HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY - CHAPTER 25 ***** Transcribed and contributed to the USGenWeb Archives by Timm Severud Ondamitag@aol.com Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ***** Faithful Record of all Important Events, Incidents, and Circumstances that have Transpired in the Valley of the Chippewa from its Earliest Settlement by White People, Indian Treaties, Organization of the Territory and State; Also of the Counties Embracing the Valley, Senatorial, Assembly and Congressional Districts, and a Brief Biographical Sketch of the Most Prominent Persons in the Settlement of the Valley. BY Thomas E. Randall 1875. Free Press Print. Eau Claire, Wisconsin CHAPTER 25 From the claims I have set up to the loyalty of the people of this valley, when the war came on, it must not be supped that all were equally zealous, or that none were found to oppose the measures of the administration in suppressing the rebellion. Inherent qualities of the human mind, as well as their education, cause men to see things in a different light, and to honestly differ in their opinions on all questions in which men feel any interest. Next to the interests of religion, that of government should undoubtedly claim our attention. It is this interest in the policy of our government, and because we see things from different standpoints, that divides the American people into parties; but political parties in the United States have other and less philosophical reasons for organizing into opposing parties, besides mere honest convictions in regard to the best policy. The love of power and the desire to obtain and hold office, too often becomes a controlling element in our elections. The Democratic party had so long held the reigns of power and controlled all positions of trust and honor before the war, that its adherents began to think that they had an inherent and indefeasible right to them, and fealty to party to be regarded as of paramount importance in questions of government, Whatever the leaders dictated was blindly followed by the rank and file, and no matter how iniquitous or unjust its measures might be, it was considered treason not to abjectly follow its dictates, and the early settlers in this valley came with all the prejudice and blind subserviency to party that characterized its votaries elsewhere. All deprecated the evils of slavery and seemed to regard it as the source of, or as threatening, overwhelming disaster to the country, but the course to pursue in order to avert it, involved the bitterest controversies, and finally, as the question became one of peace or war, may be said to have marked the line between the enemies and friends of our government. In their eagerness to secure the united vote and influence of the slave-holders, both the Whig and Democratic parties had, eight years before, gone down on their knees, and, in the basest and most abject servility, crave the privilege of stultifying themselves, of ignoring justice and the claims of manhood and freedom, and of doing any amount of dirty work for the party, for the sake of office, and as the Democratic party succeeded, its leaders supposed they could always win by such baseness, and then it was the party, in this State, was compelled to go back on this previous record, and take up the refrain for the South that 'slavery was ordained by God, and that the Negro had no rights that white men were bound to respect.' Even the Church and the ministers of religion echoed these horrid sentiments with solemn and pompous arrogance, so that for a time it seemed as though justice, mercy, and truth had taken their flight from the earth, and there was none to shield the oppressed and hurl back the oppressor. But all good men of both political parties beheld this state of things with alarm and consternation; and assuming from the light of the past that further concessions to the slave power would only defer for a season, but could not avert, the impending calamity, formed a new party, feeble, indeed, at first, and seemingly powerless to grapple with an adversary so arrogant and powerful, but gathering such strength in a few years as to convince the world that justice, truth, and freedom for all constitute the only foundation of good government. The insatiable demands and exactions of the slaveholding wing of the Democratic Party became unsupportable to a great many of the best men of the party, and the press, the rostrum, and the pulpit of the Free States soon recognized the necessity of a higher standard of political faith and ethics, and joined their fortunes with the new party as the only hope of salvation for the country. But the most influential, perhaps, of all the agencies employed to reform public sentiment and mould the opinions and political thought upon a higher plane and into purer channels, were certain works of fiction, the most conspicuous of which was Mrs. Stowe's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' which, being dramatized, exhibited the awful horrors of the system of slavery to the most ignorant classes with telling effect. In the Church, the most liberal and progressive sects were the first to plant themselves on the broad ground of freedom for all and exact justice to every human being, as the objects