the Supreme Court, should remind the freemen of Iowa that their political rights are in danger.

The liberties of the people can only be preserved by maintaining the integrity of the State governments against the corrupting influences of Federal patronage and power.

Closing with this communication my official connection with the government, I may be permitted to avail myself of the occasion to return to my fellow-citizens my heartfelt thanks for the honor and confidence they have bestowed on me, and to assure them of my continued aspirations for the advancement of our beloved State in virtue, prosperity, and happiness.

45.-To Mrs. Grimes.

DES MOINES, January 23, 1858.

I am pleased to know that my message is satisfactory to my friends, and, saving that portion relating to national affairs, to my political opponents also. It will please you, I know, to be assured that I retire from my late office with the almost universal (and, so far as I know, the universal) opinion of all parties that I made a good officer, and that I discharged the duties of Governor to the acceptance of all parties.

The senatorship will be settled in a few days. It is admitted on all hands, by both friends and enemies, that I am the choice of the people. No one denies that nine-tenths of the Republican voters in the State desire my election. But, it is arrogantly claimed, that the people do not and ought not to control the election of Senators, and that they may be made to acquiesce in whatever the politicians may do in the matter. This is not my theory of "popular sovereignty."

January 25th.-I have just been nominated by the Republican caucus for United States Senator, for six years from March 4, 1859. I received the nomination on the first ballot, by five majority. My vote would have been much larger, and nearly unanimous, on the second ballot-as many voted for persons in their own counties on the first ballot, by way of compliment, who would have voted for me on the second ballot, and for me on the first had their votes been necessary.

January 30th.-Last evening I gave a supper to the members of the General Assembly, State officers, some citizens of the town,

and some from abroad. There were one hundred and seventy-eight guests. All the rival candidates were present. The best feeling prevailed. The only drawback was the laudations of me by the speakers. They were Governor Lowe, Lieutenant-Governor Faville, Hon. Lincoln Clark, Finch, Grinnell, and others. I inclose a bill of fare. It was got up, as you see, on temperance principles. Every one says that he never attended a more harmonious, wellconducted, or sumptuous feast.

I shall leave for home in three or four days, but no one can predict how long I shall be on the road. The traveling is horrible, and I fear that it may take me a week to get home.

Mr. Grimes made a brief address at this festival, and, expressing his appreciation of the honor that the General Assembly had conferred upon him, avowed his determination to be the Senator of no clique, or party, but of the whole State. His election was everywhere hailed as a fitting tribute to one whom the people delighted to honor, for his brave and earnest devotion to the Republican cause, and for his ability and fidelity in the office of Governor.

He had been the faithful leader in the political regeneration of the State. At the time of his nomination for Governor, an Iowa Senator said in Congress:

Iowa is the only free State which never for a moment gave way to the Wilmot Proviso. My colleague voted for every one of the compromise measures, including the fugitive-slave law, the late Senator Sturgeon, of Pennsylvania, and ourselves, being the only three Senators from the entire non-slaveholding section of this Union who voted for it.

Now Iowa was redeemed and disenthralled. The change was largely due to the earnestness, and ardor, and force, with which Mr. Grimes had advocated throughout the State his cherished convictions upon the questions at issue.

He maintained the dignity and promoted the welfare of the Commonwealth. He introduced enlightened and liberal measures to develop the resources of the State, to promote public instruction, and guard the sacredness of humanity in prison discipline, and in a considerate treatment of the insane and

other unfortunate persons. He consulted in these matters the most advanced and cultivated minds in the land, and secured their suggestions and services in the geological survey, and in the educational and humane establishments of the State. Much is due to his sagacity for the vast system of railways in Iowa, and, had his counsels been heeded, many cities and counties would have been preserved from a heavy indebtedness. Not a few of his recommendations were embodied in the laws. impress of his mind and character will thus be perpetuated. His wisdom, fidelity, and devotion to public duty in the executive chair, will be for a memorial to his successors in office. One of them has said:

The

If, in the high duties to which we are called, we would measure ourselves up to a worthy pattern, no better standard can be found than was illustrated in the public life of James W. Grimes.'

Rev. Asa Turner, pastor at Denmark, 1838-'68, gives the following reminiscences:

I think that Mr. Grimes has done more for Iowa, politically, than any man that ever lived in it. From its first organization as a Territory, the Democracy reigned supreme up to 1854. Our Representatives in Congress were the allies of the slave-power, and carried out its wishes. The Whigs pretended to be antislavery, but were not willing to do anything that would compromise them with their Southern allies. We had a Free-Soil organization, embracing a few voters, and had nominated Simeon Waters as our candidate for Governor, not with any hope of electing him, but to show our strength. In this state of things, Mr. Grimes came over to Denmark and said that if the Free-Soilers would vote for him he would be a candidate for Governor, and assured us that he would be true to the principles we wished should triumph. I believed he would, and that he could make our principles triumph. The FreeSoilers, after free and full discussion, voted to intrust in his hands the interests of our organization, and the principles we had been laboring to establish. We should not have been willing to commit such interests to any ordinary man, to any one of whose integrity or ability we had a doubt. But it was done-with fear and trem

1 Hon. Cyrus C. Carpenter, in his second inaugural, January, 1874.

7

bling by some, by others with the confidence of faith. He took the stump. I doubt whether any man ever worked harder. He gave his whole soul to the work. Wherever he went he secured favor with the people, and he was elected.

From that day, Iowa has stood in the front rank of liberty-loving and progressive States. And for all we have become, civilly— for all we have done, as a State, to make the United States a blessing at home, and an honor abroad-I look to Mr. Grimes as one of the first and principal instruments. Nothing less than his heart and soul, his resolute will and far-seeing mind, with his powerful influence, could have turned the tide and brought Iowa by the side of Massachusetts and Vermont. There was not a moment to lose. It was only seven years before the rebellion; Iowa must be regenerated, and allied to the right, in order to save the Union. With Iowa neutral, or on the side of the enemy, who can tell what the result would have been? But God purposed otherwise, and raised up Mr. Grimes to marshal her among the loyal States. The influence on the State, and on the country and world, no finíte mind can measure. Much as he did as Governor, especially in heading off the Missouri raiders on Kansas, and much as he did in Congress, this early work was preparatory for all that followed. It used to be said that Isaac Hill made New Hampshire Democratic, and allied it with Jackson and Van Buren. It is not a figure of speech that Governor Grimes made Iowa Republican, and allied it with the loyal States.

46.-To Hon. S. P. Chase.

BURLINGTON, February 20, 1858.

I desire to thank you for your kind note of the 4th inst. The great comfort that my election gives me is enhanced by the apparent satisfaction the result gives to my many friends beyond the State. I have always regarded myself and the cause greatly indebted to you for your influence in my gubernatorial campaign, now four years ago. I was nominated then wholly without my knowledge, and against my desire. I was persuaded to run, not with any very sanguine hope of being elected, but with the view to educate the people, as far as might be possible from the stump, on the slavery question. Had we not succeeded in securing the old Free-Soil vote, which was done mainly through your influence (although I might have been elected, would have been), the Gen

eral Assembly would have been against us, Mr. Dodge returned to the Senate, the State would have probably remained Democratic, and the succession of anti-Nebraska triumphs that followed our election in the autumn of 1854 would probably have never occurred.

I am conscious of my unfitness for the position I am to occupy. I shall feel constrained to follow in a good degree the counsel of those who have shown themselves to be older and better soldiers than I am. I need not say to you that there is no one by whose advice I shall be more cheerfully guided, than by that of the present Governor of Ohio, in everything that relates to our cause and party.