BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Samuel Jordan Kirkwood, the fifth Governor of the State of Iowa, was born in Harford County, Maryland, on December 20, 1813. He was of Scotch and Scotch-Irish descent. His grandfather, Robert Kirkwood, was an officer in the Revolutionary War. His father, Jabez Kirkwood, was born in the memorable year of 1776. The early life of Samuel J. Kirkwood was spent at home on his father's farm in Maryland. At the age of ten he was sent to Washington, D. C., where he attended school four years.

In 1835 Mr. Kirkwood went with his father to Richland County, Ohio. Here the future Governor of Iowa worked on the farm through the summers and taught school during the winters. In 1840 he was employed as deputy assessor of Richland County.

At the age of twenty-eight Mr. Kirkwood went to Mansfield, Ohio, to study law in an office. Two years later he was admitted to the practice of law by the Supreme Court of Ohio. He opened an office at Mansfield, and soon thereafter formed a partnership with his former preceptor, Thomas W. Bartley. In 1843 he married Jane Clark.

In 1850 Mr. Kirkwood served as a member of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Ohio. Prior to this time he had served his County as prosecuting attorney (1845-1849).

He retired from the practice of the law and removed to Johnson County, Iowa, in the spring of 1855. Here he

formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, Mr. Ezekiel Clark, in the management of a farm of twelve hundred acres, a mill at Coralville, and a store at Iowa City.

Mr. Kirkwood's first appearance in Iowa politics seems to have been at the organization of the Republican Party of this State which took place at Iowa City on February 22, 1856. In the same year he was elected to the upper house of the General Assembly. He was reëlected to the Senate in 1858. In the fall of 1859 he was elected Governor by the Republicans of Iowa. To this office he was reëlected in 1861. Again in 1875 he was elected for a third term.

In 1866 Mr. Kirkwood was chosen United States Senator from Iowa to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James Harlan. Within five days of his inauguration as Governor in 1876 he was again elected to a seat in the United States Senate. By President Garfield he was given a seat in the cabinet with the portfolio of Secretary of the Interior. He continued in this position for a short time under President Arthur. In 1886 he was defeated for Congress in the Second District.

Samuel Jordan Kirkwood died at his home in Iowa City on September 1, 1894. He was buried in the cemetery at Iowa City.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.-Annals of Iowa, 1st Series, Vol. XI, p.

608.

Annals of Iowa, 3d Series, Vol. I, p. 581; Vol. III, p. 308; Vol. IV, pp. 475, 547. Iowa Historical Record, Vol. II, pp. 321, 372; Vol. III, p. 429; Vol. VI, p. 565; Vol. VII, pp. 34, 39; Vol. X, p. 145. The most complete biography of Governor Kirkwood will be found in Lathrop's The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood.

FIRST INAUGURAL

JANUARY 11, 1860

From the Journal of the House of Representatives, p. 51

Gentlemen of the Senate, and the House of Representatives:

The people of Iowa have placed in your hands, for the time being, the law-making power of the State, and therefore they look to you, that, during the time you hold this trust, such course of policy shall be pursued and such laws enacted, as will tend to promote the honor and the welfare of the State.

The office to which I have been elected, and the responsibilities which I have just assumed, associate me with you to a certain extent in this work, by imposing upon me, among other duties, that of communicating to you such information as will aid you in the performance of your duties, and recommending to you such measures as in my opinion will, if adopted by you, advance the public welfare.

Under a government like ours, where the people are the source of all political power, the laws are necessarily a fair reflex of the intelligence and morals of the people; and therefore it becomes of the first importance that the standard of intelligence and morality should be raised as high as possible. In this view it has been the settled policy of the State to foster and encourage, in all suitable ways, the education of the youths of the State, so that when at a more advanced period of life, they take part in the direction and

control of public affairs, they can do so understandingly, and with an intelligent regard to the public welfare. Under our Constitution the subject of education has been almost wholly withdrawn from you, and placed in the hands of a board specially constituted for that purpose, leaving with you, however, the power of revising and amending their action. This board has just closed a session, at which they have made such changes in, and amendments to the school law as they deemed expedient and proper, and in my opinion it would be prudent for you to interfere with their action only in case that you shall find, upon examination, an overpowering necessity for so doing.

Not only is it highly important that the voice of our people, as expressed through the ballot box, shall be enlightened and intelligent, but it is imperatively necessary that the utterings of that voice be correctly and honestly reported. In a government like ours, without privileged classes, and where the laws affect all alike, we need not fear that a majority of our people will deliberately pursue a policy intended to operate injuriously upon the public welfare, because by so doing they would be acting contrary to their own best interests. We therefore feel at all times safe in submitting quietly and cheerfully to the will of the majority fairly and Constitutionally expressed, confident if at any time, from any cause, the people are led into error, they have the sagacity speedily to detect and the honesty promptly to correct the error. But if through fraud or violence, the ballot box shall cease to report to us correctly and honestly the will of the majority; if corrupt and interested men are enabled to substitute their will for that of the

people, then the assurance of safety derived to us from the honesty, the intelligence, and the interest of the people, no longer exists—our confidence in our government is lost, and we feel that we are at the mercy of dishonest men, who seek the control of our affairs for the purpose of promoting their own private interests rather than the public good. We can not, therefore, guard with too much care, the sanctity and purity of the ballot box. In my opinion, there is no measure so well calculated to effect this object, as a carefully prepared and well guarded registry law; and I respectfully recommend that measure to your consideration. It may be objected by some, that the operation of such a law is burdensome to the electors. I am satisfied that the supposed difficulty, in this respect, is much overestimated, and even were it not, I cannot conceive that any elector who properly appreciates the value of the privilege he enjoys as such, will deem burdensome any reasonable amount of time and attention that it may be necessary for him to bestow, in order to prevent his honest vote from being destroyed by a fraudulent one.

The institutions for the care of the insane, and for the education of the mute and the blind, will, I doubt not, receive from you prompt and cheerful attention and support. Established as they have been, in answer to the requirements of those better feelings of our nature, which prompt us to protect the weak and succor the unfortunate, you may rely with confidence upon the approval by our people, of all reasonable and proper efforts on your part to make them useful and efficient means for carrying out the noble purposes for which they were created.