One grand objection raised by a professing Democrat is that it is a Whig measure, seconded by a few ambitious and disappointed Democrats, and a finger is pointed directly at the honorable gentleman from Racine, whom I believe to be an old and consistent Democrat, and one who has long been looked up to in this territory, and who has never heretofore been charged with being anything but a Democrat. Now I think the gentleman from Racine abundantly able to take care of himself, and I will not make his case any worse by attempting to defend him. We Whigs can help him only by abusing him; a little of such treatment will restore him to the bosom of the great Democratic family; and while I will not attempt his defense, though he deserves better treatment at the hands of his fellow Democrats, I must be allowed to say that I am quite delighted with every little quarrel in the great and harmonious Democratic family; and what is peculiarly amusing about it is that these old, long tried, ever true, "Jeffersonian" Democrats of two, three, and four years' standing through their "progressive” wisdom can teach regular Democrats that they never were Democrats and undertake to read them out of the party. "Old things are being done away and all things are becoming new," and the newest thing yet is that it has been left to "progressive" Democracy to discover the wonderful art of making fifty-year-old Jeffersonian Democrats out of real federal stock in the humble space of from two to four years. This is not only a great country, but a very wonderful age in which we live.

I said, Mr. President, this bill had been styled a Whig measure. Be it so I am willing if the Democrats wish as a party to oppose the measure, though I think the two honorable gents from Racine and Milwaukee, as ably as they have supported this bill, can hardly be called good Whigs. Talking about Whigs reminds me of the apology of the gentleman from Rock for the sixth section of the article on banking. This he calls a Whig article and claims that the Whigs carried it in spite of the Democrats. This is really complimentary to the Whigs-I know they are rascally fellows and always leading confiding Democrats into difficulty. I am aware that there is a great deal of life in a few Whigs, and that a few of them give life to a large body-that they are lively stones in a building-but who would have thought that there was leaven enough in fifteen Whigs to have “leavened the whole lump" in the convention of one hundred and twenty-six members. This is indeed encouraging and leaves room for hope that the Whigs here may yet save the state,

In this connection, sir, perhaps I ought to notice the gentleman from Iowa, but I hardly know how to do it and I beg that if in attempting to answer him I should so far forget myself as to sail under him and say something about the merits of this bill, the gentleman will pardon-his flights were too lofty for me. I am a little afraid of these aerial excursions, and in his boldest flights I was about to call him to order as traveling quite off the record. I could hardly restrain myself from calling out to him in a loud voice, "Come down, my friend, some things can't be done as well as others, the good people of Wisconsin can never make a constitution that will take jurisdiction of your immense altitude"; but he came down, sir, and with such a sprinkling of Holy Writ, Shakspeare, and poetry that I did not find my way out during the balance of his speech, and I am compelled to leave the gentleman.

This bill has met with violent opposition-I wish I could say, with fair, dispassionate and candid arguments. Why it has been so met appears to me strange, if gentlemen are entitled to any credit for sincerity. For they tell us that the constitution will have the undivided support of Democrats, and they, I am sorry to say, for other purposes than this, are pretty plenty, and since nothing can stop them I really wish that this bill might pass, particularly as according to loud declaration it cannot hurt the constitution and will cost no more to pass than to reject this bill. The grand difficulty is, in my humble opinion, gentlemen wish and hope it may be so, but have not confidence that the constitution is sure to be adopted. They are willing on speculation to take what seems to be the loudest here as the voice of the people of the territory, and yet they fear. Now, sir, I will not undertake to say how the vote will stand in the territory, but I do undertake to say that if gentlemen judge from appearances here at the capitol they are quite likely to be mistaken. The would-be champions of the constitution and democracy are here and whether they would or not they may mislead their confiding brethren. It is peculiar to the place itself that men should lose their "reckonings." The principal streets in our little city run diagonally with the cardinal points of the compass, and in a cloudy time strangers from that cause become bewildered and lose all idea of direction-the weather vane aloft does but little for them. So with the political avenues and the political vane-there is the greatest imaginable sympathy between the two arrangements. Here "the wind bloweth and we hear the sound thereof," etc.

One more argument in favor of the constitution and of course against this bill I must notice, and I have done. It is, sir, that there is in the instrument itself a provision making it easily amendable. If there were no other, sir, this would of itself be an objection to the instrument. What What a humiliating sense of feeling must have possessed the convention when this provision was made, and how very proper and much needed was that spirit of humility. This very act of theirs was a reflection. Gentlemen talk to us about reflecting upon the convention by passing a law which presupposes that the people may reject the constitution. We but take the convention at its word when we take the liberty to think it will be rejected, for the convention virtually impeached it, and the people are not supposed to want work that cannot be warranted. And in the same breath the opposers of this bill say the will of the people is expressed by authority in that instrument, the members of the convention having been taken fresh from among the people, while they dare not submit along with the constitution the privilege of taking it or the privilege of making another. What consistency, and how becoming to honest legislators!

