side a little below the shoulders; the others caught the outside, and it parted. The usurper got a full cloak for himself, only it had to be turned, and it had no hood, having parted just where that part joins the body. To remedy this defect, he took it to the King of England, Henry VIII, who by the assistance of his girls had a new hood made out of an old undergarment of his wife, that had hung in the hall for many years. Since then it has got a great deal of rough usage. Some think that it got damaged by the salt water in crossing the Atlantic. My own opinion is that it is fairly worn out for there has been so many genteel loafers who had scarcely any decent clothing, when they wanted to push themselves into "good society," would just throw on the black cloak, until it is fairly used up. I have made this digression to show where a market is likely to be found for the cloak provided we can spare it.

I believe there can be less objections raised against the mode here laid down of appointing these supreme judges in the township courts than any that has been proposed. The plaintiff would choose one with friendship enough to amount to at least a good wish; with honesty enough not to betray him; and with good understanding, that he might not be outwitted. The defendant would have the same privilege and of course would exercise it in the same way. So far they would be perfectly equal. These two judges, thus chosen, would appoint a third who would be disinterested to both. Here, if anywhere, might the judges be expected to be clear of "any voice, save that voice in which God speaks in the consciences of all their own deep and solemn convictions of right and truth." If anything could produce peace and happiness in community, it would be to have misunderstanding and disputes finally and forever quashed on their first appearance and with as little trouble and cost as possible. Neighborhood disputes, like fire in a city, take hold on everything they come in contact with. What would we think of the city councils of New York if they were to pass an ordinance allowing each member of the fire companies $50 for every fire that would occur in the city? Would we not expect to hear of plenty of fires in New York? We would; and yet we make it the interest of a numerous class to profit by the fires of discord in society. If to establish domestic tranquility be the object of the constitution, it ought to establish a supreme court which would have that tendency.

The greatest hoax of all court matters is the carrying suits from one court to another. If, for instance, the circuit court knows how to decide according to law and justice and can be relied on for integrity, why carry a case from it to another? If not, why allow a

case to go to it at all? Have the supreme judges the privilege of any law or book that is denied the judges of the lower courts? Or is there any act of inspiration that makes the same individual more wise or more honest than when he presided below? If there is, why not take it to the place of inspiration at first? No, the thing is the very quintessence of humbuggery, to swindle fools, sometimes honest fools, out of their money.

In the ancient courts in England the lower courts decided the lower class of cases for the lower class of people, and the higher courts decided the higher cases for the higher class of people. When the cloak and the mantle were both new and the same individual officiated both as priest and lawyer, then all was mysteriously concealed from the vulgar multitude, and even religion itself as well as law and justice got corrupted. In the former there has been, in the latter there must be, a reformation.

A FARMER OF GRANT

VIEWS OF "A FARMER OF GRANT"-No. 4

[February 12, 1847]

Article IX. This article is more liberal in its provisions than most constitutions on the subject of elective franchise. This is not unbecoming a people of a new country, where nearly every voter is an emigrant from somewhere. It is known that there are opinions adverse to the extension of the elective franchise; but it does seem that these opinions are based more on selfishness than to promote the public good. John Randolph said before he would allow them (those who have no property) to vote to tax his property he would unsheath the sword and throw away the scabbard! In the New York convention Governor Bouck proposed to prohibit all who could not read and write. Others would prohibit those who had committed the unpardonable crime of being born in another country, without taking into consideration the circumstances in which they had been placed at the time, which urged them to the act. In some countries the right to exercise the elective franchise depends on the religious creed. The proscription of all these classes with some others that might be added would contribute greatly to the comfort of good society; but to human rights and the happiness of man it would be very unfavorable.

Article X. On Education, etc. This is a valuable article, though very bulky and awkwardly expressed. It must have been intended to protect one of the individual rights that has heretofore

been neglected—that right to an education. The reason that all should get an education is that all need it. Society has a right to see that there are no drones in the hive-that each individual produces sufficient for his own support. In all former time the poor have educated the rich, and more than that, they have fed and clothed them; they have built their houses, plowed their fields, dug their gardens, made their coaches, cleaned their horses, boots, streets, rooms, and furniture. In a word, those who work do everything that is done for those who go idle. The rich live on their vested rights; the poor are deprived of their natural ones. Section 4 provides that "common schools shall be equally free to all (the word 'equal' should have been omitted) and no sectarian instruction shall be used or permitted." This is an improvement on all other constitutions. There should be nothing taught to the pupil but what is understood by the teacher or useful in life. The time, cost, and trouble spent in teaching the science of sectarianism heretofore, in future ought to be applied in teaching the use of machinery and the art of manufacturing. Engineering is now taught in one of the academies of St. Louis-not what is called civil engineering, but the use of the steam engine. By the use of the sixteenth section, with very little machinery, orphan children and others would be able to pay their own expenses from four years of age to twenty-one and acquire the very best kind of education. They would need a little assistance at first until the first apprentices had got pretty well forward.

