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

by Charles Clinton Nourse

In the most of the counties of our district, which embraced seven at that time, we had no court houses. My first court in Warren county had to be held in the old Methodist church. It had been the custom to fill the aisles and the space about the altar with saw-dust, with one table as the trial table for the attorneys, and four or five rickety chairs. This saw-dust when it became heated, as it did in the winter time from the large stoves used in heating the room, filled the air with very fine particles of dust that often settled upon the lungs of the members of the bar and the court, and was itself injurious to health. After impaneling the grand jury on the first day of the term at Indianola I announced that the court would adjourn until Tuesday and that the sheriff would clean the room of this sawdust and furnish matting for the aisles and the place about the platform, and also furnish an additional table for the use of the attorneys and a dozen good substantial chairs. The sheriff informed me in open court that the board of supervisors had refused to furnish such conveniences, and probably would not allow the bills if he should purchase these articles. I advised him that it was his duty to obey the orders of the court, and to present his bill to the supervisors and if they failed to allow the bill to take his appeal to the district court and I would see that he recovered judgment and got his pay. Sufficient to say that the next morning the matting was laid, the table and chairs were furnished in good order, and I never heard of any difficulty about the allowance of the bills by the board of supervisors. I pursued the same policy in Madison and several other counties of the district, and never heard that I lost favor with anybody because I insisted on having a decent court.

On the 3d of March, 1866, at a subsequent term of the court held in Warren county, Mr. Thomas F. Withrow, an attorney of the Polk county bar and my neighbor, came into court one morning just before noon in company with John A. Kasson, then a representative in congress from this district and a resident of the city of Des Moines. Mr. Withrow filed with the clerk of the court a petition for divorce in behalf of Mr. Kasson's wife, and asking for a divorce on the grounds that Mr. Kasson had been guilty of adultery. To this petition Mr. Kasson filed an answer admitting his guilt, and both parties asked for an immediate hearing of the cause. I dismissed the jury then impaneled and announced that the court would not adjourn but remain open for business, asking the clerk and sheriff to remain, and that the bystanders and others were at liberty to retire. I read over the papers carefully and told Mr. Withrow that I could not grant the petition upon the answer; that if he had any evidence it must be produced in open court as I must be satisfied of the existence of the facts alleged in the petition. Mr. Withrow said he had the letters of the defendant written to his wife from time to time, fully acknowledging his guilt, and he would return to the hotel and get his satchel containing these letters and produce them in open court if I required it. Mr. Kasson then begged of Mr. Withrow not to produce those letters, and turning to me said he would himself be a witness as to the facts and thought that ought to be sufficient. I told him I could not grant a divorce that would have the appearance of being granted merely upon the consent of the parties, that I wished to be satisfied fully that there was no collusion in the matter between himself and wife, and that he was in fact guilty as charged. He assured me that there was no collusion, that the charge was actually true and that the facts actually existed as charged against him. At this he broke down and professed almost to cry, and I told Mr. Withrow to prepare the decree of divorce. It was accordingly prepared, reciting that it was granted upon evidence of the truth of the allegations of the petition, and I accordingly signed the decree.

Upon my return to Des Moines at the close of the session, the legislature then being in session, I was waited upon by one or more members of the general assembly, suggesting that there was a rumor that the divorce of Mr. Kasson's wife had been procured and granted simply by consent of parties, and they proposed to introduce a bill for an act to prevent such divorces in the future. I explained that the rumor was entirely unfounded and that the divorce had been granted upon satisfactory evidence offered in open court. I recite these facts at some detail because of their importance with reference to results, and what occurred that fall, 1866.

Mr. Kasson was a candidate for re-nomination to congress. The opposing candidate was General G. M. Dodge, then a resident of Council Bluffs. I did not take any active part in this contest further than to express my preference for General Dodge, and that I could not consistently, with my views of propriety, support Mr. Kasson under the circumstances. When the conventions were held that fall for nominating delegates to the convention that should nominate congressmen, district judge, and prosecuting attorney, the Polk county convention, being under the control of Kasson's friends, nominated the same set of delegates to attend both the congressional and the district conventions. After very heated contests in the convention for nomination of congressmen, Mr. Kasson was defeated, and I was informed by the delegation that they would not support me for the nomination for district judge because I had refused to help them in the matter of nominating Mr. Kasson. The next day when the convention met for the nomination of judge and district attorney I went before the convention in person and withdrew my name from the convention, stating as a reason therefor that I could not with propriety be a candidate before that convention without the support of the delegates from my own county. The convention nominated Mr. Maxwell, then district attorney, for judge. My office did not expire until the ensuing January, but I at once sent my resignation to the Governor of the state, thus terminating my judicial career on August 1, 1866.

In this contest for congress, Mr. H. M. Hoxie and Mr. Thomas F. Withrow, formerly warm friends and supporters of Mr. Kasson, had abandoned him and were active supporters of General Dodge.

Upon my retirement from the bench, the members of the Polk county bar had a meeting and adopted very complimentary resolutions which they had enrolled and were kind enough to present to me as a testimonial of their approval of the manner in which I had discharged my duties as judge of the court.

The salary of judge of the district court at that time was the meager sum of thirteen hundred dollars a year, out of which I paid my own expenses on the district. During my term of office as Attorney General I had spent a considerable part of my income in attending public meetings and traveling through the state, addressing public assemblies upon the issues growing out of the war. I had not accumulated sufficient means to pay for my homestead and I now determined, as far as practicable, to devote myself to my practice as an attorney and accumulate something for the future.

During the administration of Governor William M. Stone, his private secretary had endorsed a number of warrants issued by the Treasurer of the United States in favor of the state of Iowa, known as "swamp land warrants." Governor Stone had entrusted the detail of the business of his office to his private secretary. These warrants came into the hands of the secretary and he assumed the responsibility of endorsing the Governor's name upon them from time to time, and having them cashed at the Second National Bank. At first he paid this money over to the State Treasurer, but as no inquiry was made as to the transactions and Governor Stone was paying but little attention to the details of business in the office, he cashed a number of these warrants and appropriated the money to his own use and purchased considerable real estate in his own name.

On the first of January following, these transactions became public and the Governor repudiated the authority of the secretary to make the endorsements upon the drafts. He procured from the secretary mortgages upon considerable of the property purchased by him to secure so much of the proceeds of these drafts as remained unaccounted for. The grand jury indicted the secretary for a number of these transactions for forging the Governor's signature. This secretary applied to me through Mr. Withrow, about the time of my resignation as judge, to employ me as counsel to assist in his defense. The secretary had no money or means to pay me for my services and as he already had able and efficient counsel, I declined the employment.

About the same time suits were brought to foreclose these mortgages given by the secretary, and also to hold the bank responsible for the moneys that had not come into the hands of the State Treasurer. Pending these suits of a civil character, by agreement of the parties and their counsel, the case was referred to me as referee. During the summer I occupied several weeks in taking the testimony carefully before a stenographer and reported the same with my conclusions of fact and law to the district court, which report was confirmed by the district court and upon appeal to the supreme court by the secretary, that court also affirmed my decision, and under these judgments the property was sold and the state partly remunerated for the loss.