentinel, March 22, 1856.
2 lb., April 19, 1856.

—61—

that "All the advocates of the Maine law were anti-slavery
men," but his conclusion that "it is not apparent that the
cause of freedom lost by union with the cause of prohibition"1
is to be accepted with some hesitation. The opponents of
slavery or of its extension in Iowa as in nearly all the States
of the northwest, made a complex of exceedingly heterogeneous
groups that were to each other, — slavery aside — mutually re-
pellant particles. This was notably so in Ohio, Michigan and
Iowa, where Germans were numerous and the advocates of
temperance aggressive and in the first and third States men-
tioned more or less preponderant.

Needless to observe this paternalistic legislation was re-
garded by the French, Germans, Irish, Hollanders and Swiss
in Iowa as an outrageous interference with some of their
most cherished rights of personal liberty and utterly inde-
fensible Their resistance was pronounced and continuous.
Very soon the Republicans began to "weaken" the law in
order to placate the contentious Germans. First the county
agent was abolished; then, in 1857 "home-made" cider and
wine were made salable; and in 1858 wine and beer were de-
fined as non-intoxicants and breweries authorized and saloons
for the sale thereof legitimized. But notwithstanding all
parties, friends and opponents of severe measures, were dis-
satisfied.

The effect of the espousal of the Maine law upon the party
strength of the Republicans cannot be definitely measured,
but unquestionably it was adverse. Both German and Irish
immigrants at first very largely, if not universally, joined
the Democratic party. Their intense hatred of governmental
oppression and slavery, however, made them turn toward the
Whigs and then the Republicans. The Know-Nothing move-
ment and radical temperance legislation produced a violent
revulsion. Slavery was abhorrent; but so was such sump-
tuary legislation. The former was an evil remote and only
vaguely felt; the latter was an immediate palpable outrage,
depriving them of rights and pleasures as dear as life itself.
Twenty and thirty years later when the Republicans alligned
themselves with advocates of such restrictive legislation thou-

i History of the U. 8., Vol. II, p. 50.

—62—

sands of Germans in eastern Iowa deserted the party with the
result that in 1890 the first Democratic governor since 1854
was elected. On the other hand the party's effort to placate
the Germans alienated the extremists who insisted upon rigor-
ous enforcement of the prohibitory law.

4. Smouldering Fires in 1857-1858.

In the Constitutional Convention of 1857, the irritation
and suspicions incident to Know-Nothingism, smouldered and
on occasion blazed out. Members charged each other with
adherence to its creed and with being beneficiaries of its prop-
aganda. It is clear from the debates that the local groups
or lodges were then inclined to affiliate or fuse as readily
with the Democrats as with the Republicans, depending upon
local conditions. When the Committee reported Article 3
on "Right of Suffrage," recommending almost no change in
the preliminary residence required, Mr. Wm. Penn Clarke
urged that the time be increased from six months to one year
in the State and from twenty days to six months in the county.
In his speech, we find a distinct echo of Senator Harlan's
letter previously quoted. "Within the next ten years," he
said, "it is more than probable that we shall have an influx
of population into our State of those who have no interest
with our people, and who will leave us when the public works
[R. R.'s] are completed, which induced them to come here.
If the members of this Convention desire to place the people
of this State at the mercy of this class of population, well
and good ; they can do so. But I do not mean that it shall
be done with my consent."1 The first proposal was rejected;
the vote, however, was not recorded; the second was lost by
a close vote of 11 to 12. 2

In the campaign of 1857, the Republicans, either because
they deemed it safe and harmless, or were forced to screw
their courage up to the sticking-point, squinted at the de-
mands of the foreign citizens. Their platform contained
some masterly generalities to the effect that "the spirit of
our institutions as well as the constitution of our Country

i Debates, vol. II, p. 864.
2 Ibid, p. 868.

—63—

guarantee liberty of conscience and equality of rights," and
they explicitly declare their opposition to "all legislation im-
pairing their security. " 1 In a practical way, they exhibited
their solicitude by nominating Mr. Oran Faville as their can-
didate for first lieutenant-governor under the new Constitu-
tion, as a "compliment" due the many estimable foreign citi-
zens in the party in the State. But despite their anxious care,
the thing would not down. In Burlington, the election went
"disastrously" for the Republicans. No less a notable than
the brilliant Fitz Henry Warren was defeated in his can-
didacy for the legislature, because Judge Stockton wrote
Clarke, "The Americans generally voted the Democratic
ticket. This was caused in part by having a German on the
ticket and by a great lukewarmness on the part of our
friends. ' '

In his last message to the General Assembly, in January,
1858, Governor Grimes urged the passage of a law for the
registration of voters to protect the ballot box and to pre-
serve the "elective franchise in its purity." He closed his
recommendation with these significant observations: "With
such a law, and with the strict and honest enforcement of
the naturalization laws, we shall cease to see parties arrayed
against each other on account of the birthplace of those who
compose them, and every bona fide citizen will be secure in
his just weight in the affairs of state. Without such a law,
judging from recent events, it is feared that popular elections
will become a reproach." The effort to secure a registration
law was fruitless. The measure introduced was apparently
very mild; "the odious section" (No. 13) merely required the
naturalized citizen when challenged, to exhibit his papers to
the Judges of Election. Its effect, however, would have been
unequal. The opposition was intense. The passage of the
bill was defeated under the leadership of D. A. Mahoney of
Dubuque, who resorted to the desperate procedure of having
the opponents leave the House of Representatives in a body,
thus breaking a quorum.2 In their platform that year, the
Republicans were discreet — that is, silent. They denounced

