Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse / Prepared for use of Members of the Family

by Charles Clinton Nourse

Pending the presidential election the people of Iowa were fully advised as to the threats that were made that in case of Mr. Lincoln's election the southern states would secede from the Union. They were also fully aware of the fact that the then national administration was doing all it could to encourage the southern politicians who were uttering these threats. The position of Mr. Buchanan's administration was that the constitution of the United States conferred on the National Government no power to coerce a state, or, in plain terms, to preserve the nation and prevent its disintegration. The fact that civil war might be inaugurated and was threatened in case Mr. Lincoln was elected was well understood and duly considered. The people of Iowa indulged in no feelings of hatred toward the people of any state or section of the Union. There was, however, on the part of the majority a cool determination to consider and decide upon our national relations to the institution of slavery, uninfluenced by any threat of violence or civil war.

After the election of Mr. Lincoln and the call for troops to aid in putting down the rebellion, I visited Washington City for the first time in my life. The rebel troops occupied the entire country between Richmond and Manassas and menaced the national capital. On the Saturday before the battle of Bull Run, so-called, I went in company with some friends in a carriage as far as Fairfax Court House. I saw there a number of Union soldiers that had been wounded the day before in the artillery engagement with the rebel general, Beauregard. I returned to Washington Saturday night and arranged with General Curtis, then our member of congress from Iowa, to go out in the morning by rail to the place of the anticipated battle. I remained at Alexandria until after noon on Sunday with the hope of getting transportation on the railway. We could hear the booming of the cannon during the afternoon. I remained in Alexandria till about two o'clock. On finding the expected transportation on the railway delayed and doubtful, I returned to Washington. About midnight we received news of the disastrous results of the engagement that day. The next morning, Monday, I started home on an early train, as my professional engagements that week required my presence in Des Moines. During the great struggle that followed for the preservation of our nation I spent much of my time and all of my income in traveling over the state and attending public meetings, and made frequent addresses in behalf of the Union cause. I did not enter the volunteer service as a soldier or officer of the Union army for the reason that I was satisfied I could do more good to the cause in the position I then occupied as Attorney General of the state. I did at one time apply to Governor Kirkwood for a military appointment as a major in the Third Iowa Cavalry. He very bluntly told me that he did not think he could spare me from the place that I then filled, and he did not think it good policy to spoil a good lawyer for the sake of making a poor soldier. I had no military education and no knowledge of military affairs, and my health was such that I could not have been of any use to the service except in a position where I could take better care of myself than was possible as a soldier in the ranks.

CHAPTER IV

Resumes the Practice of Law

At the close of my second term of office, to-wit, January, 1865, I resumed the practice of law. The firm of Williamson & Nourse, which had existed since my settlement in Des Moines in 1858, had taken into partnership Jacob M. St. John, formerly of Keosauqua, Iowa. As I now had to depend entirely upon my practice for my income I dissolved partnership with Messrs. Williamson and St. John and commenced to practice alone.

