Whatever may be said laudatory of . . .

. . . our gallant Iowa volunteers – of the loyalty of the mass of the people of all political parties, it is very apparent that the State does not contain a single loyal Democratic newspaper, and of the Jones and Dodge clique who governed Iowa up to 1854, very few can be sure and certainly counted as unconditional Union men.  In our State the Vallandigham manifesto is published and commended in every Democratic paper and accepted by most of the leading politicians – by men who control the organization.  This is the case in no other State.  In the New England and Middle States most of the Democratic politicians and papers reject the Vallandigham address as tainted with secession.  Even in Indiana scarcely a single Democratic newspaper will touch it.  Here is what Gray, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the leading Democratic newspaper in Ohio, says of it:

“Our motto is, first quash the rebellion and save the Constitution and the country, and then we shall have, and now be slow in expressing, our views of men and measures.  But with so gigantic a rebellion on hand as exists in [this] nation, a unity of all the friends of the Constitution and the old Stars and Stripes is necessary, in our estimation, to put it down and bring it back to its original status; and whatever may stand between the country and this result for the time must stand aside or be held in abeyance.  If it cannot be accomplished without destroying slavery where it lies across its track, let it be destroyed.  Nor can we see that this conflicts with ‘Popular Sovereignty.’  Without a country and a Constitution, what is Popular Sovereignty worth?  Then, we repeat, what the country needs most, or first, is an end to the rebellion, and the nation brought back to a recognition of the Constitution and the rights of the majority.”

Iowa, while she furnishes the largest quota of troops who are conceded to be the best and the bravest, upon every battle field, is disgraced in the possession of a few of the meanest secesh politicians in all the loyal States – men unmistakably disloyal – men who not only give their voice, their influence, and their active, persistent labor to embarrass the Government in its war for the Union, but who labor as persistently in aid of the rebellion, sending recruits to the aid of the rebel army – giving their sons to Davis and Beauregard to murder our loyal volunteers and destroy the Government.  Quite a number of prominent young men of Dubuque have been recruited for the rebel army through the influence of Jones and his family and Dennis Mahoney.  Doctor Pendleton, the Democrat nominee for Clerk of Des Moines county, and Doctor Edelin, Physician and Steward of the Marine Hospital at Burlington, appointed under Buchanan though the influence of leading Democrats of Burlington, are both in the rebel army and both fought against us in the battle of Pittsburgh Landing.

We cheerfully bear witness to the loyalty of the masses of that party and disclaim any intention of stating these facts to disparage or disgrace them.  We publish only to show the tendency of the leaders – their evident intention to USE the party to further their treasonable designs.  We ask loyal Democrats to read Mr. Douglas’ patriotic utterances after the rebels had inaugurated this infernal war, and try the Jones and Dodge conspirators by the standard he erected.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 2

How exceedingly mean our Iowa secesh Resurrectionists must feel . . .

. . . at their dirty work, when they see the people of the border States moving vigorously in the cause of emancipation, while they are trying to agitate in the interest, and restore the dominion and power of slavery as a political institution.  How very cheap the corner grocery politicians in Iowa must feel while howling “Abolitionist,” seeing sensible men of all parties in Missouri earnestly moving to rid that State of the curse of Slavery.  We hardly wonder that Southern people hold in utter contempt and detestation all Northern people.  Their ideas of northern men have been formed by intercourse with the mercenary horde of doughface politicians.  They believe all Northern people as mean and despicable, as unprincipled and time serving, as dastardly and infamous as these God-forsaken wretches.

Here is an extract from the Palmyra, Missouri Currier, a paper never accused of abolitionism.  We invite Jones, Mahony, Hendershot, Dean, Sheward and their sweet scented co-laborers to read it and howl.  After reviewing the reviewing the wretched condition of the finances of Missouri, with a public debt of $27,000,000, the Courier remarks:

Bankruptcy, or the introduction of labor and capital, then are the issues before us.  Either the State must be developed in her resources, or it must sink.  Let us look then, for capital and labor.  Where shall they be found?  They are not within the State.  Capital and labor, to a great extent, have been driven from the State by the rebellion, and will not return until their safety shall have been guaranteed.

Shall we look to the border Slave States? – They, too, are in a similar condition.

*  *  *  *  *   *

It is to the Free States, then, that, notwithstanding our prejudices, we must turn for what we need and must have.  They only have the labor and capital to save us.  But in procuring from them that which we want as necessary for our deliverance from insupportable burdens, there comes the necessity for the making of another choice – a choice between the surrender of our prejudices against free labor, or the ruin of the State.  If we triumph over our prejudices, the State will be saved.  If our prejudices triumph over us, all is lost.

