Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1887 — MORE ABOUT TUTTLE. [ARTICLE]

MORE ABOUT TUTTLE.

How He Stood, in the Estimation of a Paper That Now Idolizes Him, While a Democrat. JEEis Eecord as an Offioe-Beeker—Galled a Copperhead and Charged with Cotton Deals. [Des Moines special to Chicago Daily News.] General . T ames M. Tuttle’s political record forms one of the interesting pages in lowa’s history. In 1863 Tuttle was in the field, but squinted an eye toward the Governorship of this State. The war feeling was very strong in lowa that year, and old party lines were not drawn closely about men in the Union service. A great many Democrats entered the Union Republican party, as it was then called. In 1861 the Democratic vote of lowa was 43,245 and the Republican vote 59,853. In 1862 the Republican majority for Secretary of State, which is esteemed the fairest party test, was 15,215. The Republican convention of 1863 sought to name General Crocker for Governor, but he refused, and it nominated William M. Stone and adopted a strictly war platform, indorsing all that had so far been done to preserve the Union. It is said that General Tuttle desired and expected nomination by that convention, and was keenly disappointed when the news of its action reached his xsamp in Mississippi. lOWA DEMOCRATS IN WAR TIMES. The Democrats named M. L. Fisher as their choice for Governor and promulgated a platform in which the following ideas appeared, after declaring for free speech and free government: There is a manifest difference between the administration of the Government and the Government itself. We are opposed to the war for the purpose of carrying out the emancipation proclamation of the President of the United States, and if the Federal administration expects a united North to attend its efforts to suppress a rebellion, it must not only come back to its object of the war, as set forth in the Crittenden resolution adopted by the House of Representatives in July, 1861, but it must, in its dealings with the people of the United States, infringe upon no one single right guaranteed to the people by either the Federal or the State Constitution. We declare our determined opposition to a system of emancipation by the State, upon compensation to be made out of the Treasury of the United States, as burdensome upon the people, unjust in its very nature, and wholly without warrant of the Constitution. ” The platform also declared that the President’s course in proclaiming martial law over States where war did not exist, under guise of military necessity, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was unwarranted and tended to subvert the Government. The conservative sentiment of the North was “hailed with pleasure,” and any “manifestation on the part of the seceded States of a desire to return to their allegiance to the Government of the Union was “hailed with delight.” “In such an event,” the platform declared, “we would cordially and earnestly co-operate with them in the restoration of peace and the procurement of such guaranties as would give security to all their interests and rights. ” This platform was denounced by Republicans as a “copperhead” fulmination and deserving of condemnation by all loyal men. M. L. Fisher*refused to stand upon such a platform, and declined the nomination. The Democratic State Central Committee cast about for a candidate, and decided upon James M. Tuttle, then supposed to be at the front for the purpose of aiding the troubled administration by his patriotic endeavor. GEN. TUTTLE AS A COPPERHEAD. Tuttle secured leave of absence and came to lowa to stump the State on that “copperhead” presentment of principles. He was defeated for the Governorship by Stone, who received a majority of Tuttle then returned to tbe South. This is the man who, nearly a quarter of a century after the war was successfully terminated by the very policy he then condemned, valiantly assails a President for favoring a suggestion of peace that was more forcibly put in the platform upon which he himself sought office, and at a time, too, when such a policy was declared by Union men to bo giving “aid and comfort to the enemy.” Gen. Tuttle resigned his commission in the volunteer Union army in 1864 and returned to Des Moines." The itch for office was still uncured. In 1866 he was nominated by the Democrats for Congress from the Fifth District against G. M. Dodge. It is reported that during the canvass he made a speech in Des Moines. The crowd grew weary, and when he said “One more word and I am done,” the audience cheered. Still he kept on. Then came: “A final remark, and lam through.” Again the crowd applauded. At last the speaker realized that the assertion that he was nearing a close aroused enthusiasm, and he became angry, with what result can easily be imagined. The official returns of that election show that Dodge was elected by 14,290 votes to Tuttle’s 9,898. In Polk County, Tuttle’s home, Dodge received 2,099 and Tuttle 1,495 votes. This canvass was an exceedingly bitter one. The Republicans believed that the Democrats were as nearly allied to the powers of treason, secession, and perdition as men in the flesh could be. The Des Moines Register was the most rampant Republican organ in the district. Its report of the proceedings of the convention which nominated Tuttle began in this way: “The simonpure copperhead convention met yesterday." There was some show of ex-

