was incorporated with a capital of one million dollars and the operations of the company in mining and smelting were to be confined to the counties of Grant and Iowa.

The time for holding general elections was at this session changed from the first Monday in August to the fourth Monday of September.

A very anomalous divorce act was passed at this session, which recited that

"JOSEPH R. BROWN (who was the next year elected a member of the House of Representatives from St. Croix county) and MARGARET BROWN, a half-breed Chippewa woman, were legally married and were mutually desirous of dissolving the marriage contract in consequence of the danger they both incur of the destruction of their lives and property by continuing to live together, at the place where they have been accustomed to and now reside, on account of the hostile incursions of the Sioux Indians."

That it should be lawful for them by a written article of separation, under their hands and seals, to dissolve the marriage contract existing between them, provided that the articles of separation should contain a provision for her of one third of all his property.

A joint resolution was adopted making further provision for the location of a portion, not exceeding two thirds, of all the lands granted by Congress in 1838, for the use and support of a university.

The appropriations made by the Legislative Assembly, for the pay and mileage of members, printing, and all incidental expenses of the two sessions held in 1840, amounted to a total sum of $27,892.65. The excess of the expenses of the preceding year over the appropriation by Congress was $7,064.94, which two sums made $34,957.59. The appropriation by Congress for 1840 was $34,075, which still left a small sum of $882.59, while the appropriations of the Legislative Assembly for the two years of 1839 and 1840 exceeded the amounts appropriated by Congress during those two years for their liquidation.

An important act was passed at the winter session, which prescribed that the term of all officers of the Territory, whose terms were not limited by law (except militia officers), should be two years, and should terminate on the first day of January, 1842.

About the first of October JOHN P. SHELDON was removed from the office of Register of the Land Office, at Mineral Point, and JOHN V. INGERSOLL appointed as his successor.

Maj. SHELDON, previous to his appointment to this office by Gen. JACKSON, had been an editor of a democratic paper at Detroit. He was a zealous and effective partisan, with warm and devoted friends, and brought upon himself the serious and determined opposition of many opponents, which finally culminated in his removal.

A large public meeting was held at Mineral Point, in which he was highly eulogized, and surprise and regret at his removal expressed.

The presidential election of 1840 will long be remembered by those who were on the stage of action at that day, and will stand recorded in history as having been attended by a more exciting campaign than any which ever preceded it. Mr. VAN BUREN was the candidate of the democratic party for re-election, and Gen. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON was the whig candidate, with JOHN TYLER as the candidate for VicePresident.

The Whig candidates were euphoniously designated in the political songs as "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." The campaign as the "Log-cabin," "Hard Cider," "Coon skin," etc., campaign, arising from the free use made in public processions and meetings of these supposed emblems of General HARRISON'S early life.

As Wisconsin had no vote in the presidential election, the excitement in the Territory was only sympathetic and secondary, and was exhibited in a partial and fragmentary organization of the democractic party for the nomination of candidates for the election held in September, for members of the House of Representatives. Such organizations were formed in Brown and Iowa counties, but were not perfect, personal considerations entering largely into the elections, while the canvass in other counties was conducted entirely upon the personal characteristics of the candidates.

The excitement in the Territory was largely augmented by the publication of a paper, signed by the Delegate in Congress, bearing date New York, September 7, 1840, under the title of "The voice of an injured Territory." It was gotten up in a style similar to the statement of grievances of the American colonies, at the conduct of the King of Great

Britain, contained in the Declaration of Independence. It was extensively circulated throughout the United States, as a campaign document, and undoubtedly contributed considerably to the election of the Whig candidates.

Its great length forbids its entire reproduction here, and only a few extracts can be given.

It commenced as follows:

To the People of the United States

"In the administration of the Territorial Government of Wiskonsin the Executive of the United States has not consulted or regarded the feelings, interests or wishes of the people. Being entitled to no vote in the election of President, they are compelled to appeal to the citizens of the states. That appeal as their delegate and representative I now make.

"He has refused to cause harbors and light houses to be constructed on the shore of Lake Michigan, for the protection of commerce and of the lives and property of our citizens.

"He has taken the sum of $34,000, which was appropriated specifically for the erection of light houses, and applied it towards the construc.ion of the SUB-TREASURY BUILDING in Washington.