As to the cause of the war it says:

We shall be content with the single remark that as the rebellion has found its firmest foothold where slavery most predominates, and has raged wherever slavery has existed – from the Northern boundaries of Maryland and Missouri, to the remotest limits of Texas – and in no other place whatever, it will henceforth be difficult to convince free labor and free capital that they are permanently secure in any State in which the institution of slavery permanently exists.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 1

Tar And Feathers Wanted

As old Davie Atchison and his ruffians are in the Secession army or under cow at home, and as the fanatical abolitionists are agitating the inevitable “nigger” question with a view to the “ABOLITION” of Slavery in Missouri, something ought to be done.  The Mahoney party in Iowa ought to send emissaries to Missouri with tar and feathers to stop this business at once.  If slavery should be abolished in Missouri, by the act of the people of that State, the Union never could be restored “just as it was.”  An emancipation meeting was held in Hannibal, Missouri, the other day.  What a dreadful thing!  Mayor Green presided – yes, and he made an abolition speech – another dreadful thing, a dreadful thing even for a Yankee, how much more for a slaveholder in a Slave State!  We invite the Valandigham-Jones-Dodge-Mahoney-Resurrectionists to read it and howl!  Here is an extract:

“In my deliberate judgment I am convinced, fellow-citizens, that the irrevocable destiny of our State is to be free – at no very distant day – that till then, the agitation of this question will be kept up and will be a blight upon the growth and prosperity of our State – that slave labor, as a system in Missouri has become unprofitable; that investments in slave property have become insecure; that the laws of the climate and of the soil, of geographical position and other causes over which, we, as a people, have no control, have conspired to produce these results; and it therefore becomes us as a free people, looking to our own welfare, to the welfare of our children, to the welfare of the people of the whole State, their posterity and the human race, to approach this subject, and consider and discuss it calmly, fairly, without passion or prejudice, and if the will of the majority of the people of the State is in favor of dispensing with slavery, on any basis consistent with law and the great principles of justice, then let us dispose of it.

That our State will be freed at some future day is a foregone conclusion, a fixed fact; and so soon as the work is fully accomplished the material wealth of the State will be greatly increased and her vast resources be more fully and successfully developed.  While slavery exists, there is not inducement to emigrants from slave States to come amongst us with their population, capital and enterprise, because of the insecurity of slave property here.  Nor is there any inducement to emigration from the free States, because the presence of slavery as a system of labor degrades the white man.  We have no other sources except from foreign countries and natural progress, to increase our population; yet, we must have population, capital and enterprise, in order to the proper development of the great natural resources of the State.   Why then not take up this vexed question and consider it as becomes freemen looking to their own best interest and welfare and that of our posterity.  Why put off and press away from our thoughts a great public question that is forced upon our consideration by the inevitable course of events?

We cannot avoid it if we would, and therefore we must take our ground, and meet the issue.  Let us enter upon the discussion of this long vexed question calmly and dispassionately.  Let us invite discussion and hear all the opposing views, and then determine, as a political community, what is for the public good, by a constitutionally expressed will of the majority of our people.  I, as in individual, am in favor of the proposition that the majority of the people shall rule, and control the legislation of the State, under constitutional forms.  This is but just, and as a principle it lies at the bottom of our free and representative form of Government.”

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 1

There is no misunderstanding recent movements in this State.

The attempt to resurrect the Democratic party is made by Geo. W. [J]ones, A. C. Dodge, Chas. Mason, Dennis Mahony, Barnhart Henn and others of the same class and stripe and for the benefit of the above named parties.  There is not a single live Democrat in it – not one.  There is not a single Democrat in it who has given his active support to the war for the Union.  The above parties are acting through lesser politicians just as completely played out as their principals – men who would never have voted a dollar or recruited a company for the war, but would, on the contrary, have sent a commission to Missouri to form a treaty of amity with the traitor Claib Jackson and his rebel horde and then declared for neutrality.  These parties seek power for the avowed purpose of making peace with Southern traitors and saving these same traitors from the consequences of their acts.  No such party can be organized in Iowa with the remotest chance of accomplishing anything save the lasting infamy of those engaged in it.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 17, 1862, p. 2

What will the Hawk-Eye say . . .

. . . when we assure it that we are glad to hear that Missouri is likely to become a free State by the voluntary act of its own people. – {Dubuque Herald.

