THE CONSTITUTION-No. 4

[February 10, 1847]

Passing over the Preamble, which most properly, though somewhat verbosely, acknowledges our deep debt of gratitude to the ruling Providence of Nations, which has led us forth from the accumulating chaos of transatlantic systems and planted our temporal destinies in the promised land of man's social and political regeneration, and which appropriately founds our right to erect a free sovereignty and enter the union of the states upon the great and wise Ordinance of 1787-a vast experiment in its day, whose farseeing and just provisions have already given four great states to the Union and civil and religious liberty to millions of men-now to be consummated in the admission of the fifth state of Wisconsin, we commence our discussions with article 2, on the boundaries of the state.

On this subject there has been much discussion in the territorial legislature, in the public prints, and in the convention itself. With a trifling proviso of little moment the constitution affirms the boundaries defined by Congress in the act for our admission into the Union.

There have been three claims of boundary set up beyond the limits assigned to us by Congress. First. On the south: Raising the same question which was the subject of so much controversy between Ohio and Michigan, it has been claimed that the true southern boundary of Wisconsin under the Ordinance of 1787 is an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend of Lake Michigan. This claim, if well founded, would entitle Wisconsin to a strip of territory held by Illinois since her admission in 1818, running from the lake to the Mississippi, and about a degree in width. This right depends upon the just construction of a provision in the ordinance upon which great men have greatly differed. The fifth article of compact of the ordinance provides that there shall be formed in the northwest territory not less than three nor more than five states; then establishes the boundaries of three states, partitioning amongst them the whole territory by the names of the Western, Middle, and Eastern States-Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio; "Provided, however, That the boundaries of these three states shall be subject so far to be altered that, if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two states in that part of the said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn

through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan." Congress, as is known to all, found it expedient to form the full three states; and the whole controversy depends on the construction of the sentence quoted and particularly upon the signification and force of the word "in."

It is contended on the one hand that the power to create one or two states in the country north of the given line is a power to create them of that country, implying of the whole of that country; that it was the policy of the ordinance to establish all the boundaries of the five as well as of the three states; and that the east and west line given was intended as the boundary line between the three southern and the northern states, in case Congress should create the full number of states authorized by the ordinance.

On the other hand it is argued that the power to form one or two states in the country north of the given line is simply a restriction. that such one or two states shall not extend farther south than that line; that the very use of the word "in" instead of "of" affirms this construction plainly; that inasmuch as the ordinance positively provides for the creation of the three southern states, dividing in the first instance all the country amongst them, and then gives to Congress the contingent and discretionary power of forming one or two more states in the northern part of the territory, the policy of the ordinance in the event of Congress creating more than three states was to protect the boundaries of the three certain states, and not of the one or two contingent states; that this policy is rendered doubly certain by the discretion of one or two states in the north, while the south must be divided into three states; and that the obvious interpretation of this policy was to give all the states access to the great chain of northern lakes.

Such are the outlines of a controversy into which the writer does not here propose to enter further than by remarking that having long leaned towards that construction of the ordinance which affirms our claim to northern Illinois the more discussion he has heard and read the less his faith in that construction has become. Great men, as has been remarked, have differed greatly on the subject. Many eminent statesmen in and out of Congress have certainly affirmed our right; but three several times has the judiciary committee of the senate-a body whose opinions are entitled to little less weight on such a question of construction than the Supreme Court of the United States itself-unanimously and decidedly rejected such a construction of the ordinance. But admitting that we had the abstract right, it is a right as obsolete to all intents and pur

poses as our right to Paradise; and a few considerations will readily satisfy reasonable men on the propriety of abandoning a hopeless and gainless claim.

Illinois is in possession and has been for almost thirty years. In so doubtful a case of right as it must be admitted to be the councils and the tribunals of the United States would undoubtedly and properly decide in favor of the statu quo and leave the parties where so long and undisputed a possession left them. In that possession Illinois has contracted an enormous public debt, a great proportion of which has been expended on works within this very disputed territory. It would be contrary to all faith and justice to take the territory without taking its appropriate debt, and to us the country would not be worth the cost. For thirty years the settlements of the disputed country have been made under Illinois habits and governed by Illinois laws. With these we have little sympathy; and if our right to this country were today to be admitted and the possession surrendered to us, we would find ourselves far outnumbered by its inhabitants and our new state controlled and governed by men who would not be of it in habits, policy, affection, or association, who would be the stepchildren of the state, and would make her a sort of reformed Magdalene of Finance a second Illinois, little better than the first.

Some six or seven hundred miles in length, with an average width of only about two hundred miles, the present area of Wisconsin is estimated at 90,000 square miles. The ample sufficiency of this territory for state purposes may be readily inferred from a comparison with the area of the largest states hitherto in the Union, excluding Texas: Virginia, the largest, embraces an area of only 64,000 square miles; Missouri, 60,000; Illinois, 59,000; Georgia, 58,200; while the great state of New York counts only 46,200. An addition of territory would be an addition of difficulty to the state of Wisconsin.

