which office he held continually until 1829, when he removed to Baltimore. In 1832 he was the candidate of the ANTIMASONIC PARTY (q. v.) for the Presidency of the United States. He died in Washington, D. C., Feb. 18, 1834. his return from Europe, in 1851, became dent Monroe appointed him (Dec. 15) tutor to a son of William H. Aspinwall, Attorney-General of the United States, of New York, whose counting-house he afterwards entered. In the employ of the Pacific Steamship Company, he resided in Panama two years, and visited California, Oregon, and Vancouver's Island. He was one of the sufferers in the expedition of Lieutenant Strain to explore the Isthmus of Darien, returning in impaired health in 1854. On the fall of Fort Sumter he joined the 7th N. Y. Regiment; went with it to Annapolis; became military secretary to General Butler at Fortress Monroe, with the rank of major, and was killed in battle at Great Bethel, Va., June 10, 1861. It Madison was made the permanent seat of government. A State constitution was formed by a convention at Madison late Wisconsin, STATE OF, was traversed by French missionaries and traders in the seventeenth century, and derives its name from the river which, in the French orthography, was written Ouisconsin. It is said to mean, as an Indian word, "wildrushing river." The Wisconsin Territory was organized in 1836, out of lands comprised in the Territory of Michigan. Wirt, WILLIAM, jurist; born in Bla- embraced all the lands now within the densburg, Md., Nov. 8, 1772; was left States of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minan orphan when he was eight years of nesota, and the Dakotas. In 1838 the terage, with a small patrimony, and was ritory west of the Mississippi was reared and educated by an uncle. He separated from it. The first territorial began the practice of law at Culpeper government was formed at Mineral Point Court-house, Va. In 1795 he married a in July, 1836, and in October the first daughter of Dr. George Gilmer, and set- legislature assembled at Belmont. In 1838 tled near Charlottesville, Va., where he contracted dissipated habits, from the toils of which, it is said, he was released by hearing a sermon preached by Rev. James Waddell. In 1799 he was chosen clerk of the Virginia House of Delegates, and in 1802 was appointed chancellor of the eastern district of Virginia. Very soon afterwards he resigned the office, and settled in Norfolk in the practice of his profession. He had lately written a scries of letters under the title of The British Spy, which were published in the Richmond Argus, and gave him a literary reputation. Published in collected form, they have passed through many editions. The next year he published a series of essays in the Richmond Enquirer entitled The Rainbow. Wirt settled in Richmond in 1806, and became distinguished the following year as one of the foremost lawyers in the country in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason. In the same year he was elected to the Virginia House of in 1846, was approved by Congress in Delegates, and was a prominent advocate 1847, and on May 29, 1848, Wisconsin of the chief measures of President Jefferson's administration. His chief literary production-Life of Patrick Henry-was first published in 1817, at which time he was United States attorney for the district of Virginia. The same year Presi STATE SEAL OF WISCONSIN. was admitted into the Union as a State. In 1849 a part of the State was taken to form a part of the Territory of Minnesota. Wisconsin furnished, during the Civil War, 96,118 troops. This State is remarkable for the heterogeneous character of its inhabitants. In 1890 three-fourths Wise, HENRY ALEXANDER, diplomatist; of all the people were of foreign birth or born in Drummondtown, Va., Dec. 3, parentage, there being nearly 600,000 of 1806; was admitted to the bar at WinGerman extraction, and over 100,000 chester, Va., in 1828; settled in Nashville, Scandinavians, besides many Danes, Tenn., but soon returned to Accomack, Dutch, Canadians, and others. Popula- where he was elected to Congress in 1833, tion in 1890, 1,686,880; in 1900, 2,069,042. and remained a member until 1843, when See UNITED STATES, WISCONSIN, in vol ix. he was appointed minister to Brazil. He was a zealous advocate of the annexation of Texas. He was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1850, 1844 and was governor of Virginia from 1856 1845 to 1860. He approved the pro-slavery constitution (Lecompton) of Kansas, and 1848 in 1859 published a treatise on territorial 1854 government, containing the doctrine of Henry Dodge. TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS. James D. Doty. Nathaniel P. Tallmadge.. Henry Dodge.... .assumes office.. 66 STATE GOVERNORS (term two years). ..assumes office.. 