My 19th Century Iowa ancestors were ardent abolitionists. They were not rich or brilliant, so they could not do very much. They were busy doing ALL THEIR OWN HARD LABOR and ALL THEIR OWN DIRTY WORK because THEY REFUSED TO TAKE PART IN THE FILTHY VICIOUS SLAVE SYSTEM. But they did send somebody to join in the Civil War to HELP FREE PEOPLE FROM SLAVERY. George S. Barnes was sixteen years old when he marched off to help free the slaves. George was kind and cheerful and energetic, exactly the kind of teenager you might expect would want to do this. He was captured soon after, and spent the next THREE YEARS being SLOWLY TORTURED TO DEATH in a confederate prison camp. He lived to see his camp liberated, but the medical workers could not save his life. I am holding the little clay tray he managed to sign before he died, to cheer up his little sister, my great grandmother, who adored him.

Joni Ernst, you have just desecrated the graves of these two people, and everybody who loved them. And every person in Iowa who did whatever was possible to oppose and to end the monstrosity that was slavery. And every Iowan who was an ex-member of the old 18th century liberal Whig party, who helped to form the new 19th Century Republican party, in order to end slavery.