RECONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS.

A NORTHERN MAN'S CRITICISMS OF A SENATOR DURING THE EARLY Stages of the Civil War.

A LETTER TO SENATOR J. R. DOOLITTLE FROM JUDGE DAVID NOGGLE.

[The author of the subjoined letter was, at the date of its writing, a judge of one of the circuit courts of Wisconsin, next to the highest court of record in the State, the Supreme Court being the court of last resort. One of his brethren of the Wisconsin bar has said of him: "His lack of educational advantages and professional training did not embarrass him; the strong power of his will being adequate to overcome slight obstacles, and if his orthography was not always correct, it conformed to phonographic modes, and always had the advantage of idem sonans. He was a powerful and successful advocate before a jury, and by large experience and hard study he became a very good lawer."

The letter is thoroughly characteristic of its author. The views which he presents and the arguments which he adduces, were entertained by many another Northern man at the time indicated. There was then a wide-spread feeling of unrest and discontent in the North, as a result of the defeat at the first battle of Bull Run, at what was thought to be the too easy and conciliatory methods of the administration in dealing with the seceding South.

This letter was found among Mr. Doolittle's private papers. There is no note or memorandum to indicate that it was ever answered. -DUANE MOWRY, 204 Grand Ave., Milwaukee, Wis.]

Dear Judge:

NOGGLE TO DOOLITTLE.

Green Bay, May 30th, 1862.

Your letter answering my grumbling note (for such you evidently consider it) reached me at Kenosha. I was then under an engagement for this place to hold the Circuit Court here, Judge Wheeler having engaged to hold my June term in Janesville. I would not waste your time, or trouble you with a reply, were it not for the mistakes you are laboring under, as it seems to me.

You say "the men and all the men who criticise me would trample under their feet all the rights of States to legislate for themselves upon the relation of master and apprentice, master and slave, &c. It is only by military necessity that we can take slaves. They would cease to be States altogether if these men had their way."

Do you mean such men as Sumner, Willson, Harlan, Grimes, Howard and Trumbull? If you do, Judge, you are condemning a host of the genuine favorites of the people, and, in my opinion, the true friends of the country.

You say "the rebellion will be crushed out soon, or so nearly crushed as to be easily handled, and the tremendous effort to consolidate and concentrate all legislative power in this government will be an overshadowing danger."

But you can't believe for one moment that such is the design of Sumner, Trumbull or any other ultra-Republican? On the contrary, you know that such is the secret design of democrats, neutrals and conservatives.

Again, you say "as to the district bill, I was outrageously misrepresented by some of the press, and the cowardly manner in which it was done by some is simply contemptible. The truth is that my amend, so far from delaying the bill, saved the bill and carried it through. As to the question of colonization, it is the most practical idea to aid emancipation. I stand with the Republican party. I stand with the president. The men who denounce him are weakening his hands, and the result of it all is to unite back into power the Democratic party. Unless our people have sense enough to rally around him and sustain his policy, these croakers, who, next to the thieves, are doing most against the administration, who are natural fault-finders, have trained so long in the minority they do not know how to support a majority. The Republican party will be overthrown, and the Democratic party will come into power as matter of course. You

speak of Senator Collamer in terms such as I know you would not if you knew him."

I cannot, of course, expect to do anything like justice to your various suggestions; but I do feel that it is due to you to make at least a brief attempt to correct some of the errors you seem to fall into. And first, allow me to say in all candor, that you never made a greater mistake than you do in designating those who now criticise your course. I can assure you they are not your enemies, or the indifferent Republicans; but on the contrary they are the uncompromising ultra-Republicans everywhere that I go in the state that are, not, perhaps, criticising the speeches you are reported as making, or your reported votes upon abolishing slavery and confiscating property, but such friends and such Republicans as are mourning and chopfallen over the speeches which you did make, while such Union-loving and freedom-shrieking sheets as the Milwaukee News, Madison Patriot and La Crosse Democrat, and the forty democracy generally seem highly delighted with what they term your conservatism; these are speaking facts which prove themselves here at home, and facts that ought to reach your good judgment. As a friend of yours, I must say that it was extremely unfortunate for you that you happened to fall into the error of repeating on the Senate floor that contemptible stale old story improperly credited to Collamer; which, coming as it did from you, only added to the bitterness of its sarcasm upon the Republican party. How could you so far adapt the withering falsehood of our opponents as to give prominence and respectability to their foul charges by repeating that most miserable and disgraceful of all falsehoods, thereby adapting and promulgating it as your senatorial sentiments? You certainly know there is not a word of truth in the suggestion of that story. With all due deference to your wild notions of colonization, I think you can't but believe that by abolishing slavery in the Southern States, the North