66 1836 1852 1856 Nelson Dewey... Leonard J Farwell.. William A. Barstow. Coles Bashford.. John E. Spooner.. Term. 1848 to 1857 30th to 35th 35th 41st 1857 1869 37th 46th 1861 1879 41st "44th 46th 46th 49th 53d "56th 1869 1875 1875 1881 1879 1881 18811893 HENRY ALEXANDER WISE. 1881 1885 the right of Congress to protect slavery. 1885" 1891 1893 1899 1897 " 1899. 52d 6 55th 1891 1897 The last important act of his administration was ordering the execution of JOHN BROWN (q. v.), for the raid on Harper's Ferry. In the Virginia convention, early in 1861, he advocated a peaceful settlement of difficulties with the national government; but after the ordinance of secession had been passed he took up arms against the government, became a Confederate brigadier-general, was an unsuccessful leader in western Virginia, and commanded at Roanoke Island, but was sick at the time of its capture. He died in Richmond, Va., Sept. 12, 1876. Among his publications is Seven Decades of the Union: Memoir of John Tyler. Wisconsin, UNIVERSITY OF, a co-educational non-sectarian institution in Madison, Wis.: organized in 1849 and reorganized in 1867. It comprises a college of letters and science, college of mechanics and engineering, college of agriculture, college of law, school of pharmacy, school of economics, political science, and history, and a school of music. In 1900 it reported: Professors and instructors, 160; students, 2,422; volumes in the library, 60,000; productive funds, $500,000; grounds and buildings valued at $1,152,973; in- Speech Against Know nothingism.come, $400.874; number of graduates, During the KNOW NOTHING AGITATION 4,323; president, Charles K. Adams, LL.D. (q. v.), before the party was organized, Mr. Wise delivered the following speech How organized? in Congress, Sept. 18, 1852: The laws of the United States-federal and State laws-declare and defend the liberties of our people. They are free in every sense-free in the sense of Magna Charta and beyond Magna Charta; free by the surpassing franchise of American charters, which makes them sovereign and their wills the sources of constitutions and laws. All Nobody knows. Governed by whom? Nobody knows. How bound? By what rites? By what test oaths? With what limitations and restraints? Nobody, nobody knows! we know is that persons of foreign birth and of Catholic faith are proscribed; and so are all others who don't proscribe them at the polls. This is certainly against the spirit of Magna Charta. . . A Prussian born subject came to this country. He complied with our naturalIn this country, at this time, does any ization laws in all respects of notice of man think anything? Would he think intention, residence, oath of allegiance, aloud? Would he speak anything? Would and proof of good moral character. He he write anything? His mind is free; his remained continuously in the United person is safe; his property is secure; his States the full period of five years. When house is his castle; the spirit of the laws he had fully filled the measure of his prois his body-guard and his house-guard; bation and was consummately a naturalthe fate of one is the fate of all measured ized citizen of the United States, he then, by the same common rule of right; his and not until then, returned to Prussia voice is heard and felt in the general suf- to visit an aged father. He was immefrage of freemen; his trial is in open diately, on his return, seized and forced court, confronted by witnesses and accus- into the Landwehr, or militia system of ers; his prison-house has no secrets, and Prussia, under the maxim: "Once a citihe has the judgment of his peers; and zen, always a citizen!" There he is forced there is naught to make him afraid, so to do service to the King of Prussia at long as he respects the rights of his equals this very hour. He applies for protection in the eye of the law. Would he propa- to the United States. Would the Knowgate truth? Truth is free to combat nothings interpose in his behalf or not? error. Would he propagate error? Error Look at the principles involved. We, by itself may stalk abroad and do her mis- our laws, encouraged him to come to our chief, and make night itself grow dark- country, and here he was allowed to beer, provided truth is left free to follow, come naturalized, and to that end required however slowly, with her torches to light to renounce and abjure all allegiance and up the wreck! Why, then, should any por- fidelity to the King of Prussia, and to tion of the people desire to retire in secret, swear allegiance and fidelity to the United and by secret means to propagate a po- States. The King of Prussia now claims litical thought, or word, or deed, by no legal forfeiture from him-he punishes stealth? Why band together, exclusive of him for no crime--he claims of him no others, to do something which all may legal debt-he claims alone that very alnot know of, towards some political end? legiance and fidelity which