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

Removed to Des Moines

The practice of law in Van Buren county did not prove very remunerative. The district court met only twice a year. The business of the term sometimes occupied only two or three days, seldom beyond one week, and never beyond two weeks.

During the time I had continued to reside in Van Buren county one of the most important cases in which I was retained was a contest over the legality of a will in which the deceased had made a bequest of a small tract of land to the Methodist Episcopal church, organized out on what was called "Utica Prairie." The will provided that the land should be sold by the trustees of the church and a fund created out of which should be paid so much a year to the missionary cause and so much to the support of the minister. The remainder should be expended by the trustees in erecting a house of worship. The trustees of the church had not been incorporated, and the heirs sought to set aside the will on the ground that there was no legal capacity in the trustees to receive the bequest, and on the further ground of the uncertainty of the beneficiaries under the will. I was retained in the case in behalf of the trustees, and had them immediately adopt articles of incorporation and file the same as provided by the statutes of the state. I filed an answer in the case, setting forth with particularity the character of the Methodist Episcopal church's organization, with proper averments as to the certainty of the continued existence of the beneficiaries under the will. The case was tried upon demurrer to this answer, and upon appeal to the supreme court of Iowa the will was sustained. The opinion of the court is fully reported in the case of Johnson et al. vs. Mayne et al., Trustees, 4th Iowa, 180.