ern States would be speedily cleared of their present free colored population, and thus would be ended the trouble of Collamer's Vermont plug. You must bear with your friends should they decline to tolerate in you that which they might in Wigfal or Valandigham. I can't believe that you considered for a single moment the volumes of bitter, scathing, sarcastic abuse that you unmercifully showered down upon the heads of earnest and honest Republicans, who in any way favor emancipation, when you repeated that story, based on falsehood, of course.

If in this I am mistaken, and if you have thoroughly considered it, you certainly cannot be a friend of the Republican cause, as I understand it. But, if in telling the story, your object was merely for a little fun, then, of course, you meant no slur by it; but after all, the U. S. Senate is a mighty bad place to indulge in unmeaning sport in making speeches.

You say "it is only by military necessity that we can take slaves." I am aware that this is the seed that has produced months of worthless discussion, wasting the money and destroying the lives of the people of this government, and I am aware that this is the great humbug of opposition to Trumbull's bill, and it is what brought forth Collamer's wonderful crop of shallow sophistry against Trumbull's bill. Of its kind, Collamer's speech is able, ingenious, unmeaning and deceptive. It commences, proceeds and concludes in sophistry and fallacy. Trumbull's speech and bill are both certain, positive, direct and correct beyond a doubt, in principle, and certainly, in policy. Collamer concludes by introducing a substitute that, like Seward's speeches, may mean something and may not. The substitute, however, proves most conclusively that Trumbull is right, and that his bill should become a law at once, because, if Congress has the power to enact the 4th, 6th, and 7th sections of Collamer's substitute, then clearly it has the power to enact T's bill. If Congress can say that the slave of a rebel shall be free, if the

rebel is in arms the length of time to be fixed by the President, then, by the same power, Congress can say that the slaves of all rebels shall be free, if the rebel does not lay down his arms within 60 days after Trumbull's bill becomes a law; and if Congress can say that the owner of a slave in South Carolina, in an action to recover such slave under the laws of that State, "shall in the first instance and as preliminary to the trial of such claim show satisfactorily. that he, during the period of the insurrection or rebellion was loyal to the United States," most assuredly Congress has the power to declare rebels outlaws forever, and to say that all such rebels shall be forever barred from any and all right to claim the service of any man or person as an apprentice, slave or otherwise. These two suggestions disposes of the whole of Collamer's great furor about confiscation. You must not think hard if the people do become impatient with the outrageous waste of time and money in Congress, and with the faint-hearted tardiness of Republicans in doing that which must be done to save our country, and when done will save thousands of valuable lives. Now, with all Collamer's ability, and I do think him an able and highly respectable man, there is more sound sense and good law in Trumbull's bill and in his speech, than in all that has been said against either, and his measure is the true policy, and ought to have been adopted as early as the extra session, instead of fooling away the time catering to Kentucky traitors and making speeches for electioneering purposes. Its delay has made hundreds of thousands of widows, orphans and cripples, and has added hundreds of millions to the expense of this war, and the rebellion never will end until that or some stronger policy is adopted. Banks seems to be just about where he was nearly a year ago without any fault of his, simply the fruits of the glorious old facile Whig policy. With 5,000 armed negroes added to his army, which he would have had, if permitted, he might have driven