form an estimate which will be sure to come within a hundred per cent as to the value which will be expressed by $100, three or five years hence.

If the Star is not prepared to yield assent, in the main, to the foregoing propositions, we must decline reasoning with him upon the subject until he has taken his first lessons in political economy. If that assent be yielded, we are prepared to submit for the consideration of our neighbor another inquiry.

Can any man have a "natural and moral right" to countenance, aid, and abet a system which is fraught with these enormous evils? Can he have a right to help cheat himself and his countrymen out of eight or ten millions of dollars a year? Can he have a right to pass round a currency which is destitute of any value that may not at any moment depart from it, fluctuating in quantity and producing like fluctuations in the market at the will of those who make and issue it, and for their benefit?

No, it cannot be; the currency as we have often remarked is a public medium of exchange and is in an important sense public property, and every man is interested in the whole of it. Permanence of value and steadiness of quantity are conditions of the currency as really essential to the public welfare as is the purity of the air we breathe. These conditions attach more perfectly to the precious metals than to any other known substances which are in other respects adapted to the purposes of currency. By the circulation of paper money, the currency is deprived of these essential attributes, and a public and flagrant wrong is committed.

For these reasons it is not only the right but the duty of the government to prescribe the material which shall constitute the currency and to prohibit the use of any other.

THE SIXTH SECTION

[January 26, 1847]

OBJECTION NO. 2

That a law like the sixth section will be violated by common consent, and would become a dead letter, and would consequently establish a dangerous precedent.— Western Star.

We agree with the Star that a law which cannot be enforced is worse than none-its tendency being to weaken the authority of all law; and we admit, further, that the alleged probability of its practical nullity is the most plausible objection which, to our knowledge, has been urged against the sixth section of the bank article.

Its correctness as a principle none but out and out bank men can for a moment question.

But is the assumption that this law "will be violated by common consent" a warrantable one? In support of the assumption the Star refers us to the attempts which have been made in New York and Pennsylvania to suppress the circulation of notes below $5. But the circumstances attending those efforts were widely different from those in which we are placed.

First. At that time there was nothing like a general sentiment existing in those communities against banks or bank paper but on the contrary the delusive impression that both were essential to the public welfare had full and undisputed possession of the public mind. With us it is far otherwise.

Second. They had a bank and a score of bank directors at every four corners, with thumbscrews ready for those who should presume to think for themselves and speak their minds; but from this corrupting and domineering influence we are as yet comparatively free.

Third. We must correct the Star in regard to the laws alluded to being entirely disregarded. In New York the law was very generally observed for about two years (notwithstanding the adverse circumstances to which we have alluded) until the banks suspended specie payment and instead of redeeming their notes commenced gathering into their vaults the little coin which their excessive issues had not yet driven from the country. The banks being indulged in this nefarious policy, the people of the state soon became reduced to the greatest distress for want of the lower denominations of currency.

The banks took advantage of that necessity which knows no law, and which they themselves had produced, to force their small bills upon the community in defiance of law and against the free choice of the people.

We are informed that in Pennsylvania the law prohibiting the circulation of small bills is still in force and very generally sustained. Such is the sum of the evidence drawn from the experience of other states that the sixth section of the bank article "will be violated by common consent.”

The Star has adduced no direct evidence of the correctness of his assertion. Does any such evidence exist? Will this section be violated because the people prefer paper money to coin? We presume our neighbor will pretend to no such thing; if he does, we would suggest that he take a handful of small bank notes and try to exchange them, dollar for dollar, for specie and see how he

will succeed. Let any man try this experiment and he will very soon be satisfied, if he was not before, that people almost universally prefer coin to paper. Even the most inveterate bankite, when he has both paper and coin on hand, will shove off the paper first. Ask a merchant to change a bill for you, and he will tell you he cannot give you the specie for it-meaning always that he will not. In fact the universal preference for specie over paper is too notorious to be denied.

While this uniform preference for specie holds possession of the public mind, the law in question cannot be "violated by common consent." If violated at all it will be by some common necessity overbalancing the common preference. Does any such necessity exist in our case? That a necessity of some sort does exist cannot be denied, for it is a notorious fact that paper money does circulate in spite of an almost uniform preference for coin. The reason is this: Money, whatever may be the material in actual use for the time being, is that which every man wants when he has a debt due or an article to sell, for the reason that every other man under the same circumstances wants the same thing. This begets a universal eagerness for money, and this eagerness renders it extremely difficult for any individual to refuse anything which at the time is tolerated as money. When the inferior kind is offered in payment of a debt or an article of trade, it is received not because the individual prefers it to coin but because his necessities induce him to risk the consequences rather than let slip the present opportunity of collecting his debt or selling his commodity.