we required If it be good, why not make the good the man to abjure and renounce. Not known? Why not think it, speak it, write only so, but he hinders the man from reit, act it out openly and aloud? Or is turning to the United States, and from it evil, which loveth darkness rather than discharging the allegiance and fidelity we light? When there is no necessity to jus- required him to swear to the United tify a secret association for political ends, States. The King of Prussia says he what else can justify it? A caucus may should do him service for seven years, sit in secret to consult on the general for this was what he was born to perpolicy of a great public party. That may form; his obligations were due to him be necessary or convenient; but that even first, and his laws were first binding him. is reprehensible if carried too far. But The United States say-true, he was born here is proposed a great primary, national under your laws, but he had a right to exorganization, in its inception-What? No- patriate himself; he owed allegiance first body knows. To do what? Nobody knows. to you, but he had a right to forswear it and to swear allegiance to us; your laws unequal, by their secret order, without first applied, but this is a case of political obligation, not of legal obligation; it is not for any crime or debt you claim to bind him, but it is for allegiance; and the claim you set up to his services on the ground of his political obligation, his allegiance to you, which we allow him to abjure and renounce, is inconsistent with his political obligation, his allegiance, which we required him to swear to the United States; he has sworn fidelity to us, and we have, by our laws, pledged protection to him. law and against law? For them, by secret combination, to make them unequal, to impose a burden or restriction upon their privileges which the law does not, is to set themselves up above the law, and to supersede by private and secret authority, intangible and irresponsible, the rule of publie, political right. Indeed, is this not the very essence of the higher law" doctrine? It cannot be said to be legitimate public sentiment and the action of its authority. Public sentiment, proper, is a concurrence of the common mind in Such is the issue. Now, with which some conclusion, conviction, opinion, taste, will the Know-nothings take sides? With or action in respect to persons or things the King of Prussia against our natural- subject to its public notice. It will and ized citizen and against America, or with it must control the minds and actions of America and our naturalized citizen? men, by public and conventional opinion. Mark, now, Know-nothingism is opposed Count Molé said that in France it was to all foreign influence-against American stronger than statutes. It is so here. institutions. The King of Prussia is a That it is which should decide at the polls pretty potent foreign influence he was of a republic. But here is a secret sentione of the holy alliance of crowned heads. ment, which may be so organized as to Will they take part with him, and not contradict the public sentiment. Candiprotect the citizen? Then they will aid date A may be a native and a Protestant, a foreign influence against our laws! Will and may concur with the community, if they take sides with our naturalized citi- it be a Know-nothing community, on evzen? If so, then upon what grounds? ery other subject except that of proscribNow, they must have a good cause of ing Catholics and naturalized citizens; and interposition to justify us against all the candidate B may concur with the comreceived dogmas of European despotism. munity on the subject of this proscription Don't they see, can't they perceive, that alone, and upon no other subject; and yet they have no other grounds than those the Know-nothings might elect B by their I have urged? He is our citizen, nation- secret sentiment against the public sentialized, owing us allegiance and we owing ment. Thus it attacks not only American him protection. And if we owe him pro- doctrines of expatriation, allegiance, and tection abroad, because of his sworn al- protection, but the equality of citizenship, legiance to us as a naturalized citizen, and the authority of public sentiment. In what then can deprive him of his privi- the affair of Koszta, how did our blood leges at home among us when he returns? rush to his rescue? Did the Know-nothIf he be a citizen at all, he must be al- ing side with him and Mr. Marcy, or with lowed the privileges of citizenship, or he Hulseman and Austria? If with Koszta, will not be the equal of his fellow-citizens. why? Let them ask themselves for the And must not Know-nothingism strike at rationale, and see if it can in reason abide the very equality of citizenship, or allow with their orders. There is no middle him to enjoy all its lawful privileges? If ground