During the winter of 1857, whilst I was secretary of the state senate, I enjoyed the pleasure of hearing Wendell Phillips deliver his lecture upon the "Lost Arts." At the close of his lecture Hon. J. B. Grinnell, then a member of the state senate from Poweshiek county, rose in the audience and requested Mr. Phillips to give us his views upon the subject of slavery, and especially called his attention to the fact that Mr. Phillips had been represented by the public press as favoring a dissolution of the American Union. Mr. Phillips courteously complied with the request, and proceeded to say that when the constitution of the United States was formed it contained within its provisions, as he believed, the germ of human liberty. That the declaration of American independence had declared that all men were entitled to the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He said that he was in favor of the development of this germ to its fullest extent; that the constitution of the United States might be compared to a box in which was planted an acorn; the acorn would grow in the very nature of things and become an oak, but whether or not the box in which the acorn was planted was sufficient to contain the development and growing germ, he could not say. He was not concerned in regard to the safety of the box, but he was anxious that the germ should develop and that the tree should grow. That whether or not the constitution of the United States could survive the development and growth of this germ of human liberty that had been planted therein, he could not say, and upon that question he did not feel any very great anxiety; all he had to say in regard to the matter was that he was in favor of the growth of the germ, and he believed that the acorn would grow and ought to grow.
Wendell Phillips was one of the most eloquent and graceful public speakers it was ever my privilege to listen to. I had expected from his reputation as a reformer and abolitionist to hear a man with loud voice and vehement gesticulation, but instead he proved to be mild, quiet, self-possessed, delivering his utterances in the clearest, mildest, and most persuasive tones, commanding the respect of his audience and almost fascinating them with his words.
During the same session I also had the pleasure of hearing at Davenport, Iowa, a lecture from Horace Greeley, the great editor of the New York Tribune. I was greatly disappointed in Mr. Greeley's lecture. As a writer I knew him to be the clearest and most incisive in his utterances. His manner on the platform and his speech were those of a drony, sing-song, intonating Episcopal minister, devoid of life and spirit.
The general assembly of 1854-5 elected George G. Wright, then of Van Buren county, Norman W. Isbell, and Wm. G. Woodard, judges of the supreme court of the state to fill the vacancies caused by the expirations of the terms of Judges Williams, Kinney and Greene. At this session also occurred the first election of James Harlan as United States Senator. Mr. Harlan was not permitted to take his seat under this election, for the reason that at the adjourned joint session at which he was elected the senate as an organized body with their president, Maturin L. Fisher, had not participated in the election, but had previously adjourned the session of the state senate. Mr. Harlan was again elected in the session of 1856-7, and his right was recognized by the senate.
In the summer of the year 1856 a republican convention was called for the state to be held at Iowa City, for the organization of that party, in sympathy with other state organizations of like name and principles. As the sole surviving official of the old whig party of Van Buren county, I called a county convention to meet at Keosauqua for the purpose of appointing delegates to the state convention to be held at Iowa City. I wrote a letter to my friend, H. C. Caldwell, asking him to write a letter to Judge Wright and urge upon him the propriety, as he could not be present at this county convention, of writing a letter endorsing and encouraging the movement. Judge Wright declined to write any such letter, and simply wrote to Mr. Caldwell that he hoped we were doing right in calling the county convention.
I was present at the county convention and started the movement with such enthusiasm as we were able to awaken. Delegates were duly appointed, but the attendance at Iowa City required of them an overland trip of some seventy-five miles.
I then owned what was called a "democrat wagon," having two seats, and a small gray mare and mustang pony. With this team and wagon, when the time came, I furnished the transportation for the delegation, and Van Buren county was represented in the state convention by Abner H. McCrary, our state senator from Van Buren county, Dr. William Craig, George C. Duffield, and myself. I had the honor also to be appointed one of the secretaries of this state convention. This was the first republican state convention held in the state, and was the beginning of the political organization that has ever since, with the exception of a period of four years, controlled the legislation and policy of the state of Iowa.
The first national republican convention met at Philadelphia in the fall of 1856 and nominated General John C. Fremont as its candidate for President. I took an active part in the campaign in Iowa that ensued. At the request of the central committee of the state I spent several weeks in canvassing Davis county. Many of the settlers in the southern tier of townships, both in Van Buren and Davis counties, instead of finding themselves in a slave state, in the state of Missouri, were really citizens of the free state of Iowa. It was much easier to ascertain the true southern boundary of our state than it was to remove the prejudices of the benighted citizens who had by mistake settled in Iowa, so when I went into Davis county in 1856 to make republican speeches opposed to the existence and extension of slavery in our free territory, I met with small encouragement. We were courteously called "black republicans," and frequently designated as "damn black republicans." At one point where I had an appointment to make a political speech I found an audience assembled that had armed themselves with rotten eggs, with the intention of driving me out of their locality. It so happened that the year before most of these men had been indicted for libel in accusing their school-master of burning down a school house in the township, notifying him publicly to leave the county or suffer mob violence. A civil suit was also instituted against them for damages. I had been employed by them and succeeded in getting them off with the reasonable sum of eight hundred dollars, for which they were truly grateful, and when they found that I was to be the "black republican" orator advertised for the occasion, they generously assured me that if it had been anybody else they would not have permitted him to speak, but as I had stood by them in their trouble I might go on and say just what I pleased. They were a warm-hearted, hot-headed, impulsive set of men. Just how many converts I made during the two weeks that I was engaged in speaking in Davis county I cannot say. We had no republican organization in the county, and the leading men who took any active part in politics in opposition to the democratic party were running Bell and Everett as their candidates. Davis county, at the ensuing election, gave Fremont electors only two hundred and fifty votes, and the vote in the state of Iowa stood as follows: Fremont, 43,954; Buchanan, 36,170; Fillmore, 9,180.
CHAPTER III