Dubuque, Iowa, Nov. 9, ’58.
Hon. S. A. Douglas,
Chicago, Ill,
Sir: — Herewith is enclosed your letter dated August
7th, 1858, to H. G. Crouch, editor of the Galena, Illinois, Courier, cut from
that paper of the 2d instant, with the editorial accompanying the same, headed
— “A Base Calumny.” I
will not condescend to notice the scurrilous editorial, predicated upon the
many wilful [mis]representations
of your letter, preferring to deal with you, as more responsible
than your instrument. I say “wilful
misrepresentation,” because you say you "have a distinct
recollection of the facts in the case,'' and because the journals of the Senate
prove your statements to be wholly destitute of truth, so far as you refer to
my colleague (Gen. A. C. Dodge,) myself and our friends as having ever expressed
or entertained the idea, as you say, of “defeating the bill unless the road
was extended to Dubuque,” though we surely had as much right so to amend it as
our Southern friends of Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama had to suggest and require,
as I think they did, that you should make the road extend to Mobile,
through those three States.
You knew well that neither you nor your colleague, Gen.
Shields, ever had such consultation, either between yourselves or your
colleagues of the House, before I offered my amendment to make the road
terminate at this place, instead of at Galena. You moreover knew equally well
that when I approached you towards the close of the debate in the Senate on the
bill with my amendment, and asked you whether you had any objections to my
offering it, stating as I did that it was merely to extend your road to Dubuque,
12 or 15 miles further West, that you not only freely assented thereto, but
thanked me for the suggestion, and that I immediately thereafter, in your
presence and hearing, obtained the assent of your colleagues to the same
effect;— that I then offered it and it was passed without a dissenting vote or
objection from any quarter whatever, as the records show.
You must also recollect that within twenty-four hours after
the passage of the bill through the Senate, I informed you that I had had a
conversation with Col. Baker, the then Representative from Galena in Congress,
and that he declared to me that he would not allow the bill to pass the House
without having my amendment stricken from it, and that you then said that you
cared not what Baker wished — that it was right that the road should terminate
on the Mississippi, and so connect with our proposed railroad, and that you
would so state to your colleagues, Col. Richardson, Major Harris, and others of
the House, who would take charge of the bill, and would prevent Baker from
making any such amendment in that body.
The assertion on your part that I or my colleague, or any
one of our friends had determined to defeat your bill upon the ground stated by
you, or for any other reason whatever is false, and its publication being
deferred until the day of the Illinois election, too late to be contradicted by
myself or others, shows that you and he (your Galena organ) who acted for you,
designed to mislead the Galena people, and accomplish your selfish purpose. The
journals and the debates of the Senate show that Gen. Dodge and I heartily
cooperated with you and your colleague in every effort and every vote which was
given on that question. For many considerations we could not but be deeply
interested in the passage of that bill.
At the celebration of the completion of the Illinois Central
Railroad to Dunleith, held at this place in July, 1855, you complimented me, in
exalted terms, in your speech on that occasion as the person who procured the
amendment, making Dubuque the terminus of the road, and although you knew that
hundreds of your own constituents were there present, you did not intimate that
the same had been done contrary to your wishes. You were then addressing an
Iowa audience whom you wished to propitiate.
Again, sir, when you last visited Dubuque, (26th August,
1857,) you had an interview with J. B. Dorr, the editor of the Express and
Herald of this city, who had, ever since you introduced the Kansas and Nebraska
Bill in the Senate, been your bitter opponent, and the opponent of that
measure. The next morning an editorial article appeared in that paper, of which
the following is an extract:
"But Illinois is not the only State which has been
benefited by the policy and by the labors of Stephen A. Douglas. All the
Western States are indebted to him for the material improvement which is
observable within her borders. We believe, however, that our own State, Iowa,
stands next to Illinois in her obligations to Mr. Douglas. To him more than to
any living man is owing the magnificent railroad system planned out for her —
the system which is destined to make her one of the wealthiest and most
important States in the West. Even our own good city of Dubuque owes, in a
great measure, her present importance to the labors of Mr. Douglas. She knows
that the extension of the north western branch of the Illinois Central to the
opposite bank of the Mississippi has greatly added to her prosperity, and the
land grant roads running from here to the interior will still add more towards
making her the commercial metropolis of the region North and West of Chicago.''
Two numbers of the paper containing the above extract were
sent to you the next day, one to Galena and the other to Chicago, with the
expectation that you would have the honesty to spurn the offer thus made you by
your newly acquired advocate here, to the detriment of myself, for whom
you then professed friendship. Instead of doing so, however, the same article
was republished in the Times, your organ at Chicago, and that, too,
within a very few days after it came out here, and whilst you were still at
Chicago, and necessarily within your knowledge, if not at your request. Thus,
sir, at one time you extolled me in unmeasured terms for causing Dubuque to be
made the terminus of the Illinois Central Railroad when addressing an Iowa
audience; at another, you allow Dorr, your ally and my unscrupulous
opponent here, to filch that which justly belongs to me and appropriate it to
your temporary benefit. And now, when arraigned by your constituents for
allowing me to make an amendment to your bill, to the disadvantage of Galena,
(as the people there believe,) you resort to the dishonest and unworthy
pretext of saying you were compelled either to allow the amendment to be
made, or to lose the bill entirely, because “they (myself and colleague) were immovable and
insisted on defeating the bill,”
&c. Neither Gen'l Dodge, his father nor myself, ever voted
against you or Gen'l Shields on any amendment or proposition offered to the
bill. The vote was generally two to one in favor of the bill and it finally
passed by yeas and nays 26 to 14, so we had not, as you allege, the power to
defeat the bill, as still it would have passed.
My amendment was offered without consultation with any one,
not excepting my own colleague, or any one of my constituents. I am proud of
having procured such a benefit for the State which has trusted and honored me,
but I would spurn it had it been obtained “by collusion” with yourself or any
one else — a charge never within my knowledge made at Galena or elsewhere,
until now meanly insinuated by yourself.
This, sir, is the third time that you have made “infamously false” accusations
against me, and that I have been compelled to fasten the lie upon you. Though
you may, at the sacrifice of Democratic organization, have effected a triumph
in your own State, as you say “over Executive and Congressional dictation,” I
can but look with contempt upon any fame or position you may have acquired by a
union with “white spirits and black, blue spirits and grey,'” Black
Republicans, South Americans, disappointed office-seekers, &c., as I do
upon the miserable resort to opprob[r]ious epithets connected with my name, but
covered with a contingency which gave you a sure escape.
George Wallace Jones.
P. S. This was prepared at the time and place that it bears
date, and would have been sent to you had I known where it would reach you. As
you are still canvassing the country, I address it to you at your own home, and
publish a copy of the same in order to make sure of it being seen by you,
Geo. W. Jones.
SOURCE: John Carl Parish, George Wallace Jones, p. 197-202
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