Henry Clay Dean

Henry Clay Dean (27 October 1822 – 6 February 1887) was a Methodist Episcopal preacher, lawyer, orator and author who was a critic of the American Civil War and the Lincoln Administration.

In 1845 he joined the Methodist Episcopal Conference of Virginia and began to preach in the mountain region of that state where he remained for four years.

In 1850 he removed to Iowa, locating to Pittsburg in Van Buren County, where he preached through the Keosauqua circuit, joining the Fairfield Conference.

He was a public speaker of rare eloquence and was frequently invited to deliver lectures, among which was a ‘Reply to Ingersoll,' ‘The Constitution,' ‘Declaration of Independence' and many other topics.

He opposed the Lecompton Constitution written by proslavery Kansans and supported the popular sovereignty view of Stephen Douglas.

In his article "The Bloodmarket of the Rich", Dean argued the entire war was conceived by an international conspiracy of bankers and "stock-gamblers".

[citation needed] Dean was arrested for disloyal utterances and confined in prison for two weeks by order of Government officials.

He would sit down on a curbstone with his book, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the tramp of the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour, never changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then to let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its contents, however abstruse, had been burned into his memory, and were his permanent possession.