cuse for this characterization, from the Register’s standpoint, because the convention demanded “the immediate and unconditional restoration of all the States to the exercise of their rights j within the Federal Union,” and denounced Congressional representation j “secured on the degrading condition of i inferiority* of Southern States in the revised Union or upon enforcement of the political and civil equality of the negro. TUTTLE ON JEFF DAVIS. On July 16, 1866, the Register said: The cotton trade, which subsided somewhat after the war, is increasing in interest. Our fellow-citizen, Gen. J. M. Tuttle, Democratic candidate for Governor in 186 H. was chosen vesterday at the Congressional Convention of the possums, or kangaroos, or Democrats, or copperheads, "or any other man,” as a candidate for Congress from this district. Tuttle accepted in a heavy speech, in which he stated, as we learn, that the radical members of Congress are greater traitors than Jeff Davis. That speech was not, so far as can now be ascertained, reported for the benefit of future generations, but the editor of the Registei' met Tuttle on the street and “asked him a few direct questions,” to which he replied: “I said (at the convention) that such Republicans as Thad Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Ben Wade were just as full of treason as Jeff Davis is.” Commenting upon this admission, the Register cautioned the people against indorsing a man who, it asserted, ranked with Henry Clay Dean and Clement L. Yallandigham, and said: “Send Gen. Tuttle to Congress, if you please, and you will find his votes, every time, recorded in company with those of the factious and disorganizing traitors who have studied nights and labored days for six years to dismemoer this government; and trample the American flag in the dust!” The Register’s alarm concerning Tuttle’s guardianship of the flag has now settled in the other leg. In 1866 that journal repudiated the General’s claim to the post of honor because—“lt may be humiliating to say that the man who made his heroism conspicuous on the Union side four years ago on the field of battle is a coppehead to-day; but, however humiliating it may be, it is the truth—every word of it.” TUTTLE’S SENTIMENTS IN 1866. As the contest waxed warmer the Republican papers grew more outspoken. In the Register of Aug. 2 appears the following editorial: A few days since Gen. Tuttle, Copperhead candidate for Congress in this district, mysteriously disappeared from the city. He went to Washington and had a long confidential interview with Charles Mason and Andrew Johnson, according to the Washington correspondent of the Keokuk Gate City. The upshot was a promise from Johnson that Tuttle should have carte blanche to make all the removals from and appointments to Federal offices in the Fifth District. The correspondent avers that, in his elation at the sudden possession of plenary power in this district, Tuttle declared that “the head of every G d— black Republican officeholder in the district should come off.” The time has not come when the people of this Congressional district can be bought into the support of any man or any party, no matter though postoffices, land offices, assessorships, pension agencies, and cotton be piled mountain high to tempt them. These vague allusions to cotton were based on rumors set afloat soon after the General’s sudden return home in 1864. It was then hinted that he had come back with SIOO,OOO. The Register did not, so far as the accessible files reveal, charge him with improving chances to pass rebel cotton through the Union lines for a consideration, but that form of gossip did prevail here, and the General’s newspaper organ came stoutly to his defense. General Tuttle is not at home today, and his personal statement cannot be given here, but the defense of 1866 was to the effect that whatever money he did have then was made by shrewd speculations in gold. By watching the tide of affairs in Dixie he was able to trade on the fluctuations of success as indicated in the Wall street abodes of ultra loyalty. Perhaps that occupation so absorbed the General’s mind that he became a victim to the wily work of some fellow who looked like him at Natchez. The Register used to keep up a rattle of small arms. One day the Democratic organ remarked that “General Tuttle is not understood to be a Moses or a David.” The Reg is ter retorted: It would be a pretty fool who would make such a mistake as that. Moses was not commandant of the post at Natchez, and David lived several years before the cultivation of cotton excited the Cupidity of copperhead generals. From the fact that Tuttle was defeated by 4,392 the inference may be drawn that the people of his city and district did not believe him a model of loyalty and honesty in 1866. The change of heart on the part of the Register is due to the fact that Tutfle joined the Republican party a few years ago. The Leader does not dare to say much against him because the Democrats declared his character good in 1866, and the Register vaults over nimbly because the man whom Tuttle happens to be now abusing is the Democratic President of the United States. As Horace Greeley would remark, they either lied in 1866 or they lie in 1887. The logical chances of accuracy go with the earlier narration of events. John Sherman has two great speeches with which he proposes to win in 1888. One is his Nashville, or white shirt speech, the other is his Springfield, or bloody shirt speech. His Nashville speech had no blood stains upon it from flap to collar. John had it laundried in Washington. It was white as the driven show. It was done up in the best plantation style. When he . carried it in Nashville the people shouted: “It is a daisy.” Put when John reached Illinois his shirt was as bloody as if he had hemohrrage of nose, lungs, and bowels. There wasn’t a white spot upon it. If it had been soaked in bull’s blood it could not have been more crimson. Twoshirt Sherman for President. Oh, my! —lndianapolis Sentinel. A correspondent wishes to ask how editors spend their leisure hours? They spend them in working.