1 Fairall, lb., p. 44.

2 See account of The Herald of Dubuque, September 21, 1859.

—64-

the Buchanan administration, the "infamous Lecompton
Constitution" and with perfect abandon, insisted upon
economy in the State administration and liberal appropria-
tions for internal improvements.1

The smouldering fires of discontent and suspicion, however,
did not subside. Smoke was everywhere and flashes and
spurts of flame were seen. Far inland, among the towns and
settlements along the Cedar, Iowa, Skunk, Des Moines and
Raccoon rivers, Know-Nothingism or antipathy to the foreign
born was the animus of much discussion. The open advocacy
of exclusion or of severe restrictions upon their political
privileges was common although the expediency of avowing
the purpose was felt to be doubtful. The two parties tacked
and veered, each charging the other with surreptitious alli-
ances and fell designs. In Boone, Hamilton and Webster
counties, the air was split with exploding charges and counter
charges thrown by the highly suspicious patriots. The press
bristled with such gracious references as "bog trotters," and
"whiskey bruisers," "wooden shoes," and "beer guzzlers."
"Freedom to the Nigger," and "Begone you dog!" to the
foreigner were twin phrases that the Democratic press rang
the changes on with great gusto.2 "It is the same sentiment,"
continues the address to our "Adopted Citizen" that "gives
a negro a vote in Connecticut and tramples your brethren in
the dust for twenty-one years. For shame!"3

1 Fairall, lb., pp. 46-47.

2 Ft. Dodge Sentinel, September, 4, 1858.

3 Ft. Dodge Sentinel, September 4, 1858. The following, purporting to be
a letter signed, "A Foreigner," is reproduced from the Sentinel of October
9th. Tt illustrates not a little of the method and substance of political dis-
cussion in the inland counties in 1858. The editor was the late John F.
Duncombe :

IRISHMEN! GERMANS!

FOREIGNERS OF WHATEVER NAME

OR NATION !

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE FOLLOWING

INSULT TO YOU?

The Boonesboro News, the ablest Republican paper published in this
Judicial District, in commenting upon the speech of Mr. Elwood, our
Democratic Candidate for Attorney General, uses the following language:

"Is not the Negro Race as capable of exercising the right of suffrage as
the hordes of Foreigners, which yearly land upon our shores ; and is not
their right as good . . . Where can a more ignorant degraded set of
beings be found than nine-tenths of our foreign population, and yet they
are placed upon the scale of equality with the native citizen, both politi-
cally and socially. "

We ask any foreigner after being called "Bog Trotters and Whiskey
Bruisers" by the Hamilton Freeman which was fully endorsed by the late

SOME OF IOWA'S DELEGATES
Chicago Convention, May 16-18, 1860

J. F. BROWN,
Lawyer

JOHN W. THOMPSON,
State Senator

MICAJAH BAKER,
Lawyer

W. A. WARREN,
Merchant

BENJAMIN RECTOR,
Lawyer

E. G. BOWDOIN,
Lawyer

—65—

This backfiring: and bushwhacking took place in the western
parts of the northern, or second Congressional District, com-
prehending nearly two-thirds of the State. That year the
Republican congressional candidate was Wm, Vandever of
Dubuque, who from 1856 to 1859 was pelted with the charge
that he had joined a Know-Nothing Lodge in Dubuque, in
1856, becoming an officer thereof.1 Evidently he suffered a
change of heart, due either to deliberation or discretion or
discipline, for French, Germans, Irish and Swiss swarmed in
Dubuque. The suspicions of the Germans of Davenport, how-
ever, were not wholly allayed by his discreet and favorable
utterances, for one of their most distinguished representatives,
Hans Reimer Claussen, a one-time member of the German
Parliament, demanded a more specific statement from Mr.
Vandever. On September 8, 1858, he submitted and asked
replies to the following questions:

"1. Are you willing, when a member of Congress, vigor-
ously and with all your power to oppose any attempt to
change the laws of Naturalization so as to extend the time of
probation ?

"2. As any legislative measures which prevent a natural-
ized citizen, after his naturalization for a certain length of
time from voting, are equivalent to the extension of the time
of probation, are you willing to act for or against such
measures ? ' '

Mr. Vandever forthwith replied (September 11th) ex-
plicitly: "In reply I have to say that I am content with the
period now prescribed by law for the naturalization of persons
of foreign birth, and were I a member of Congress, I should
not hesitate to oppose any effort that might be made to ex-
tend the time.

County Convention In a resolution which was offered by the Hon. C. C.
Carpenter. . . . Can you do it Irishmen? Can you do it Germans?
Can you do it Norwegians? Can you do it Swedes? Will you lick the dust
from the feet of your Tyrants? . . . Arouse! Awake! & &

(Signed) A Foreigner.

