JAMES HARLAN was born in Clarke County, Illinois, August 26, 1820. His father removed to Park County, Indiana, three years later where the son was reared on a farm. He graduated at Asbury University in 1845. In 1846 Mr. Harlan located at Iowa City where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. In 1847 he was nominated by the Whig party for Superintendent of Public Instruction and was elected over Charles Mason, the Democratic candidate. In 1840, at the Whig State Convention, Mr. Harlan was nominated for Governor but not being eligible on account of youth, he declined, and another candidate was named by the State Central Committee. In 1853 he was chosen president of the Wesleyan University at Mount Pleasant. At the session of the Fifth General Assembly in 1855, after a long and exciting contest for election of United States Senator, the Whigs and Free Soil members united upon Mr. Harlan and, casting their votes for him, he was declared elected for six years to succeed General Dodge. His election was contested in the Senate and the seat was declared vacant, in 1857. The Legislature being in session, Mr. Harlan was promptly reelected. In 1861 he was elected for a second term of six years. In March, 1865, he was invited to a seat in the Cabinet of President Lincoln as Secretary of the Interior but did not enter upon the duties of the position until May 15, when he resigned his seat in the Senate. In the meantime the President had been assassinated and was succeeded by Andrew Johnson. In September, Mr. Harlan resigned his seat in the Cabinet and in January, 1866, was again elected to the Senate for six years. During his long service in the Senate Mr. Harlan became one of the foremost leaders of the Republican party. Serving during all of the years in which the momentous issues of slavery, secession, rebellion and reconstruction were absorbing the profound attention of the ablest statesmen of America, he was called upon to assist in solving the most difficult problems that have arisen since the formation of our Government and was equal to the occasion. How wisely and ably he and his colleagues guided the Nation through its imminent dangers is recorded in history. Among the foremost statesmen of that period the name of James Harlan will always stand conspicuous. During the administration of President Grant, Senators Sunmer and Schurz, who were among the great leaders of the Republican party for many years, became alienated from the President and organized an opposition in the Senate which assailed the Administration and its chief measures, with great bitterness. President Grant had negotiated a treaty with the government of San Domingo, by which that island desired to be annexed to the United States on favorable terms to our Nation. Sumner, Schurz and a few other Senators dominated by their influence, formed a combination which was strong enough to defeat the ratification of the treaty. In a studied speech Sumner assailed President Grant personally in one of the most abusive speeches ever delivered in the Senate, in connection with this treaty. Senator Harlan in a calm, able and statesmanlike address, made a masterly reply in vindication of President Grant and his patriotic services to the country in civil and military affairs, and the wisdom of the policy that would have given to the Nation one of the most important and productive islands of the West Indies. This speech of the senior Iowa Senator made a profound impression upon the country and Europe and placed him in the front rank of patriotic American statesmen. As his third term drew to a close, a powerful movement was organized by the northern half of the State (which had long been unrepresented in the Senate) to secure the election of a member living in that section. William B. Allison was the candidate united upon and in the Republican caucus he was nominated over Mr. Harlan and elected. Senator Harlan had for nearly eighteen years served as the colleague of such eminent statesmen as Seward, Douglas, Sumner, Fessenden, Edmunds, Bayard, Jefferson Davis, Mason, Grimes and Henry Wilson. He was a trusted adviser of Presidents Lincoln and Grant. His knowledge of the affairs of government was unsurpassed. As a public speaker he was calm, deliberate, logical and impressive. After his retirement to private life, Mr. Harlan was, from 1882 to 1885, the Presiding Judge of the Alabama Claims Commission. He was one of the commissioners who erected the Iowa Soldiers' Monument. His last act in a public capacity was presiding at the laying of the corner-stone of the Iowa Hall of History, May 17, 1899. He died at Mount Pleasant on the 6th of October of the same year.
