The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1865-08-31

The leaders of the Copperhead party, who
are now assuming to be the special friends of
the Union soldiers, and who court All alliance
with them, have the brazen impudence to as
sert that the Union men of Iowa have misrep-
resented and sandered them We propose,
therefore occasionally to yentilate the record
Of the leaders of the Democracy of Iowa
during the war, and to show loyal men what
has been the position of the politicians of
Iowa opposed to Mr.. LlscoLN's Administra-
ton during the war. The twin conventions,
which were held at Des Moines on the 23d
and 2ith, were manipulated by the same men
and entered into an unholy alliance against
the Union party of Iowa
One OF the most prominent men officiating
at Des MONIES was GEORGE ". JoNEs, of
Fort Lafayette notoriety, who, while in the
civil service Of the Government as Minister
at Bogota, wrote letter to his friend, JEFF
DAVIS. President of the Southern Confede
racs. pledging the active aid of himself and
friends in the war against the North and the
Government, of which President LINCOLN
was the head. GEORGE W. JoNEs, who
wrote the following letter, was at the head of
the Dubuque delegation and member of the
committee on resolutions in the white-h -hvered
convention at Des Moines, which was con
cocted and the nominations made by such
fellows as EDWARDS and JAEGER, at the in
stance of the Copperhead leaders of Iowa.
and to which they pledged the support of the
Copperhead party. This letter expresses the
spirit of these leaders during the war, and
the spirit which will control the twin organism
begot,en and delivered at Des Moines
LEGATION UNITED STATES, BoGoTA n G., !
May Il, 1861.
M noble and rety dear Friend In conse-
quence of the continuance Of the horrible
civil war which still continues to be waged in
this distracted and divided Republic, and the
interruption of all mail communication from
the United States and elsewhere, | did not
receive your kind and highly priced letter of
the Goth of January last until the 18th ult,
and then at Honda, to which place repaired
myself expressly for the purpose OF receiving
my dispatches. letters, newspapers, &c., which
had heard were there. 1t took me three
days travelling over almost impossible noun
tains to get to Honda. but | was we'll repaid
for my trouble, as | received some twenty
eight letters from my wife and children, be-
sides some seventy others from my Govern
IaeGt and old friends. with some two hundred
newspapers all Of which have afforded me
both pleasure and heartfelt pain to read.
/ did not come across the yaledietory
speeches of Yourself dear Clay, Mallory and
1ulee, until yesterday. | devoured them all
with greedy appetite. but not without the
shedding of tears, dear friend, when ] read
the farewell of Yourself especially as so pa
theucaly expressed in your last speech in the
Senate, as well as in that Of the 10th 81 Janu
2rY, shen yQa 50 beautifully depicted to your
Fellow Senators and the world the situation of
the country and the dangers which are threat
ening it,
You may well say. as YOU do in your letter
to me, that you 'know you ~ will sympa-
thise with us (you
How can feel otherwise, dear old friend,
college mate and colleague, than sympathise
for you and the people whom you represent
on such occasion. Born in what they taunt-
iugly call free State, Indiana. brought up
IL Missouri, and educated there and in Ken
tucky, and having resided for the last thirty
four years in Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa,
| cannot but be well acquainted with the
principles, feelings and actions Of the parties
to the contest which is now going on in my
beloved country.
When | went to WISCONSIN, and Slssinawa
Mound, then Michigan, | took with me my
servants whom, at their requests, pur-
chased. they having been born in illinois. and
made slaves under the ordinance OF 1851.
Abolitionists, who hike Doty, Bronson, Bur
net ct al. came to my house to share my
hospitality, told my slaves that they were
free, and actually induced the ignorant, hut
happy Paul, to believe he was free, and to
briYc sait for himself and his sister Charlotte
both of whom you may recollect, as they
waited on you when YOU visited us. ! had q
vexatous rnd lGna law suit with Paul, but
triumphcd over him and his abolition advi
sers. | served in Congress as delegate from
Michigan and Wisconsin, two years each, and
was then beaten for the third term by Doty,
because served as second in the Cilley and
Graves duel and was q slave owner.
la 1871 | was removed from the office of
Surveyor General of Wisconsin and Iowa, by
Gen. Harrison's Administration, through
Doty s influence as the then delegate, simply
because was q Democrat and sympathized
with the South-no single objection having
been made against me of any other character.
Mr.. Polk, God bless him, restored me in
1875, and put out the long legged Black Re-
publican, Jim Wilson, of New Hampshire
who had superseded me.
was transferred from the Surveyor Gene
rails Office in December, 184s, to the United
States Senate, and driven therefrom by the
Abolitionists, in March, 1859, no other obiec
ton having ever been made to me save that
was follower of the South and doughface
for such men as yourself, Clay and other
Southerncrs. If, therefore, had no other
reason for sympathizing with the South, the
bad treatment which have received at the
hands of Northern Abolitionists would have
made me do so. But upon the Constitutional
question, and even upon that of expediency,
never had a single doubt-but if | had, my
residence in this country and my knowledge
of the effects of freeing the negroes in the
West Indies and in this Republic, would GER
tainly have made convert of me as it has of
every Englishman, Frenchman, German and
other foreigners whom have ever met with
in this country, aud who have seea the bad
effects of Abotitionism.
had hoped that Mr.. Lincoln would have
proclaimed soon after his election his total
dissent from the mad schemes of his Aboli-
ton supporters, % g to avert the disruptina