An examination of the files of The Freeman does not disclose any such
statement as The Sentinel refers to. Mr. Aldrich informs the writer that it
was not uncommon for his partizan critics in those days to suffer from
delusions that induced them to assume that he must have said or probably
would say sundry things alleged against him.

l The Herald of Dubuque, September 18, 1859, and the Mississippi Val-
ley Register, of Guttenberg, May 26, 1869.
5

—66—

"In reply to the other inquiry, I have to say that I deem
it peculiarly a subject for state legislation, but I am free to
confess that when admitted to citizenship, I know of no
reason why a man should be subjected to further probation
as a qualification for voting. I certainly would not discrimi-
nate in this particular, between citizens of native and citizens
of foreign birth."1

5. The Blaze over the Massachusetts Law.

The inattention of the Republicans in 1858 respecting the
status of foreign born citizens was not permitted in 1859.
The subject loomed up so suddenly and hugely that neither
leaders nor party managers were allowed to dodge or hedge
or take to the woods. The Republicans of Massachusetts had
by legislative act, proposed to increase the limitations upon
electoral privileges of foreigners by adding two years to the
probationary period. The prominence of Massachusetts in the
Nation's affairs immediately made the measure a matter of
keen national interest. Iowa was then or later fondly called
"The Massachusetts of the West," because of the prominence
of New Englanders and Puritanic principles in the State.

The Republican press of the middle and western States
seems at first to have maintained silence as regards the enact-
ment. In March a German, "An Iowa Farmer and True
Republican," having looked "in vain" for " disapprovement
of such a breach of plighted faith," and fearful that such
silence meant approval wrote Greeley's Tribune protesting
against the "unjust illiberal and offending conduct of the
party in New England." He was not unmindful of the evils
in elections and favored a "good registry law" based upon
"strict equality" of treatment of foreign born. He urged
that the naturalization period be reduced to three years and
the right to vote be withheld for two years after. He did not
blame the party for what was done in one State, but New
Jersey was then apparently about to follow Massachusetts
and " we have cause for suspicion" that the Republican party

l For the letters of Messrs. Claussen and Vandever quoted above the
writer is indebted to Dr. August P. Richter, now and for many years past
editor of Der Demokrat of Davenport. Dr. Richter's kindness and pains-
taking in the recovery of data in response to inquiries are but scantily
acknowledged in this brief note.

—67—

"everywhere might attempt to treat us in the same manner as
long as we hear not a single voice in our defense." He de-
clares that "Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana,
Ohio, New York and perhaps Pennsylvania can be counted
Republican through the strength of the German Republican
vote." If the Republicans think that they can ignore the
just claims of the Germans "I will only remind them of the
fact that Caesar's legions were smashed in the woods of
Germany. ' ' His vigorous letter drew an editorial on ' ' Natural-
ization and Voting" from Greeley who denied that the
law of Massachusetts was arbitrary in purpose : it was
' ' based on a sound principle but wrong in going further than
the principle requires." The Tribune concurred in the
writer's suggestion of naturalization after three and elect-
oral privileges after five years.1

Meantime the Germans of Iowa all along the Mississippi
were aroused and became belligerent. They proceeded aggres-
sively to discover and to expose the attitude of the Republicans
towards the policy of the party in Massachusetts. They ex-
hibited alike, good tactics and good strategy. Their recon-
naissance in April took the form of a letter to the Congres-
sional leaders. Three interrogatories were addressed to them
which in substance were (1) Were they in favor of the laws
of Naturalization then in force and opposed to all extension
of the probation time ; ( 2 ) Was it the duty of Republicans to
"war upon each and every discrimination that may be at-
tempted between the native born and adopted citizens, as to
right of suffrage"; and (3) Did they condemn the late action
of the Republicans in the Massachusetts Legislature ? 2 The
prominent signers were Mr. John Bittman and Dr. Carl Hill-
guertner of Dubuque, Messrs. Theodore ALshausen, Theodore
Guelich and Henry Lischer, of Davenport, and others of Bur-
lington, Ft. Madison and Keokuk.

Senator Grimes first responded (April 30th) declaring con-
cisely, the measure of Masaschusetts "false and dangerous

1 N. Y. Tribune (w. ), April 16, 1859. For the citations given in the
paragraph the writer is indebted to Mr. John P. Schee of Indianola, who
courteously granted him permission to examine his file of the weekly
Tribune.