SOURCE: Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa, Volume IV: Iowa Biography, p. 118-9
JAMES W. GRIMES, third Governor of Iowa, was born at Peering, New Hampshire, October 20, 1816. At the age of sixteen he entered Dartmouth College where he graduated and began the study of law. In 1836 he came to the "Black Hawk Purchase," stopping at Burlington. He served as secretary to Governor Henry Dodge in September at a council held with the Sac and Fox Indians at Rock Island, in which these tribes ceded to the United States a tract of land on the Iowa and Missouri rivers. In 1837 Mr. Grimes was admitted to the bar and was soon after appointed city solicitor. He entered into partnership with W. W. Chapman, then United States District Attorney for Wisconsin Territory. When the Territory of Iowa was established in 1838, Mr. Grimes was elected a member of the House of the First Legislative Assembly at the age of twenty-two. He was appointed chairman of the judiciary committee and was one of the leaders in a conflict which the majority had with Governor Lucas over the respective powers of the executive and legislative branches of the Territorial government. He was the Whig candidate for member of the Council of the Third Legislative Assembly but was defeated. In 1843 he was again elected a member of the House. In 1852 he was elected to the House of the Fourth General Assembly and was the recognized leader of the Whig minority. He took an active interest in the improvement of the school system, the encouragement of railroad building, the promotion of temperance and opposition to the extension of slavery. In 1853 he helped to establish the first agricultural journal in the State and was one of its editors. It was named The Iowa Farmer and Horticulturist and was published monthly at Burlington by Morgan McKenny. Mr. Grimes had attained such prominence in the State that in 1854 he was nominated by the Whigs for Governor. His well-known antislavery views rendered him acceptable to all who were opposed to the extension of that institution. That issue was then becoming intense and while many conservative Whigs united with the Democrats, all classes who favored "free soil" united in the support of Grimes and he was elected. It was the first defeat for the Democrats since Iowa was organized into a Territory. In January, 1866, Governor Grimes wrote the call for the convention which, at Iowa City on the 22d of February, founded the Republican party of Iowa. After serving аs governor for the term of four years, Grimes was chosen United States Senator by the Seventh General Assembly. He became one of the leading members of that body and as a member of the naval committee was a power in sustaining the administration of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. He was one of the earliest advocates of the employment of slaves in the Union armies and of their emancipation. As chairman of the committee on the District of Columbia, in July, 1861, he secured the release from jail of all slaves held by their masters. In 1864 Senator Grimes was reëlected. After the overthrow of the Rebellion, Senator Grimes, as a member of the joint committee on reconstruction was one of the number who devised the terms upon which the union of the States was restored. He was largely instrumental in securing the National Arsenal on Rock Island and the construction of the canal for steamers around the Des Moines Rapids of the Mississippi River. On the trial of President Johnson in the impeachment proceedings, Senator Grimes rose above party clamor and, actuated by the highest considerations as a judge, voted "not guilty." Such was the clamor of Republicans for conviction that the great Senator was assailed with a storm of rage and abuse of the most malignant character, by his own party. Conscious of his own rectitude, he bore the reproaches with unshaken fortitude. He would not become a party to revolutionary methods of removing the Chief Executive of the Nation at the demand of his political friends. When the storm of rage and disappointment had passed and reason returned, the country realized that his courageous act in that momentous crisis was the noblest and most heroic of his official deeds. He was stricken with paralysis and made a journey to Europe hoping to restore his shattered health; but failing in that, resigned his seat in the Senate and returned home where he died on the 7th of February, 1872. Benton J. Hall, a life-long political opponent, said of him in the State Senate:
"Perhaps no other man had the opportunity, or used it with the avail that Senator Grimes did to form and mould the State and its institutions. He was one of the living men in the Territorial legislation and early State history. Afterwards we find the same master mind moulding the affairs of the National Government. I doubt whether any Senator ever impressed himself in a greater degree upon the Government in all directions. Whether in regard to the navy, or army, or foreign relations, he made himself master of the subject, and left his impress upon almost every page of the history of the Nation."
The veteran Congressman George W. Julian wrote of Senator Grimes, after his death:
"I was one of the many men whose partisan exasperation carried them headlong into the impeachment movement, in which the heroic conduct of Senator Grimes has been so gloriously vindicated by time; and no man is more ready than myself to do honor to the brave men who faced the wrath and scorn of their party in 1868."
SOURCE: Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa, Volume IV: Iowa Biography, p. 109-10