This it will be perceived is but an individual necessity, founded in the nature of currency itself. The necessity is not an absolute one, it is true; but still it is such a necessity as in his individual capacity the citizen cannot easily overcome. And here we will remark by the way that although in our opinion great criminality attaches to the circulation of paper money, the crime is rather collective than individual in its nature. The great individual criminality attaches to those who make it and set it in motion; for in the absence of it the coin is offered and this individual necessity for taking paper is of course not felt.

But we assert that there is no public necessity which will compel the violation of this law; by which we mean that neither the natural laws which regulate currency nor the nature of the material selected by the common consent of mankind and prescribed by our federal constitution imposes any necessity for the circulation of small notes upon communities in their collective capacity-that they may rid

themselves of it without suffering the slightest inconvenience when the change is effected. Political economists all agree that paper money adds nothing to the total value of the currency and cannot make money more plenty than it would otherwise be. The plea of convenience in transmitting small amounts is too insignificant to be entitled to serious notice; and these two considerations comprise the sum total of the supposed public necessity for violating the law in question.

The individual necessity, as we have shown, exists only because the circulation is collectively tolerated-not because it is either individually or collectively preferred. The object and tendency of the sixth section is to give firmness and efficiency to the existing disinclination to receive paper money, by embodying the public sentiment against it, and giving it the force and authority of constitutional law. The object is not to counteract a prevailing preference for paper money, but to strengthen and enforce the almost universal preference for specie; and to say that such a law will be violated by common consent is an assumption which does violence to the ruling law of human nature.

REASONS FOR SUPPORTING THE CONSTITUTION

[February 16, 1847]

We would respectfully ask thinking men of all parties who may feel disposed to oppose the constitution to weigh well the following reasons in favor of its adoption:

First. It contains about one hundred and fifty sections which, though once the subject of debate and dispute, are now agreed upon by all parties to be the best and most perfect of any other known constitution.

Second. That there are not over half a dozen sections in all to which exception is taken, and but two to which much objection is urged.

Third. That the wisest and best meaning men both here and elsewhere differ in opinion in regard to these provisions; and their incorporation into the constitution was the result of concession and compromise.

Fourth. That, should the constitution be defeated, the same differences of opinion will exist as heretofore, and we have no guaranty that a new convention would not incorporate precisely the same features into the fundamental law.

Fifth. That among a people like those of Wisconsin, composed of men from every state in the Union, it is in the highest degree

absurd to suppose that a constitution can ever be framed that will harmonize the views of all classes.

Sixth. That should the provisions to which objection is raised be found not to work well in practice, the constitution itself furnishes an expeditious and proper remedy.

Seventh. That territorial scrip is now depreciated twenty per cent in consequence of the cost of the late convention (to wit: $35,000) and with our limited means the cost of another would ruin. our credit both at home and abroad.

Eighth. That to reject the constitution is to postpone the time of receiving the bounty of 500,000 acres of land from the general government.

Ninth. That it is to postpone the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, along which alternate sections are to be given as soon as Wisconsin becomes a state.

Tenth. That 160,000 people in the territory are now mere dependents upon the general government, and have no voice in framing. its laws, and can expect to receive no special favors at its hands.

Eleventh. That the dignity of freemen and a just appreciation of the enlightened progression of the age demands that Wisconsin should break from the apron strings of her parent and stand erect among the family of American sovereignties, the capstone in the Republic of thirty states.

Twelfth. That sound reason and common sense dictate that, where a whole people agree upon one hundred and fifty sections in their constitution and differ only upon five or six, it is their privilege and their duty to sustain it on the ground of union, harmony, and concession.

Thirteenth. That opposition is made more to the follies of some members of the convention than to the work of their hands; whereas the constitution itself is what the people are to decide upon and not the personal acts of its authors.

MEETING OF THE DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OF THE

LEGISLATURE

[February 16, 1847]

At an adjourned meeting of the Democratic members of the legislature, held at the capitol on Friday evening, January 22, 1847, Mason C. Darling being in the chair, and William Singer secretary, on motion of Marshall M. Strong a committee of seven was appointed to draft resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting, and to report the same at a future meeting. The chairman appointed as such committee Marshall M. Strong, John E. Holmes,