2 See Salter's Grimes, pp. 119-120.

—68—

in principle" and condemning it "without equivocation or
reserve." Senator Harlan's reply (May 2nd) was an ex-
tended discussion of the matter in issue.1 His letter was re-
printed in broadside for general distribution, the author mind-
ful, no doubt, that his re-election to the Senate would be a
matter of lively public interest in January, 1860. Colonel
S. R. Curtis of Keokuk responded (May 13th) at considerable
length, but plumply saying "as to two years additional proba-
tion, I am utterly opposed to it." Mr. Vandever, answering
(May 21st) was no less explicit, being opposed to any action
adverse to the rights of adopted citizens under the laws then
in force, and deploring the action of Massachusetts. He called
attention to his letter to Mr. H. R. Claussen, written in 1858.
It is not insignificant here that Abraham Lincoln's letter1
(May 17th) to Theodore Canisius of Illinois was reprinted
in Der Demokrat of Davenport, in which he expressed
himself in clear, strong terms upon this issue, saying, "as I
understand the Massachusetts provision, I am against its adop-
tion in Illinois or in any other place where I have a right to
oppose it. " 2

Meantime, Mr. John A. Kasson, chairman of the Republican
State Central Committee, who always could quickly distin-
guish a hawk from a handsaw realized the danger to Republi-
can supremacy in Iowa imminent in the intense, belligerent
feelings of the Germans and had acted. He and his confreres
of the committee made public a resolution adopted by them
April 18th, refusing all countenance to the Massachusetts law
and repudiating the principles thereby exemplified.3 Among
the co-signers with Mr. Kasson, were Mr. Nicholas J. Rusch,
a prominent German of Davenport, and Mr. Thomas Seeley
of Guthrie county, already referred to, all three being mem-
bers of Iowa's Republican Delegation at Chicago the following
year.

This unanimity of opposition among the foremost Repub-
licans to the movement in Massachusetts, did not allay the sus-
picions of all Germans nor did it meet with uniform endorse-

i Burlington Hawk-eye, May 11, 1859.

2 Der Demokrat, May 25, 1859; all of the letters referred to in tne
paragraph above were published therein on the same or previous dates.

3 The Guardian, Independence, May 5, 1859.

—69—

ment among the Republicans. A bitter not to say virulent
discussion was precipitated, that did not end until the close
of the campaign in the Fall. In the first place, as the Demo-
cratic press was alert and prompt to point out, the action of
the State Central Committee was adversely regarded by many
Republican editors, The Oskaloosa Herald declaring that ' ' the
Committee have usurped its authority, and by its late pro-
nunciamento, compromises the Republican party of Iowa."1
Simultaneously with the disapproval of the action of Massa-
chusetts, such influential papers as The Hamilton Freeman,
The Muscatine Journal, The Vinton Eagle ~ and The Inde-
pendence Guardian, were advocating a Registration law which
the foreign born citizens knew was aimed chiefly at them. In
addition to these irritating causes, Senator Harlan 's letter con-
tained not a little that aroused criticism and recrimination.
Instead of replying briefly to Messrs. Hillguertner, Alshausen
et al, Senator Harlan discussed at length the general consid-
erations involved, the evils of unrestricted immigration and
the grave dangers possible in the future. More than this, he
dealt with the problem of negro slavery as well as with the
problem of naturalization and electoral privileges. One can
find little or nothing in his discussion of the subject against
which objection will lie on abstract or philosophical grounds.
He was lucid, forceful and conservative and considerate of
pros and cons, both as to the future and the present. There
were evils and Congress and the States must some time deal
with them. Nevertheless, he concluded by rejection of the
action of Massachusetts. Still his letter brought upon him
sharp rejoinders. The foremost cause, doubtless, was the
fact that he was Iowa's senior Senator, whose term of office
was about to expire, and he had already achieved fame at
Washington. Further he was prominent in the Methodist
church, a factor of no mean power in politics. The imme-
diate causes of the debate his letter produced were the adverse
inferences his critics could easily draw from his philosophical
generalities. All persons "who possessed requisite virtue and
intelligence" should be permitted to vote; but it was "very

i Quoted in The Express and Herald, Dubuque, May 8, 1859.
2 The Express and Herald, May 1, 1859.

—70-

difficult to establish a standard": "yet the latter object can
be partially attained by indirection." He refers to "the mass
of foreigners" and "mendicants, vagrants and criminals"
that come with them. The rules of "restriction should be
general" but "the length of the probationary residence must
ever remain an open question"; for his mind's eye foresaw a
time when "our relations with the hordes of Asia" might re-
sult in an immigration of a "crude population of millions,"
sufficient, if admitted to citizenship, to inundate our cities,
and eastern and western States.1

The criticisms of Mr. J. B. Dorr, editor of The Herald of
Dubuque, were perhaps typical of those in the Democratic
press. He commented caustically upon the generalities of Mr.
Harlan's argument. If the matter should be treated as an
"open question" and the best results were to be obtained by
"indirection" he necessarily squinted favorably upon the
measures of Know-Nothingism. "They [the Republicans] en-
deavor first by the false cry of 'nigger, nigger' to enlist
against the Democracy the free white sons of Europe and
when the Democratic party is put down they then turn round
and call their allies 'mendicants, vagabonds and criminals' as
Senator Harlan does. Nor is this all, but they proscribe them
and place above them in political rights the greasy runaway
negroes from southern plantations as Republican Massachu-
setts does. ' ' 2

Perhaps the most telling arraignment of the Republicans
anent the Massachusetts law was put forth in a letter of Col.
Louis Schade of Burlington and widely published.3 He
pointed out that the American party in the south and the
Republican party in the north had the same warp and woof
in their makeup, that the N. Y. Tribune had then but recently
said that it would "heartily and zealously support" for presi-
dent "one like John Bell, Edward Bates, or John M. Botts,"
well-known "chiefs of Know-Nothingism," that the Repub-

i The writer is indebted to Dr. G. E. Thode of Burlington for a copy
of Senator Harlan's letter as it appeared in The Hawk-eye, May 11, 1859.