"He has suddenly abandoned the system of internal improvement within the Territory, leaving the roads, which have been commenced, in an unfinished state, and the navigation of the rivers, which are the great thoroughfares throughout the country, unimproved. "He has thus and by other measures prevented the sale and settlement of the public lands within the Territory, by which he has diminished the revenues of the government and deprived Wiskonsin of an accession to her population, which would have entitled her to admission into the Union.

"He has endangered the peace of the frontier by compelling by a military force the Winnebago Indians to remove from the country, and before the Government had fulfilled on its own part, the stipulations of the treaties with that tribe.

"He has appointed men to the offices of the Territory who were not citizens of the Territory and who were unqualified and incompetent, and has refused to remove them after their unfitness was proved."

The remainder of this long campaign document is taken up with specific allegations of neglect, disregard and abuse of the interests of the Territory in the appointment of, and the neglect or refusal to remove the Governor, Judges, District Attorney, Surveyor General and Register of the Land Office at Mineral Point; and with a long array of reasons, why these officers ought not to have been appointed, or why, having been appointed, they ought to have been removed.

"These facts, which were duly laid before the President, are now submitted to you, that you may determine whether he faithfully performed his duty.

"For this neglect and disregard of the interests of the Territory and of the General Government, and for these gross acts of mal-administration, the Executive alone is responsible. Disfranchised as we are, we cannot forget that we are still American freemen When our petitions have been spurned by the rulers you have set over us, because we have

no voice in the party politics of the country when those rulers have filled those offices with political mendicants from other states, having no knowledge of or interests in common with us, it is our right to address ourselves to you, the only source of power, and ask a redress of grievance.

"New York, September 7, 1840.

J. D. DOTY."

In states remote from Wisconsin this "Voice of an Injured Territory," was well calculated to augment the opposition to Mr. VAN BUREN, which had already attained a magnitude which indicated the defeat which in less than two months proved disastrously overwhelming.

But in Wisconsin the absurdity of charging upon the executive, responsibility for the non-construction of harbors and light-houses, and of abandoning a system of internal improvements, and thus (and by other measures not stated) depriving "Wiskonsin of an accession to her population," when it was well-known that the responsibility rested with Congress alone, was fully met and exposed.

There too, it was well-known that the removal of the Winnebago Indians, so far from endangering "the peace of the frontier was the most effective means of securing it. The covert attack upon the Governor, Judges, Attorney, Surveyor-General and Register of the Land Office, under the pretense of assailing the President of the United States, produced no damaging effect upon those officers in the Territory where they were well-known. The Governor was the next year elected delegate. Again appointed Governor in 1845 elected the first United States Senator and subsequently re-elected. The Surveyor-General (GEO. W. JONES) was for a long time United States Senator from Iowa, and represented the United States, as its Minister, at a foreign court. The Judges and Attorney often received marked and convincing evidence of the confidence which the people reposed in them, and there is no doubt if the voters of Wisconsin could then have voted for President, that the vote of Mr. VAN BUREN would have been increased rather than diminished by these charges of the delegate.

CHAPTER XXII.

TERRITORY OF WISCONSIN IN 1841.

So long as its political dependence upon the United States continued, the interest of the inhabitants of the Territory in the proceedings of Congress was unabated.

The second session of the 26th Congress, commencing on the 7th of December, 1840, and ending on the 3d of March, 1841, was barren of any results of interest to the Territory, with the exception of the ordinary appropriations for the salaries of the Governor, judges and secretary, and for the expenses of the Legislative Assembly.

The appropriations for salaries ($9,100) and contingent expenses ($350) were the same as in former years, while the appropriation for the pay and mileage of members and other expenses of the Legislative Assembly, was reduced from the sum $34,075, appropriated at the previous session, to the unprecedentedly small sum of $20,000.

This reduction was made in the face of the fact that the Legislative Assembly had, during this same session of Congress, been compelled to anticipate the appropriation by a resort to certificates of indebtedness, in payment of its

expenses.

No appropriations were made for any of the numerous harbors on the lake shore, for territorial roads, or internal improvements of any description nor for any of the numerous objects for which they were so greatly needed.

Judge DOTY was the Territorial Delegate during this

session.

The first session of the third Legislative Assembly convened at Madison on the 7th day of December, 1840.

The members of the Council elected in 1838 to the second Legislative Assembly were, under the provisions of the organic act, elected for four years, and continued, with two exceptions, to hold their offices during the terms of both the second and third Assemblies.

The exceptions were WILLIAM A. PRENTISS and DANIEL WELLS, Jr., from the district of Milwaukee and Washington