The Hawk-Eye believes this the biggest lie ever uttered by Father Mahoney.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2

Everybody does not know . . .

. . . that it is a lie that the North provoked the South into the war – The history of Congress proves it to be true, as does the history of politics for forty years past. – {Dubuque Herald.

But everybody does know that Father Mahoney is a secessionist as poisonous as a copperhead in August – too mean to take the side of his country – too cowardly to fight for the Southern Confederacy.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p 1

When will the rebellion be over?

Just as soon as the partisans in the North who provoked [it into] being, will cease their attacks upon the Constitution, and comply with its obligations and submit to its restraints. Hardly otherwise. – {Dubuque Herald.

It will be over when we have captured a few more cities, battered down and retaken a few more forts, whipped and dispersed the rebel armies at Corinth and on the Peninsula, and hung a few white livered Northern tories. It will not be long but if Mahoney gets his deserts he will not live to see it.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p 1

We confess to a feeling of pleasure upon . . .

. . . the finding in the Ottumwa Democratic Mercury a column of abuse aimed at the Rev. Geo. B. Jocelyn. The subject is introduced in the following neat and complimentary manner:

‘Rev Geo B Jocelyn, delivered an abolition ten cent lecture in this city on Monday evening. It was remarkable for nothing but being an attempt to imitate the fanaticism of Wendell Phillips, and the oratory of Clay Dean.’

When persons so faultless in their lives, so prudent and unpretending in their utterances and so sound in their opinions as Rev Jocelyn, are compelled to encounter such an avalanche of abuse and vituperation as this, we feel assured things must soon culminate. The time is not far distant when this creature, Hendershot, and his co-laborer, Mahoney will arrive at a realizing sense of their own infamy and be glad to crawl out of view and seek relief in oblivion. We should like to hear this abolition ten cent lecture.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 1

Quartermaster Joseph B. Dorr

Quartermaster Joseph B. Dorr, was born in Western New York August 25, 1825; removed to Buffalo in 1845 and to Jackson County, Iowa, in 1847; commenced the publication of the Western Democrat at Andrew in 1849, and three years later removed to Dubuque and entered into partnership with D. A. Mahoney and published the Dubuque Herald. In 1855 he bought out his partner's interest in the Herald and published the paper alone until 1861. When the war broke out, his loyalty caused him to sink party and financial interests and tendered his services to the Governor of the State. He was commissioned Quartermaster of the 12th Iowa November 5, 1861, and entered at once upon the discharge of his duties. He was with his regiment constantly until the battle of Shiloh when he was captured and confined at Macon, Ga. With Lieutenant Elwell of Company E, he escaped from prison and made his way to the Union lines. He then applied for and received authority to raise a regiment of cavalry in Iowa. He enlisted 1,700 men and on the 30th day of September 1863 was mustered into United States service as Colonel of 8th Iowa Cavalry. During the summer of 1864 he was commanding his regiment in the Atlanta campaign. In one of the cavalry raids to the rear of Atlanta he was wounded, his regiment surrounded and nearly captured. Colonel Dorr refused to relinquish the command; ordered and led a charge which broke the enemy's lines and enabled a part of his regiment to escape. The wounded Colonel was captured and taken to Charleston, S. C., where he, with other officers, was placed under the fire of the Union guns, and remained there until October when he was exchanged and returned to his command. He was in active service in Tennessee and Georgia during the winter of 1864-5. In this service he contracted disease of which he died, in the service, May 28, 1865.

SOURCE: David W. Reed, Campaigns and battles of the Twelfth Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, p. 254-5

The Dubuque Election

The Dubuque Times thus speaks in the scenes that followed the triumph of the Mahony ticket for municipal officers of that city:

“The only cause for serious mortification in this defeat is the class of men by whom we have been beaten. As an example of their treasonable inclination it is a notorious fact that during the afternoon and evening of election day scores and hundreds of men were swarming the streets cheering for Jeff Davis, the Southern Confederacy, D. A. Mahony, the Merrimac, etc., etc. In the evening one of the Herald proprietors, decorated with secesh colors, entertained a large crowd in the Nebraska saloon with the classic air of “Dixie,” executed upon the fiddle. An [employee] of the same office, wearing a cap conspicuously ornamented with the letters C. S. A., accompanied the violin with the “bones.” Dancing, brawling, fighting middling, drunken speechifying, groans for “Old Abe,” and shouts of “Down with the Administration,” were heard there till nearly morning.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, April 14, 1862, p. 2

Ex-Governor Stewart of Missouri . . .