2 The Herald, Dubuque, May 13, 1859.

3 The Weekly Iowa State Reporter, Iowa City, June 8, 1859, and The
Herald, Dubuque, May 31st ; some portions are omitted in the latter. Colo-
nel Schaile was later for nearly thirty years editor of the Washington
(D. C.) Sentinel.

—71—

licans and Americans or Know-Nothings of New Jersey and
New York in 1858 had made agreements to extend the proba-
tionary period and he cites Horace Greeley's approval. He
then pays his respects to the letter of Mr. Harlan ' ' Republican
Senator, Bishop of the Methodist church in spe, some years
ago a good Know-Nothing 1 and also a Negro Equality
Apostle" whose references to the "mass" of foreigners, "men-
dicants," "Asiatics" etc, arouse his ire. The Yankee
and his blue laws, his Puritanism and Pharasaism receive his
finest scorn. The "Maine law" he observes "like everything

intolerant and despotic originated in New England

The Republican party was started in New England, the brains,
shoulders and head of the party are in New England. What
New England commands, the Republicans of other States
obey. " 2 He says pointedly that an ignorant negro after one
year's residence in Massachusetts could cast his ballot, but a
residence of seven years would be required of a Carl Schurz.

These arguments of The Herald and Colonel Schade were
given added pith and point by the spread of a substantial rumor
in May that plans were under way in some of the northern
States to people the unsettled counties of northwestern Iowa
with negroes, emigrants and refugees from the south. Fat
was added to the flames when a Republican alderman of
Keokuk flippantly asserted that "he would rather see Iowa
colonized by negroes than by . . . Dutch and Irish." 3

The alignment and morale of the Democrats were thrown
into confusion, however, by a heavy rear fire from their own
ranks and from the national citadel itself. Lewis Cass, Secre-
tary of State, on May 17th, had written Felix Le Clerc of
Tennessee, that naturalization in this country would not "ex-
empt" him from claims of France for unfulfilled military
service avoided by his emigration should he return to his

1 Colonel Schade refers to a common charge that in 1856 at Dubuque
Senator Harlan was initiated in a Know-Nothing lodge along with Wm.
Vandever. See The Herald Dubuque, on editorial page, May 26, 1859.
Reasserted September 18th, in editorial on "German Republicans of Iowa
and Wisconsin." The writer has seen neither denial nor proof of the
charge.

2 "What Massachusetts does is felt from the Atlantic to the Pacific,"
Carl Scnurz on True and False Americanism, an address delivered in
^aneuil Hall, Boston, April 18, 1859. See .V. Y. Tribune (w.), April 30th.

3 The Herald, May 26, 1859, following of The Keokuk Journal.

—72—

native land.1 The dismay and fury of the anti-administration
Democrats was great indeed, for The Herald exclaimed that
the "worst Know-Nothing in the country never conceived of a
depth of humiliation for the naturalized citizen equal to that
proposed by Gen. Cass as the organ of the Administration,"
and in most peremptory terms Mr. Dorr demanded the sum-
mary dismissal of Cass from the cabinet. With this protest,
a call for a county Democratic convention was issued and the
anti-administration forces asked to convene with a view to
prevent an endorsement of Buchanan's administration at the
approaching State Democratic Convention. The Le Clerc let-
ter aroused the Germans as well as the French. Secretary
Cass was bombarded with inquiries and protests. His letter
of June 14th, to Mr. A. V. Hofer of Cincinnati, and his in-
structions to Minister "Wright at Berlin (July 8th), in which
he said the American government would protect natural-
ized citizens against all adverse claims arising subsequent to
emigration were eagerly declared by the Democrats to be a
"back down" on the part of the administration.2 A close
scrutiny of the two letters, however, shows that there was
no inconsistency and no modification of Secretary Cass' first
announcement — a view which was originally set forth by
Wheaton and incorporated in the Bancroft treaty of 1868 with
Germany, and to-day governs the diplomacy and foreign rela-
tions of the United States.3

In the midst of the discussion the people were afforded an
illustration of the practical significance to Iowa's foreign born
citizens, of Secretary Cass' declaration of national policy.
There was published a summons received by Mr. Frederick
A. Gniffke, then as now editor of Der National Demokrat of
Dubuque issued by the royal court of his native city of Dant-
zic citing him to appear in person before said tribunal for
trial on the charge of avoiding military service, the summons
further declaring that in case of non-appearance the investi-

1 Ibid, June 16, 1859.

2 Ibid, and N. Y. Tribune (w.), July 30th. The American Minister at
Berlin was Joseph Wright, brother of Geo. G. Wright, then Chief Justice of
Iowa.

3 Moore's Digest of International Law, Vol. Ill, contains the Le Clerc
letter, p. 588, and the Hofer letter, pp. 572-573.