Congress, for very sound and obvious reasons, never has admitted and never will admit a new state into the Union, with disputed boundaries. An obstinate affirmation of this doubtful and obsolete claim would have defeated our admission for years and perhaps led to worse consequences than the scandal, ridicule, and disgrace of the Michigan border war. After a vast expense of dignity and treasure, the claim must in the end have been abandoned as all such claims have been to the policy of Congress and the peace of the Union. In overlooking it at the outset, Wisconsin has acted in the only way in which she could act on the subject-with discretion and with dignity.

Second. On the northeast: It has been claimed that the territory on this side of Lake Michigan, granted by Congress to the state of Michigan, belongs of right to us under the ordinance. It is enough to say that the ordinance which leaves the creation of a northern state or states wholly in the discretion of Congress leaves to Congress also the discretion whether, if it should create any, it should create one or two, and in no way even hints a dividing boundary between them in case there should be two. Congress may have done an impolitic thing in giving Michigan country on the opposite side of the lake, contiguous to our territory; but, politic or impolitic, Congress in doing so performed an act clearly and plainly within its power, and of which we have no right to complain. Third. On the northwest: The ordinance provides for not less than three nor more than five states. Wisconsin, being the fifth state, is clearly entitled to all the remainder of the old Northwest Territory not embraced within the other four states. The act of Congress for our admission limits our boundaries on the northwest by the St. Louis and St. Croix rivers and a north and south line connecting them. A reference to any map will show that this boundary excludes a considerable tract of the old Northwest Territory, lying about the headwaters of the Mississippi and extending from the junction of the Mississippi and St. Croix to the British line. To this country, as a matter of right, we are clearly entitled. Is it policy to insist upon that right?

It is understood that our delegate in Congress made much effort for a more northern boundary in that direction without any effect; and it is thence apparent that much difficulty and perhaps delay would attend our admission, if we should insist upon our full rights of territory to the British line. The policy of Congress was evident enough, and it is already acting on that policy in the bill erecting the territory of Minnesota. It is proposed eventually to create a state on the headwaters of the Mississippi, with a boundary on Lake Superior; and for this purpose the country of which we have been curtailed is added to the country on the west side of the Mississippi, north of Iowa. A casual glance at the map will be sufficient to satisfy any inquirer that the country northwest of the rivers St. Louis and St. Croix would make our state of a very inconvenient and irregular shape. Extending on the north to a much higher latitude than any other portion of Wisconsin that country is in a great degree cut off from the balance of our state by the head of Lake Superior; and in the direction of the St. Croix there intervenes an immense tract of country which will probably remain long unsettled; while on the St.

Croix and thence to St. Peters the country is already in course of rapid settlement. The argument of convenience is certainly for the proposed boundary, but far deeper considerations are involved in the question.

The area of the states of the Northwest is far more than the average of the other states, and as this country has resources to support population beyond any of the older states, it is but fair to presume that not many years hence the Northwest will be covered by as dense a population as any other section of the Union. This population in our system will be proportionably represented in the lower house of Congress; but as states only are represented in the Senate, the. Northwest will always be inadequately represented in that body. Of the old Northwest Territory, dependent on the Great Lakes, embracing an area in round numbers of nearly two hundred and seventy-five thousand square miles, five states will send only ten members to the Senate. The preponderance in the Senate of one section over another is becoming every day of more obvious importance. In these views it is proposed to take from us a strip of frontier country which would long, if not always, be burdensome and inconvenient to us, and the loss of which greatly trims the irregular shape of our territory, in order to erect another lake state and give to the Northwest two additional members of the Senate. The gain of this loss is too obvious for amplification.

On all these three several points of disputed boundary, it is believed that the convention acted most wisely in adhering to the limits proposed by the act of Congress. There is however a proviso, in the shape of a mere request to Congress, to alter the boundary slightly in the northwest. There is a large settlement on the river St. Croix, of which about three-fourths are on the west bank and onefourth on the east bank of the river. This settlement, remote from any other on the east, is divided by the proposed boundary; and at the urgent solicitation of the able delegate from that county, the convention has asked Congress to bring the boundary a few miles to the east of the St. Croix, so as to exclude the whole of the St. Croix settlement from the new state. We have only to say of this, that it would be very impolitic to leave the fixed, certain boundary of a large river for an imaginary line, and that Congress will never do so. In no other respect is the proposed alteration of the slightest consequence to us; and it must be admitted that the present division works great inconvenience to those frontier settlements.

In close connection with this subject we have article 3, on the act of Congress.