. . . who is a candidate for Congress in the St. Joe district is out in favor of emancipation – yes – EMANCIPATION! He avows himself in favor of abolishing slavery in Missouri. Is not this perfectly awful? Gov. Stewart was the last loyal Governor of Missouri – was nominated and elected as a Democrat. Is it not most remarkable that a Democrat, of so high position and standing, whose fidelity was above suspicion, should have fallen into the slough of fanaticism and Abolitionism! Father Mahoney should make haste to fulminate a [bill] of excommunication against him and send it down to Missouri by the hand of his faithful esquire, the dignified, the respectable, the pious, white cravated Hendershot of Wepello. This last person, when he comes in sight of the recusant ex-governor, should be instructed to put on his most killing and withering look, crying with a loud voice Abolitionist! ABOLITIONIST!! ABOLITIONIST!!! If he can stand this the case is past the reach of surgery – put him out!

But suppose that this fanaticism which seems to be catching, should break out in Missouri, as in Western Virginia – suppose that a majority of the people of that State should declare against slavery and should abolish it, what will be the effect? Evidently the Union can never be restored just as it was. Never. And the resurrectionists say they never will accept the Union unless it is restored just as it was! Here is a complication.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 2

Dennis A. Mahoney

DENNIS A. MAHONEY was born in Ross County, Ireland, January 20. 1821. When he was nine years old his parents came to America, locating in Philadelphia where the son was educated. In 1843 he came to Dubuque, Iowa, and for five years was engaged in teaching. He was a frequent contributor to the journals of Dubuque and studying law was admitted to the bar. He removed to Jackson County where, in 1848, he was elected to the General Assembly. After his term expired he became editor of the Dubuque Miners' Express. A few years later he was one of a firm which established the Dubuque Herald, of which he became editor. He took a deep interest in the public schools and was a member of the first board of education of Dubuque. In 1858 he was again a member of the General Assembly. He remained editor of the Herald until 1862 and ranked with the ablest political writers of the State. Mr. Mahoney was a radical opponent of the war for suppression of the Rebellion and his writings on that subject aroused a storm of indignation among Union men which threatened personal violence. On the night of the 14th of August, 1862, he was arrested by H. M. Hoxie, United States Marshal, and taken to Washington where he was incarcerated in the old Capital prison. While in prison he was nominated by the Democrats of the Third Iowa District for Representative in Congress, and although defeated by William B. Allison carried Dubuque County by a majority of 1,457. He was released without trial after about three months' imprisonment and returned to Dubuque but the Herald had been sold during his absence. The following year he was elected sheriff, holding the office four years. In 1869 he became editor of the St. Louis Daily Times. In 1871 he returned to Dubuque and took editorial charge of the Daily Telegraph, a position he held to the time of his death. After his release from prison Mr. Mahoney wrote and published a book entitled "Prisoner of State," in which he told the story of his arrest and experience in the old Capital prison. He died at Dubuque, November 5, 1879.

SOURCE: Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa, Volume IV: Iowa Biography, p. 180-1

Mahony gets Mad

Father Mahony, of the Dubuque Herald, garbles an extract from the reply we made him, exposing his guilty treason, and then for want of argument, like an old fish-workman of Billingsgate, tries to overwhelm us with expletives; piling them up in a racy style that shows his familiarity with foul language before he consorted with gentlemen, until working himself into a perfect fury, he stops at a half column, and agonizingly exclaims, “we waste our space in giving him so much notice!”

He reminds us of the terribly profane old fellow, of the Judge Clagett school, who was ascending a hill with a wagon load of flour when one of the bags came untied and left a wake of its precious contents all the way behind. Several wags observing it, and aware of the old man’s propensity, ascended the hill to inform him and witness the floodgate of his wrath break loose. – The old man looked around, then coolly surveying the group before him, with an inkling of their object twinkling from his eyes, exclaimed, “Gentlemen, it’s no use, I can’t do the subject justice!”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, April 26, 1862, p. 2

Mahony asks for Proof!

Every now and then Father Mahony, of the Dubuque Herald, flares up under the hot shot that we occasionally amuse ourselves into firing into his treasonable craft, and demands, with all the authority of a Southern slave driver, to know by what authority we accuse him of treason, what has he ever done to merit such an accusation! In his last issue he says: “We would like the GAZETTE, or any other paper who alludes to us in the same manner, to point out any treasonable doctrine ever uttered by us in any case, or under any circumstances.” We don’t keep files of his shoet [sic]; but remembering that some months ago we answered the same inquiry so emphatically that he did not dare gainsay us, we turned our files for the article. Almost the first paragraph our eyes lighted upon was one in which the Dubuque Herald, in alluding to a proposed secession amendment by its great prototype and namesake of New York, says, “For our part, we would willing accede to the amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by the seceded States.” Without looking further, we regard this as sufficiently treasonable.