—73—

gation and decision would be "proceeded with in contum-
acium."1

6. The Campaign of 1859.

Notwithstanding the gross faults, misconduct and internal
discord of the Democratic party with respect to its national
administration the Republicans of Iowa prepared with anxiety
for the campaign of 1859. There were grave reasons for
alarm. The administration of Governor Lowe, or rather the
general developments just preceding and during his term,
were not satisfactory. It began with commotion over a serious
scandal in the location of the capitol site in Des Moines.
There had been scandalous mismanagement and perversion of
the school funds in the office of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction. Multitudinous grief prevailed in the affairs of
the Des Moines Navigation Company that aroused fierce ani-
mosities among the land claimants along the river. The air
was split with charges of corruption in the location and con-
struction of the Insane Hospital at Mt. Pleasant. The re-
formers of the party under the pressure of "progressive"
ideas had augmented appropriations beyond income and a de-
ficit or debt above the constitutional limit loomed up. So
obviously haphazard and expensive was the State's financial
administration that the Republicans confessed judgment.
The legislature provided for a Commission of three to investi-
gate and report upon the condition of affairs and recommend
beneficial reforms. Of the three appointed by Governor
Lowe, Messrs. John A. Kasson and Thomas Seeley were the
party's members, the former being chairman. The dissatis-
faction arising from the party's financial administration was
intensified by the general industrial distress then prevalent
as a result of the excessive speculation in private and public
local improvements that collapsed with the panic of 1857.

Plus their financial worries the Republicans were anxious
over "moral issues." The Germans were aroused by the
action of Massachusetts and irritated by the restrictions
of the enfeebled ' ' Maine law. ' ' The Democrats in their State
platform flatly declared the prohibitory law "unjust and
burdensome in its operation and wholly useless in the sup-

i The Express and Herald, Dubuque, June 16, 1859.

—74—

pression of intemperance," and demanded its repeal. But
the Republican party leaders knew that they dare not capit-
ulate to such demands for they had already aroused the dis-
gust of the extreme advocates of prohibition and further
retrocession would cause a revolt among the militant Baptists,
Christians, Congregationalists, Methodists and Quakers such
as nearly defeated John H. Gear in 1877 in his first race for
governor. Finally on the subject of slavery the party con-
fronted many pitfalls. Although the outrages in Nebraska
and Kansas had served their purposes well, from 1854 to 1858
there was a lull in the public indignation. There were many
signs of reaction. Commercial interests were crying out
against further agitation. The southerners in Iowa were as
certain to balk at abolitionism as at the extension of slavery
and they wanted to believe and for the most part inclined to
make themselves believe that the matter could be dealt with as
Stephen A. Douglas contended. Perhaps a sign of this feel-
ing was the defeat of Mr. J. B. Grinnell in his contest for
renomination to the State Senate in 1859. He had drafted
the original address of the Republicans to the voters of Iowa
in 1856. He was conspicuous as an abolitionist. The Demo-
crats conceded that he was a man of "decided talents and
energy." His defeat was therefore pronounced by them a
rebuke to abolitionism.1 It is clear that turn which way they
would the Republicans were between Scylla and Charybdis.
The Democrats still felt that Iowa was normally within
their own domain and its reconquest was a matter of more
than local interest. Buchanan's administration at Washing-
ton and Douglas, no less, were earnestly desirous of regaining
the State for their gubernatorial candidate. Plans were care-
fully laid. The strongest man was picked — Augustus C.
Dodge of Burlington. He had represented Iowa in Congress
for eighteen years, twelve of which were in the Senate. The
movement to make him the Democratic candidate was co-
incident with the termination of his residence at the court of
Madrid as our Minister to Spain. Knowing the intimate rela-
tions of the Dodges with chiefs of Buchanan's administra-

l See The Herald, Dubuque, August 5, 1859.

—75—

tion we may well suspect concert and pre-arrangement at
Washington. The earnest, set purpose of the Democrats may
be inferred from the charge commonly made and believed
by the Republican leaders that a sum approximating $30,000
had been raised chiefly in Washington and in Wall street,
wherewith to carry the Democratic ticket in Iowa in 1859.

The Republicans realized the seriousness of the situation
and they went about vigorously to deal with it. Governor R.
P. Lowe desired a second term and normally would have had
a second nomination accorded him, but the leaders knew
that the struggle was to tax their party strength to the utmost.
They therefore set him aside and chose Samuel J. Kirkwood,
who had lived in Iowa but four years. Although at the time
an unpretentious farmer and miller near Iowa City, and inci-
dentally a State Senator, he had been a leader in central
Ohio a few years before and here immediately demonstrated
that he was a man of extraordinary mental and moral potency
in public affairs, an adroit canvasser and a profound and
straightforward reasoner. Governor Grimes regarded Kirk-
wood as the strongest all-round man in point of mental ability
moral courage and physical endurance, in meeting the rig-
orous exigencies of campaigning in Iowa. The Convention
"cordially" approved the action of the State Central Com-
mittee relative to the Massachusetts law and made a simi-
lar declaration. As an earnest of their sincerity Senator
Nicholas J. Rusch of Davenport, who had worked in the
legislature for the modification of the Maine law was nomi-
nated for lieutenant-governor. At that time he spoke En-
glish with marked difficulty and the critical partizan press
had much sport over the fact. A paper in central Iowa
with American notions which, in the main, supported the
"plow handle" ticket1 but could not stomach his candidacy,
declared that Mr. Rusch "would not have received a nomina-
tion if it had not been for the course recently taken by Massa-
chusetts in relation to the naturalization of foreigners. His
nomination was made the salve to heal the wounded feelings

l Messrs. Kirkwood and Rusch were farmers and much was made of the
fact at the barbecues and rallies.