It appears to me that this article would have read better thus: "Article X, section 1. There shall be free schools for all the children of this state.

"Section 2. Each county shall be laid off into districts by the local government or county commissioners of the county in the most convenient manner for the inhabitants, so that all may have a school.

"Section 3. Each county shall lay an annual tax on all taxable property, for school purposes, equal at least to six dollars for each child in the county from five to seventeen years of age.

"Section 4. The school fund shall be distributed by the local government or county commissioners amongst the several districts, in a just proportion to the number of children in each district from five to seventeen years of age. But if any district should fail to have a school, then, and in that case, its portion of the fund shall remain in the county treasury until said district shall have expended

it for school purposes, when it shall be paid to the order of such district.

"Section 5. No sectarian instruction shall be used or permitted in any common school in this state."

It is perfectly unnecessary to say "there shall be a state fund for the support of common schools," without stating how that fund shall be raised. The state has no honest way of raising funds only by taxing the people of the state. The United States have no honest means of raising funds only by taxing the people of the United States in some shape or other. For this reason the tax should be raised by the county. The nearer the taxing power is to the people, and the more direct the tax, the better, and the better the people understand what they pay, and what they pay it for.

A FARMER OF GRANT

VIEWS OF "A FARMER OF GRANT"-No. 5

[February 19, 1847]

CONSTITUTION OF WISCONSIN

Article XI. On Banks and Banking. To produce arguments at this late day to prove that banking is an evil and ought to be stopped looks to me like throwing water on a drowned mouse. Those who do not know that much must be possessed of willful or invincible ignorance.

To the sixth section many objections have been raised. It seems to have been assumed that, though we have a right to prevent the people of our own state from robbing or swindling us, that those of other states may do so with impunity. The sixth section is about the best one in the article, but it seems to me that the last part of it ought to have been amended thus: "issued without (or within) this state," and all the balance that comes after ought to have been stricken out. I can see no just cause of retaining the larger evil when we throw off the lesser. If it be wrong to allow notes of five dollars to circulate as money, it is doubly wrong to admit tens and quadruply wrong to admit twenties. This was, no doubt, a concession to the men of vested rights. I would admonish such men not to look for too much, that they may get something. There is an opinion abroad, and fast gaining ground, that vested rights are no rights at all. The antirenters of New York made a bold stand on this opinion. The legislature of Wisconsin made a stand but little less bold in taxing land only and exempting all other property, for the avowed purpose of rendering useless the vested

rights of those whom they considered speculators. That is to say, a majority of the members of the legislature showed it to be their opinion that if a bank president, cashier, or director Swartwouted with the whole cash and credit of the bank in his pocket and invested it in land in Wisconsin, that they had any just and natural right to it, and that they would force them to abandon their vested rights by heavy taxes, and there was no distinction made between the speculator and the resident. The antirent spirit is as strong in the lead mines as on the Van Rensselaer estate, though not so well organized. If the vested rights to real estate can reasonably be questioned, then the vested right to swindle by bank paper should never be vindicated in any manner whatever. For this reason I esteem the sixth section good, and would think it better if it went the whole figure.

Article XIII. This article guards against state debt, an evil that many of the states have severely suffered by, and is a valuable item in the constitution.

Article XV. This article is convenient to both rogues and honest men. He who formerly had to have his property sold by the sheriff and bought in by a friend under this article can have it conveyed to his wife by the assistance of a third person, and then it will be under control of the family as though the creditor had not been outwitted. But to prohibit the husband from making the deed direct was only uselessly putting him to the trouble of calling in the aid of a third person.

The exemption of "the homestead of the family" is cruelty to the gentlemen of the bar. At least half their business is in collecting debts under $1,000, and to rob them of half their living at one lick was rather too harsh. No wonder they made such a cry about the ruin of credit and the loss it would be to men of small capital that they could not get credited out of house and home.

Article XVII. Bill of Rights. This article has everything in it. Section 7 says: "No law shall be passed granting any divorce otherwise than by due judicial proceedings." It would have been more wise and humane to have said: "No married persons shall be compelled to live together after it is fully ascertained that they cannot do so without being wretchedly unhappy." In this country divorces are very common, and I have yet to hear of the first one that was injurious to either society at large or the parties concerned. There are more suicides and murders grow out of unhappy marriages and for want of a facility of divorce than from any other cause in this community. There is a law in nature to regulate marriage, and the law of the land should never conflict with it.