Calhoun made the assertion on the floor of the United States Senate that he had been told that "the Iowa country has been seized upon by a lawless body of armed men." Senator Ewing, of Ohio, and Senator Clay, of Kentucky, had received similar information, the former asserting that he would in no way object to giving each rascal who crossed the Mississippi to the westward one thousand dollars if by that means he might get rid of him. And these distinguished statesmen were not alone in this view. To many in the east the first comers to the territory were "land robbers," "idle and profligate characters," "fugitives from justice," "lawless intruders," and worse. They were squatters "who feared neither the laws of God nor man." Doubtless those who made these assertions were honest and sincere. They believed that only the most desperate characters, the outcasts of decent communities, had the hardihood to explore this _terra incognita_. They could not comprehend how persons living in settled communities, and surrounded with many of the comforts of life, could be so fool-hardy as to leave all these things for the sake of making a new home in a wilderness inhabited only by wild animals and wilder and more dangerous Indians. But there is another side to the picture. Personal observation is always more to be depended upon than hearsay testimony. One of the most trust-worthy of the early writers on Iowa is Lieut. Albert Miller Lea. He had spent some years in the "Ioway District"; he had made a tour of observation across the state; he had most excellent opportunities for observing and studying the character of our first settlers. His testimony cannot be impeached, for he was a man far above the practice of deceit. In his _Notes on the Wisconsin Territory_, particularly with reference to the Iowa District or Black Hawk Purchase, published in 1836, he gives this vivid and truthful picture of our early inhabitants: "The character of this population is such as is rarely to be found in our newly acquired territories. With very few exceptions, there is not a more orderly, industrious, active, pains-taking population west of the Alleghenies, than is this of the Iowa District. Those who have been accustomed to associate the name of _Squatter_ with the idea of idleness and recklessness, would be quite surprised to see the systematic manner in which every thing is here conducted. For intelligence, I boldly assert that they are not surpassed, as a body, by an equal number of citizens of any country in the world. "It is a matter of surprise that, about the Mining Region, there should be so little of the recklessness that is usual in that sort of life.... This regularity and propriety is to be attributed to the preponderance of well informed and well-intentioned gentlemen among them, as well as to the disposition of the mass of the people."[G]