—76—

of his countrymen in this State. His nomination was de-
manded as a condition of their future fidelity."1

The debates of the ensuing campaign were sharp and
strenuous. The Republicans were buffeted with charges of
Abolitionism and Know-Nothingism, corruption and paternal-
ism and recreancy to temperance. Kirkwood was charged
with being a "renegade from the dark lantern fraternity"
still tainted with the vices of Know-Nothingism.2 The dis-
cussion of the temperance question became positively vicious
in its virulence; not even the State's representatives in the
United States senate were exempt from gross attack. The
junior Senator was openly charged with being the owner of
a beer garden in Burlington 3 and the senior Senator was
flouted as "the mighty Ajax of the Maine law" with the asser-
tion made on the stump that he was found imbibing in a
saloon in Des Moines at the Republican State Convention.4
An instructive illustration of the ticklish conditions that ex-
asperated and taxed the wits of party leaders may be given.
The incident occurred at the opening of the campaign. A
Reverend Mr. Jocelyn, a Methodist minister, had been engaged
to deliver a series of lectures, sermons or speeches upon tem-
perance before the congregations of churches or members of
temperance organizations in central Iowa roundabout Des
Moines. He evidently viewed the prospects with a gloomy
eye, and with reason. The reaction which follows drastic
sumptuary legislation such as the Maine law had set in
strong. The open as well as the surreptitious violation of
the statute was increasing. Public sentiment in its favor was
waning and its opponents were gaining ground. Vigorous de-
fensive measures were clearly imperative as Mr. Jocelyn re-
garded the situation, and he spoke out with vigor, carrying
the war into Africa. He attacked the candidacy of Nicholas
J. Rusch, who being a German, was a representative of the
population that especially protested against the prohibitory
law. Mr. Jocelyn was quoted as saying that he "would

1 Weekly Iowa Visitor, Indianola, July 7, 1859. For this citation the
writer is indebted to Mr. Jas. M. Knox, of Des Moines.

2 The Herald, Dubuque, July 21, 1859.

3 Iowa Weekly State Reporter, June 8, 1859.

4 The Herald, Dubuque, September 14, 185'J.

—77—

rather vote for the most ultra-slavery propagandist than ,c
vote for Rusch." His hard hitting had immediate effect.
The Republican leaders both local and State became alarmed
for grumbling and threats were heard among the faithful.
The queries and rejoinders were: "Are Methodists to cut
the ticket? We will make it cut both ways. If you cut
Rusch we cut Methodist." The latter meant Senator Harlan.
His friends were informed that if Mr. Jocelyn was not stopped
the friends of the ticket supporting Mr. Rusch would fight
Senator Harlan's re-election the following January.

The Republicans in all their party history in Iowa have
probably waged no more vigorous campaign than they con-
ducted in 1859. They had a phalanx of effective speakers,
energetic workers and shrewd managers, many of whom after-
wards gained interstate and national fame and some inter-
national distinction.1 Their work was aggressive and well
organized. They had a cause that was worthy of their en-
thusiasm. The aggressions of the Slavocrats both in and
out of Congress "the unparalleled profligacy of the [national]
administration, the enormous increase of expenditures from
forty odd to over eighty million per annum and the consequent
hard times"2 under which the people were laboring made
Buchanan 's regime odious in the north, and discord sundered
the strength of the Democrats in the State. Despite all these
favoring conditions Kirkwood's majority was less than 3,000
in an aggregate vote of 110,048. Grimes' majority of 1,823
in 1854 represented a margin of advantage of 4.1 per cent,
of the total vote, while Kirkwood's majority of 2,964 gave
him a surplus of only 2.6 per cent, of the aggregate vote cast.

i Among the leaders earnestly supporting Kirkwood were Senators
Harlan and Grimes, Messrs. Fitz Henry Warren, Samuel F. Miller, Timo-
thy Davis and James Thorington, Francis Springer and Hiram Price, James
B. Howell, Clark Dunham, John Teesdale and John Mahin, Addison H.
Saunders, F. W. Palmer, Charles Aldrich, Jacob Rich and A. B. F. Hil-
dreth. Col. Alvin Saunders, Wm. H. Seevers and James F. Wilson, Josiah
B. Grinnell. Judge Wm. Smyth, Eliphalet Price and Reuben Noble, Samuel
R. Curtis, Wm. Vandever, Charles C. Nourse and John A. Kasson, Gren-
ville M. Dodge, Caleb Baldwin, Ed Wright and C. C. Carpenter, Henry
O'Conner and Jacob Butler, Joseph M. Beck, John W. Noble and John
W. Rankin, Henry Strong, George W. McCrary and Hawkins Taylor,
Moses McCoid. R. L. B. Clarke an 1 James W. McDill, George G. Wright,
Henry P. Scholte and James B. Weaver, N. D. Carpenter and N. M. Hub-
bard. John Edwards, S. A. Rice, W. P. Hepburn and William Loughridge,
A. W. Hubbard and H. Clay Caldwell, William Penn Clarke and Coker
F. Clarkson, John H. Gear and William B. Allison.