in respect to naturalization. We Catholics and naturalized citizens are to must either have naturalization laws and be citizens and yet to be proscribed from let foreigners become citizens, on equal office, they must be rated as an inferior terms of capacities and privileges, or we class-an excluded class of citizens. Will must exclude them altogether. If we abolit be said that the law will not make ish naturalization laws, we return to the this distinction? Then are we to under- European dogma: "Once a citizen, alstand that Know nothings would not ways a citizen." If we let foreigners be make them equal by law? If not by law, naturalized and don't extend to them how can they pretend to make them equality of privileges, we set up classes If anything was ever open, fair, and free if anything was ever blatant even-it was the Reformation. To quote from a mighty British pen: "It gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and inquiry, agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. The effect of the concussion was and distinctions of persons wholly opposed to republicanism. We will, as Rome did, have citizens who may be scourged. The three alternatives are presented: Our present policy, liberal, and just, and tolerant, and equal; or the European policy of holding the noses of native-born slaves to the grindstone of tyranny all their lives; or odious distinctions of citizenship general, but the shock was greatest in tending to social and political aristocracy. I am for the present laws of naturalization. this country" (England). “It toppled down the full grown intolerable abuses of centuries at a blow; heaved the ground from As to religion, the Constitution of the under the feet of bigoted faith and slavish United States, art. vi., sec. 3, especially obedience; and the roar and dashing of provides that no religious test shall ever opinions, loosened from their accustomed be required as a qualification to any hold, might be heard like the noise of an office or public trust under the United angry sea, and has never yet subsided. States. The State of Virginia has, from Germany first broke the spell of misbeher earliest history, passed the most gotten fear, and gave the watchword; but liberal laws, not only towards natural- England joined the shout, and echoed it ization, but towards foreigners. But I back, with her island voice, from her have said enough to show the spirit of American laws and the true sense of American maxims. Know-nothingism is against the spirit of Reformation and of Protestantism. What was there to reform? the truth might make them free. The death blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy loosened tongues and made the talismans and love-tokens of popish superstitions with which she had beguiled her followers and committed abominations with the people, fall harmless from their necks." thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer and louder strain. With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose and threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty fermentation: the waters were out; public opinion was in a Let the most bigoted Protestant enumer- state of projection; liberty was held out to ate what he defines to have been the abom- all to think and speak the truth; men's inations of the Church of Rome. What brains were busy, their spirits stirring, would he say were the worst. The secrets their hearts full and their hands not idle. of Jesuitism, of the auto da fé, of the Their eyes were opened to expect the greatmonasteries and the nunneries. The priest things, and their ears burned with vate penalties of the Inquisition scaven- curiosity and zeal to know the truth, that ger's daughter. Proscription, persecution, bigotry, intolerance, shutting up of the Book of the Word. And do Protestants now mean to out-Jesuit the Jesuits? Do they mean to strike and not be seen? To be felt and not to be heard? To put a shudder upon humanity by the masks of mutes? Will they wear the monkish cowls? Will they inflict penalties at the polls without reasoning together with their fellows at the hustings? Will they proscribe? Persecute? Will they bloat up themselves into that bigotry which would burn Nonconformists? Will they not tolerate freedom of conscience, but doom dissenters, in secret conclave, to a forfeiture of civil privileges for a religious difference? Will they not translate the scripture of their faith? Will they visit us with dark lanterns and execute us by signs, and test oaths, and in secrecy? Protestantism! forbid it! The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had then been locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common interest in a common cause. Their hearts burned within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It cemented their union of character and sentiment; it created endless di |