Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/128

 of the Government by vicious attacks upon the constitutionality of its most important financial legislation. They also denounced the war as an “Abolition Crusade” and missed no occasion to endeavor to create sympathy for the leaders of the Southern Confederacy. These people, were called “Copperheads,” and were for the most part of that class in the North who were not opposed to slavery. Henry Clay Dean was the most prominent leader of this faction in Iowa, and a few extracts from his speeches and writing will give the reader a clear understanding of the views and teaching of the “Copperheads” during the War of the Rebellion.

“The war between the States of the Union was not a riot. It was deliberate, systematic and orderly, upon the part of the Southern States. It was not an insurrection or rebellion; everything was done in subordination to the law and sovereign power of the States in which it transpired, with no more violence than is common to warfare. It was not a revolution. It changed none of the organic laws of the States; the people armed themselves according to law to repel a threatened invasion of their country, overthrow of their Government and violation of their political, legal and social rights.

“The pretext for war was the preservation of the Union—an organized Union fighting against organized States.

“It was a war of States, with all of its attendant evils, in which the Government was guilty of usurpation. Lincoln tore up the constitution and set up his arbitrary will instead. Lincoln selected the weakest, worst and most corrupt men in the country, who served him cheerfully as instruments of usurpation. Lincoln dissolved the Government and left the country in anarchy. Lincoln corrupted one part of the church to engage in warfare with the other part, and burned 1,200 houses of worship; he mutilated graveyards, and left whole cities and churches in ashes; dragged ministers from their knees in the very act of worship; tied them up by their thumbs; had their daughters stripped naked by negro soldiers under command of white officers.”

Again, in speaking of the bonds issued by the Government to meet the expenses of the war, Dean says:

“This debt was incurred to carry on a war conceived in the foulest passions of depraved human nature, carried on for the mercenary purposes