of the farmers during the Granger period played
prominent parts in later phases of the agrarian crusade. The rank and
file of the successive parties must have been much the same, but each
wave of the movement swept new leaders to the surface.

The one outstanding exception among the leaders of the Anti-Monopolists
was Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota "the sage of Nininger"--who remained
a captain of the radical cohorts in every agrarian movement until
his death in 1901. A red-headed aggressive Irishman, with a magnetic
personality and a remarkable intellect, Donnelly went to Minnesota from
Pennsylvania in 1856 and speculated in town sites on a large scale. When
he was left stranded by the panic of 1857, acting upon his own principle
that "to hide one's light under a bushel is to extinguish it," he
entered the political arena. In Pennsylvania Donnelly had been a
Democrat, but his genuine sympathy for the oppressed made him an
opponent of slavery and consequently a Republican. In 1857 and 1858
he ran for the state senate in Minnesota on the Republican ticket in a
hopelessly Democratic county. In 1859 he was nominated for lieutenant
governor on the ticket headed by Alexander Ramsey; and his caustic wit,
his keenness in debate, and his eloquence made him a valuable asset in
the battle-royal between Republicans and Democrats for the possession
of Minnesota. As lieutenant governor, Donnelly early showed his sympathy
with the farmers by championing laws which lowered the legal rate
of interest and which made more humane the process of foreclosure on
mortgages. The outbreak of the Civil War gave him an opportunity to
demonstrate his executive ability as acting governor during Ramsey's
frequent trips to Washington. In this capacity he issued the first
proclamation for the raising of Minnesota troops in response to the call
of President Lincoln. Elected to Congress in 1862, he served three terms
and usually supported progressive legislation.

Donnelly's growing popularity and his ambition for promotion to the
Senate soon became a matter of alarm to the friends of Senator Ramsey,
who controlled the Republican party in the State. They' determined to
prevent Donnelly's renomination in 1868 and selected William D. Washburn
of Minneapolis to make the race against him. In the spring of this year
Donnelly engaged in a controversy with Representative E. B. Washburn
of Illinois, a brother of W. D. Washburn, in the course of which the
Illin