Iowa
Old Press
Muscatine Journal
Muscatine, Muscatine co. Iowa
April 19, 1906
Heard Kirkwood - E.F. Brockway of Letts Writes of a
Famous Debate in Muscatine
E.F. Brockway, a prominent and well known resident of Letts,
writes an interesting article of his impressions of Governor
Kirkwood, the war governor of Iowa. He tells of the debate held
here in Muscatine. He says:
My first recollection of our war governor was when he made that
memorable campaign with Hon. A.C. Dodge for governor. I was then
living in Muscatine county in Orono township, that was a good
many years ago. How like the wind time goes by.
It was a hot day and it was a long debate but no one thought of
leaving until it was over. It was at the court house, I think
Dodge spoke first and the impression it made on me was so deep
that I still remember a good part of each speech. Dodge was
rather a fleshy man, dressed very neatly in a tailor-made suit.
Owing to the years or indoor life and his light complexion he was
almost as fair as a woman, with a pink flush in his cheeks. He
was rather a handsome man of, I should say, sixty years of age.
He was the real cast of a gentleman of the "old school"
and his scholarly address and ease of manner soon won the hearts
of his hearers and we wondered if it were possible for the plain,
bronzed, farmerlike man sitting beside him to reply to this great
courtly address.
Slavery the Topic.
Slavery was the topic of the time; there were all shades of
opinion in that great audiencee. There was the ardent
abolitionist, there were plenty present who "did not care if
slavery was voted up or down," There were others that
believed it was right and should not be meddled with. I confess
that I was an ardent young abolitionist. In a part of his address
Gen. Dodge took occasion to defend slavery as a divine
institution, sanctioned by Scripture, and liberally quoted the
Good Book with which some of us were not as familiar as we should
have been, until our faith in abolitionism was almost shaken. He
said the negro was in far better condition than in his native
country, Africa; there he was a real heathen of the lowest type,
a savage, an idolater, and when brought here into the light of
civilization and a Christian land he heard the teachings of the
gospel and a great portion of them became real devout Christians.
And the institution of slavery was truly a benign and parental
institution and was to be commended. And together, the
development of the southland depended entirely upon the
institution of slavery. About that time I said to myself,
"Frank, maybe you did not do quite the right thing the other
morning when you got up to build the fire and those five colored
men came to the door, bare-footed and bare headed, asking for
something to eat and the road to West Liberty, and you gave them
the biggest loaf in your step-mother's pantry and a lot of other
things and pointed north."
He Felt Better.
But I felt better after hearing Kirkwood talk. It was a battle
royal, a battle of giants. That plain, farmer-like,
rugged-visaged man sat there for two hours with tense gaze upon
the speaker and did not use pencil or notebook. Dodge closed with
this plea. He had been one of the earliest settlers and had
endured all the hardships of a new country and he loved Iowa as
the dearest spot on earth; he had served his country long and
faithfully, in congress and senate and then had been sent as
counsul to France and had spent many years there, really an exile
from home and native land, among strangers, longing to return to
his beloved Iowa. And now that he had grown old in their service
if they were kind enough to elect him as governor to round up his
political career he would be very grateful.
Then came Kirkwood's time. We soon learned the mettle he was made
of. He was calm but fearfully in earnest. Gleams of that great
intellect soon began to form sentences in clear cut argument and
expressions would come and go on that rugged countenance like
electricity over the face of the summer cloud. He soon laid off
coat and vest and cuffs. We prairie breakers could readily
believe that he knew how to handle the breaking plow and whip
equal to the best of us, but could see quickly that he was the
scholar and orator with a brain that was a mighty power back of
it. His reply to Dodge's slavery argument was this: "The
general says slavery is a benign institution. I admit that in
some respects it is. But to [illegible] kidnapped and torn from a
home - loved as well perhaps as the speaker describes his love
for home, to be torn from wife and children, home and country and
all he lives, to be plunged into slavery under cruel masters
without a shadow of liberty, what is there of American principle
about that? Then to his pleas as a humanizing and christianizing
institution I can imagine them in the rice and cane fields of
Louisiana and Mississippi working out their own salvation in fear
and trembling." I can only give his words from memory and
they were spoken before the war.
I remember that we sat and listened and cheered and mopped our
faces that hot day until the sun was low in the west. At times
Gen. Dodge's face would almost become purple at Kirkwood's
sarcasm and jests.
"Then in reply to his plea of sympathy for his long public
service and his being an exile from home and country, I wish you
to look at the other side. In his young manhood, in early
territorial days he was appointed to duties in this territory
with a good position and good pay, then he went to congress and
senate, then went to consul to that beautiful city, Marseilles,
France. Who would not be an exiled gentleman at $8,000 a year and
all expenses paid? I think there is not a gentleman present that
would object to being an exile on those terms or serving your
country even thirty-two years if you could draw $140,000 from the
U.S. treaury. You would agree to begin with tomorrow and not to
ask for the governorship to round up your political career."
That was a historic campaign and I doubt if there has ever been a
joint debate so long remembered and of so much interest in
Muscatine, either before or since. No doubt there are many old
settlers in Muscatine that remember as I do -- some incidents of
that debate I have forgotten. To me all those years, a batle of
oratory, I can never forget.
E.F. Brockway.
[contributed by J.B., November 2007]