of 'His care whose tender mercies are over all His works.' And foremost among these in the great work of reform may be mentioned the Congregationalist, Universalist, and Methodist Churches, whose periodical literature had for several years previous been out-spoken in denouncing the horrid traffic in human beings as the sum of all villainies. During the winter preceding the war, while the Southern States were busy taking themselves out of the Union, the prejudices of our people in favor of party as against country were sometimes painfully apparent. On one occasion, the writer dined at a hotel in Eau Claire, at which were present some thirty or forty of the business and influential citizens of the town and country, and adverting during the conversation to the attitude assumed by South Carolina, remarked that 'it looks now as though, in order to save the country, we shall need to fight.' When to his astonishment, nearly a dozen of the most prominent who were present, from town and county, instantly replied, "If it comes to that, we shall be found in some Southern Regiment.' Three newspapers were at that time published in this valley, tow of which, the Eau Claire Free Press, edited by Gilbert E. Porter, and the Dunn County Lumberman, edited by E.S. Bundy, were able advocates of the cause of freedom, but the Chippewa Falls Democrat, conducted by Joseph and A.W. Delaney, subject the trammels of party, halted long between two opinions, but finally succumbed to circumstances and retired from the field, before actual commencement of hostilities. Of the legal fraternity, as a body, not much can be said in their favor as self-sacrificing citizens and patriots. Hollon Richardson of Chippewa Falls (a Democrat), Pitt Bartlett, Horace Barnes, and Mr. Spencer, of Eau Claire, Colonel E.M. Bartlett, then of Durand, and the Bundy brothers, of Menomonie, all gave their hearty support to the government under the new, or Republican, administration. The Honorable Alexander Meggett, Democrat, prepared an able speech in defense of the war, extracts from which will be given hereafter. But devotion to the Democratic party had so long been the only passport to political preferment, that a very lard share of the legal profession had staked all their ambitious hopes on its success. Nearly every clergyman in this valley did honor to himself and the profession, by acts of loyalty and words of hope in the darkest hours of our country's peril. Reverend Bradley Phillips, of Chippewa Falls, wrote to his pro-slavery Presbyterian paper that its tone must be changed or the paper stopped. Reverend Mr. Kidder's voice was always for the Union, and for the war to uphold and preserve it. The itinerants of the M.E. Church, following the lead of the late lamented Dr. Eddy, of the Northwestern Advocate, boldly declared to their congregations that no man could be a good Methodist and uphold slavery. A Christian minister, whose flock were politically divided, and whose living depended upon their united support, stood in need of a double supply of grace to enable him to act upon his convictions at such a time. Reverend J.O. Barrett, Universalist, of Eau Claire, was thus circumstances; his parish was feeble, at best, and his congregation about equally divided in regard to the war, and the object for which it was wages; but his whole soul was in eh cause of freedom and the Union, and he was recognized on all public occasions as an eloquent and powerful advocate of Republican principles and the cause of liberty. A large majority of the Democrats here belong to the Douglass wing of the party, and the statesmen's speech in Chicago, after the firing upon Fort Sumter, caused many to pause in their made and treasonable opposition to the government. But through the war, their sullen silence or half-suppressed groans, whenever news of success to the Union arms came over the wires, showed plainly where their sympathies were, as though they somehow realized that every shot aimed at the enemy was fired at their idolized party, and on the other hand, when misfortunes befell the Union cause, and during the long dark months of doubt and adversity, when the life of the nation hung in the balance, it was impossible for such men to conceal the satisfaction and delight with which every reverse of the Union arms was received. But who shall describe the agony, and bitterness, mortification, and sorrow of those weary, waiting months, to the anxious friends of freedom and the Union, as the day after day brought new disasters, and the jeers, and ridicule, and triumph of its enemies were heaped upon them, with insolent and insufferable arrogance and effrontery? Were all those sorrows and sufferings and all those sacrifices in vain; these terrible burdens and the lives of our sons, brother, and fathers laid day after day and month after month, upon our country's alter, all for naught? But more fearful and agonizing still was the ever-recurring question, Shall wrong and injustice and oppression forever triumph? Shall slavery plant its heel upon all these fair fields, and curse forever with its blighting influence, the fairest portion of the heritage of man? Shall the blight escutcheon of American liberty be forever darkened by the awful cruelties of a system of legalized robbery?