In the fall of 1865 Judge Gray, the judge of our district court, died, and Governor William M. Stone, without any solicitation upon my part, at the request of a number of the members of the bar of Polk county, October 16, 1865, appointed me to fill the unexpired term of Judge Gray, deceased. The salary of this position at that time was only $1300 a year, and I accepted of it after considerable hesitation. At the first term of court I held in the city of Des Moines it became my duty to try a number of cases for a violation of the laws of the state prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, except beer or wine made from grapes or other fruit grown in this state. This wine and beer clause of the law had been adopted by the legislature by way of an amendment to what was called the Maine law that had been enacted by the legislature at its session in 1854-5. A number of saloons had been established in Des Moines and licensed to sell native wine and beer, but in fact they all sold whiskey and other spirituous liquors. The grand jury had indicted some seventeen of these saloons as public nuisances under the law. The courts in Iowa prior to this time had adopted the policy of imposing slight fines upon these saloons about once a year, thereby establishing the very worst and the most reprehensible kind of a license. The sheriff and other officers of the county, elected by the people from time to time, were largely under the influence of these saloons and their patrons. When I called the first of these cases for trial it became necessary to fill up the jury panel from the bystanders, and when the sheriff called the name of a person that he directed to take a place upon the jury, I accidentally noticed that the next case for trial was a case against a defendant of the same name of the person called into the jury-box. I privately called the sheriff to my side and asked him if the person that he had placed upon the jury was the same person as the defendant in the next case, accused of a like offense of the one we were to try. After some hesitation he said he thought he was the same person. I told him that was not a proper discharge of his duties, that he must fill up the panel of the jury with good, law-abiding citizens, and not from those who stood charged with crime on the records of the court. He suggested that I should excuse the juror. I told him no, the mistake was his and not mine, and that he must correct his own mistakes, that he should go to the juror himself and tell him and have him stand aside, and that he must be very careful whilst I presided in that court not to make any more such mistakes. The result was that he filled up the panel with good law-abiding citizens, and that defendant and sixteen others were tried and convicted within the next ten days. I did not pass sentence upon any of the defendants until all the trials were completed. In the meantime I was visited by a number of temperance men who felt anxious to know what character of sentence I was going to give to these persons. I told them it was not proper for me to receive any suggestions out of court, and if they had any to make it must be made in open court in the presence of the defendants themselves or their counsel. I did, however, give the matter very grave and serious consideration. This law in its spirit and in its letter was intended to prohibit the sale or establishing or keeping a place for the sale of intoxicating liquors, other than the wine and beer excepted by the provisions of the law. The slight fines that had theretofore been imposed for this offense had simply been tolerated, and amounted in practice to a system of licensing these violations of the law. I felt it my duty to do something that should prohibit what the law prohibited. After the trials were all over I had the defendants all brought into court and gave them my views concerning the law and concerning the duty of every good citizen to obey and observe the law strictly and in good faith; that this law existed upon the statute books by the same authority as the law that protected them in their persons and in their property, and that the disregard of it was simply to set at defiance the authority from which all our laws eminated. The man who kept the poorest and meanest of these saloons I fined only the sum of one hundred dollars, stating as a reason therefor that the witnesses upon the trial had said they were ashamed to be seen in his saloon and hurried away as soon as possible; that probably the class of men of whom he was making drunkards were not our most valuable citizens. I graded the fines against the others of the sixteen according to the class of persons I thought they were injuring, and the highest fine I imposed was five hundred dollars, against the man who had taken the trouble to prove in the trial that he kept a most respectable resort and that none but the very best citizens of the city were in the habit of drinking at his bar. This action upon my part not only created an excitement locally, but the news of it spread rapidly throughout the state and a number of our district judges followed my example.

Charles Clinton Nourse
From an air brush copy of an old photograph loaned by
D. W. Nourse, Kenton, Ohio

When I assumed the duties of judge of the district I found the dockets much crowded with cases that had been delayed, chiefly because of the unnecessary consumption of time by attorneys in the trial of their causes. For instance, one case in Polk county that involved only the question of the identity of a calf worth three or four dollars had occupied two weeks of the time of the court in its former trial. When I called the case for trial a number of attorneys suggested to me that the case would probably consume the balance of the term, and they might as well dismiss their witnesses and continue their causes. I told them that they were probably mistaken as to the time that would be occupied in the trial of that case. The first witness in behalf of the plaintiff was a timid young girl about fourteen years of age, a daughter of the plaintiff. She told in a simple straightforward way what she knew about the marks on the calf that her father had claimed, and her belief that it was her father's calf. The attorney for the defendant unfortunately was somewhat under the influence of liquor, and putting both heels up on the trial table, he leaned back and in a very rude, aggressive manner addressed the young girl, saying, "I suppose you put in about all of your time examining the calves on your father's farm, don't you?" I immediately reproved the attorney and asked him if he had any questions to ask the witness in regard to the marks upon the calf or its identity. He replied in a haughty manner that he supposed he could examine the witness in his own way and ask his own questions. I immediately told the witness to stand aside and asked the plaintiff to call the next witness. The attorney then said he had not cross-examined the witness and wished to do so. I merely remarked that I had given him an opportunity to do so and he had not improved it, and he could save his strength for the next witness. The result of this kind of discipline was that the case was tried within two days instead of two weeks, and the great calf case was disposed of. I only give this as a specimen of the reforms that I tried to introduce into our courts.