But, why, we would ask, was the Dubuque Herald prohibited from circulating through the mails of Missouri by Provost Marshal McKinstry, if it were not on account of the treasonable doctrines it contained, and the effect it would have upon the rebels of that State? No, Father Mahony, we believe ferventy that if you had been required to take up arms for or against the Government of the United States, before the Southern Confederacy was in the descendancy, that you would have lovingly twined your arm around the aristocratic neck of ex-Fort Warren Jones, and gone with him to fight, where your every editorial shows your sympathies to be most deeply interested.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, April 19, 1862, p. 2

While, as a general rule, the masses . . .

. . . of the Democracy of the north ar battling for their country against traitors, many of its leaders, like Vallandigham and Mahoney, are plotting a re-union with those same traitors, whom they style their ”Democratic brethren.”

– Published in The Gate City, Keokuk, Iowa, Tuesday, April 15, 1862

Secession in Dubuque

Some of the Mahony Democrats elected to office at the recent municipal election in Dubuque, were required to take the oath of allegiance before they were sworn in. A volume could not better express the character of the men elected by the Mahonyites of that city, than this single sentence. When at a time like this men vote for suspected traitors to fill offices, it is time the War Department were exercising more vigilance at the North.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 16, 1862, p. 2

Charles Carroll . . .

. . . a grandson of the signer of the Declaration of Independence, and with one exception the largest slaveholder in Maryland, is enthusiastic in his support of the proposition of the President for a compensated emancipation in his State. Charles M. Tarish, also a grandson of the signer, holds the same views.

If Mr. Charles Carroll will come out here and see Dennis Mahoney, Clagget, Clay Dean and other resurrectionists he will find out that he is a fool and an Abolitionist, and don understand the Constitution.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862

The attempt to re organize the Democratic party . . .

. . . in the interest of slavery, by leaders of doubtful loyalty, under the apprehension that the old condition previous to rebellion is to be restored, is as poor and blind a speculation as the rebellion itself. It will drive into the Republican party all the loyal Democrats and leave only to the new organization the base, truculent, time-serving camp followers of the old party organization who have heretofore earned their small pittances by dirt-eating. These creatures, who have always abased themselves to any extent demanded by Southern fire-eaters – who have so long found their reward in following Southern lead as to really behave in and follow nothing else, now firmly believe the old status is to be restored and are making haste to embrace the rebels whenever they are disarmed. The are anxious that it shall be known that this is none of their roar – that they will do all in their power to weaken the Government so that it can not be prosecuted – that they are opposed to paying the expenses and are ready to advise the people against paying Federal taxes, &c., &c.

Does anybody suppose a political party can be organized upon such a platform and get the vote of a single Northern State? And aside from its disloyal sympathies and rebel tendencies the infamy of its leaders would kill it. A political party exist with Vallandigham at its head? Mahoney and Clay Dean lead a successful party in Iowa?

The attempt to reorganize the Democratic Party upon the same Principle as the C. S. A., viz: with slavery as its corner stone, will identify it fully with the rebellion, and it must share the fate of the rebellion. If Jeff Davis is put down and secession conquered, his friends in the free states must go down with him. If on the contrary Davis Succeeds and the North is conquered, the new Democratic party at once goes into power and Mahoney and Dean may become provisional Governor of Iowa. The rebellion must put us down or we shall put it down. Either Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis will be President of the whole union, from the gulf to the St. Lawrence.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862

A wealthy slave holder in Central Missouri. . .

. . . who owns large quantities of real estate in Iowa, has just written to his agent in this city an order to pay immediately the Federal tax on his property, and says in his letter that that tax, levied for the purpose of prosecuting this war and putting down the rebellion, he will pay more cheerfully than any other tax. He says further, that the people of Missouri have had enough of the rebellion, and the thing is about played out. This man is the owner of over a hundred slaves, and is a South Carolinian by birth.

So much for a loyal Southerner. How wide the contrast between him and the miserable brood of Secessionist in Dubuque, under the lead of Dennis Mahoney and his treason and smut machine.

– Published in the Daily State Register, Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862, and also in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 9, 1862, p. 2