This beginning to change a constitution before we begin to adopt it will never do. If any of its provisions are mischievous in their tendency, more mischief will be done while we live under before it can be amended than courts can rectify in an age-trouble and litigation may cease when children yet unborn may have outlived the very memory of their ancestors. It is idle to try calculation at the evils-litigation grows best where imagination can never plant. I cannot listen to these amendment persuasions.

The constitution is to the civil government of the state what the foundation is to the superstructure-unless it be sound in material and properly put together the superstructure is constantly in danger, and a "tinkering" with the foundation, if it does not destroy, endangers the whole.-Express, March 2, 1847.

DEBATE IN ASSEMBLY, FEBRUARY 9, 1847

Mr. Morrow moved to take up council bill No. 32, to amend an act entitled, "An Act in relation to the formation of a state government in Wisconsin," approved January 31, 1846, and that the same be indefinitely postponed.

Mr. Brown of Grant addressed the house, as follows:

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us is one which has been introduced and matured in the other branch of this assembly and has now come before us for our adoption or rejection. The bill provides for the calling of a new convention in case the constitution now submitted to the people does not meet with their approbation. It appears, sir, that this bill calls in question the merits or demerits of another document which is now before the people of the territory for their reception or rejection in April next, to wit: the constitution for the state of Wisconsin. It is contended on the part of the opposers of this bill that if we pass it, it will be a great impediment or rather a stumblingblock against the adoption of the constitution. Is this so. Mr. Speaker? I certainly beg leave to differ with the opposition. Are there not hundreds, yea, thousands of names on these petitions who have declared themselves in favor of the constitution? They certainly cannot answer to the contrary. The petitions have come pouring in from every part of the territory ever since the first week of the present session and they are now swelled in the aggregate to the enormous amount of four or five thousand. Do you believe in the right of instruction? If in the affirmative, what are you going to do with these petitions? Look over them, not notice them, or smother them here in the assembly? Repudiate them, spurn them from you with contempt, and say to the petitioners-you ask for something that you cannot get-you ask too much-you shall not be heard. We cannot grant you such request, merely because we have come here with fixed and prepossessed principles, which all your petitions cannot move.

The people of the territory have once decided by a large majority in favor of state government, and for that purpose there has been a constitution framed, and which there is a great difference of opinion about, and which there is a possibility of being rejected. This I presume no one will deny, and if there is a possibility, why not prepare for the contingency? Is there anything wrong in it? Where is the difficulty?

Why, they say if this law is passed it will be tantamount to defeating the constitution, for the people will see a way to get rid of this enormous evil which is hanging over their heads. By rejecting this and preparing to make a better one, is this the way to treat the people who petitioned in such great numbers for the passage of this law? Is this adhering to the right of instruction? Is this in accordance with the wishes of the people? These petitions, sir, prove to the contrary. Gentlemen cannot foresee the consequences resulting from the defeat of this bill. It cannot be disputed by any member but what the people are ripe for state government. Now, sir, if we refuse to make the necessary provisions for a second convention, and the constitution should be rejected, which no one will dispute but what there is a possibility of, there would be no remedy until the next meeting of the legislative assembly. Again, sir, Congress has received the present constitution-perhaps they have already acted upon it-and perhaps they have accepted it. If so, there is some doubt whether Congress will at this state of the proceeding appropriate any funds for another session to be held in the territory. Then is it not our duty to prepare for such contingencies when we can do so and save a great expense to the territory with no expense to the present legislature?

And again, sir, should there be no appropriation made by Congress, and this subject being not considered by the governor a sufficient emergency to call an extra session, how will the people obtain their remedy? The law of Congress is explicit on this point, for it says, "There shall be no session of the General Assembly held in the territory until there has been an appropriation made by Congress to defray the expenses thereof."

Now, sir, if there is no appropriation made by Congress, no sufficient cause for the governor to call an extra session of the legislature, the people are entirely without a remedy and consequently will have to remain under a territorial government for years to come. It appears that the most of the friends of the constitution are opposed to this bill for fear, as they say, it will defeat the reception of the constitution by the people. Now, sir, this is as much as to say to the people that you must take that constitution with all its crudities and imperfections or go without any-a kind of force put to compel them to accept a thing they do not like.

Mr. Speaker, if I understand anything about the thinking minds of the people of this territory, they are not going to be gagged by such false doctrines. The time has long passed since the doctrine of persecution has been taught and that of toleration substituted