2 Senator Harlan's letter last cited.

—78—

7. The Conditions of Republican Success for 1860.

In the immediate clinch and tug of politics it is not neces-
sarily the merits of one's case or the justice of his cause that
is decisive in securing the immediate favor of political leaders
and party managers but rather the amount of trouble one
can make or seem to threaten. Their power for immediate
good or ill depends upon the ratios of two conditions : first the
degree of balance or equipollence between the major parties,
and second, the degree of co-ordination or unity found within
each party's separate alignment. In 1855 the Democratic
platform observed that the Republican party of Iowa was
made up of ' ' discordant elements. ' ' The assertion as we have
seen was true when made and it was largely true in 1859-60.
Holding their supremacy by a narrow margin of excess pop-
ular support Iowa's delegates at Chicago knew full well that
Abolitionism, Know-Nothingism and Prohibitionism were sub-
jects of very high potential, to be let alone so far as practicable
if their party was to win a victory in the State in the ensuing
campaign. Moreover they were like surly dogs not les$3
dangerous because asleep or drowsy-eyed.

Before 1860 Know-Nothingism was an exploded fallacy and
its methods or tactics but little approved or followed. The
American party was also a moribund body made up chiefly
of " dry hearts and dead weights" as the late Carl Schurz
hit them off. Nevertheless, in January, 1860, native anti-
foreign prejudices were still so pronounced in Iowa or the
memories of the old controversies and old suspicions so much
in mind that the Republican Convention of Scott county in
selecting their delegates to the State Convention in Des Moines
that was to pick the delegates to Chicago paid careful atten-
tion to racial animosities and considerations. In the de-
scription of the county delegation five were reported as Ger-
mans, including Lieutenant-Governor Rusch; five were listed
as Americans of which Mr. John W. Thompson was one ; and
three were given as Irish.1 In the Convention at Des Moines
we shall find that marked consideration was given to those
important factional potentialities. It was well, too. In Feb-

i Davenport Gazette, quoted in the Daily Journal of Muscatine, Janu-
ary 6, 1860.

—79—

ruary the remnants of the party sent Mr. William L. Toole,
of Mt. Pleasant, an influential pioneer citizen of Iowa as a
delegate to Washington where the Americans formulated the
manifesto that constituted the ground work whereon was
built the Constitutional Union party which nominated Bell
and Everett in May following,1 — a ticket that perplexed the
party leaders in Iowa in the ensuing campaign. Later in
March, it was in Scott county that originated the movement
that had some part, and there is reason to suspect a major
part, in thwarting the well laid plans of Horace Greeley of
The Tribune and the Blairs of Maryland and Missouri.

The political conditions in Iowa on the eve of the great con-
test of 1860 have been described with what may seem undue
detail with a view to demonstrating four facts :

First, The political conditions in Iowa in 1860 were like
those obtaining in what were called the "battle ground
States, ' ' viz. : New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois.

Second, Neither Horace Greeley's assertion (February 8,
1860) that like Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota, Iowa was
"Republican anyhow," nor Senator Harlan's declaration at
Washington (February 12th) that Iowa was "strong enough
to carry any good man," was warranted; but on the contrary
the statement of The New York Herald (March 7th) that
"The States which the Republicans consider doubtful in the
ensuing campaign are Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana
and New Jersey. The delegates, then, from these States hold
a balance of power . . . " — was more nearly the correct
forecast.

Third, In view of the narrow majority by which the Re-
publicans of Iowa held control of the State and the pro-
nounced inability of the party by reason of the bitter ani-
mosities of abolitionists and negro-phobists, the sharp antag-
onisms of foreigners and natives, the antipathies of Catholics
and Protestants, and the contentiousness of the advocates and
opponents of radical temperance legislation, the nomination of
a candidate for President whose character or career would
irritate or inflame those prejudices — prejudices in some cases

l See N. Y. Herald, February 21, 1860.

FROM FIKE & FWE
New and Old Baaki

307 4th St.
DES MOt«t£8, IA.

—80-

so deep set that as Kirkwood put it in February, 1860, "fire
would not burn" them out — such a nomination would have
been unwise in the extreme.

Fourth, If the foregoing conclusions are well-founded then
Grimes ' advice to Wm. Penn Clarke in 1856, viz. : ' ' We can-
not elect Mr. Seward or any other old politician against whom
there are old chronic prejudices which you know are hard to
be conquered. To build up and consolidate a new party we
must have men who have not been before the people as poli-
ticians"— was equally sound on May 18, 1860.

<6

lb

l(\ cfi