scarcely fail, in choosing so many, to make one or more bad appointments. Shall we put it in the power of any one man to mould the judiciary of Wisconsin according to his own pleasure and purposes, for years to come?

The alternative, of course, is an election by the people and there is much, we know, in this naked proposition to startle and alarm those who have not maturely considered it. But the principle is one which, in respect to justices of the peace, the first round of the ladder, is familiar to us all and has been in successful operation for thirty years past. Nay, in New York, the members of the Court of Errors, the highest judicial tribunal in the state, as well as the justices of the peace, who compose the lowest, have been elected by the people ever since 1821. Why not extend to the intermediate grades the same principle of selection which has been successfully applied to the highest and the lowest? But it is said and by many believed that in an elective judiciary those who attain the ermine will bend their decisions to popular clamor, local and temporary prejudices, or considerations of personal interest and aggrandizement. How shall these dangers be guarded against? Can we fence round human frailty so as to protect it effectually against the promptings of ambition, the thirst for gain, the lust of power, the dread of undeserved censure, or the desire of unmerited applause? We may not, perhaps, render our judges proof against temptation, but we can accomplish something towards it by the adoption of a few salutary provisions. Let the term of office for instance of our judges be eight or ten years, and a fixed and liberal compensation be assigned for their services. Let them be declared ineligible to and incapable of holding any other office during the term for which they shall have been elected. And let them be chosen on a day specially set apart for that purpose and so distant from the usual periods of holding elections as to diminish if not destroy the probability that the result will be influenced by merely political or party considerations. With such guards

we freely confess that we should look with more of hope and confidence than of doubt and apprehension to the working of an elective judiciary. But the length to which these remarks have extended admonish us to pause for the present.

THE RECENT ELECTION

[September 28, 1846]

Two paragraphs in a late number of the Madison Democrat reveal a part of the machinery by the successful use of which our opponents were enabled to secure so large a majority of the delegates to the constitutional convention. They are as follows:

Notwithstanding the extraordinary inducements that were held out to our Norwegian friends to support the Whig delegates for the constitutional convention, yet they, with a sincere devotion to Democratic principles, gave our ticket an almost unanimous support. In the "banner precinct" of Cottage Grove in this town, they alone deposited over 100 straight Democratic ballots; while but one solitary one of their countrymen voted for the Whig ticket, and even he promised to "sin no more."

In the precinct of Reeveville, in Iowa County, there were sixteen straight votes polled for the Democratic delegation and not one for the Whig ticket. This precinct is a branch of the English settlement in this county, and we hope hereafter to see the returns from Gorstville showing the same unanimity on the part of the Democrats in that region.

What the Democrat here claims to have been the secret of the party success in Iowa and Dane counties was, with very rare exceptions, equally the case throughout the territory. In almost every county the whole aim and effort of the Locofoco leaders and presses was to induce the immigrants to band together as Germans, Irishmen, or Englishmen and vote in mass for what they were told was the Democratic ticket. Of course, in order to effect such a result it became necessary for the leaders to misrepresent the principles and malign the motives of the Whig party; but as this necessity

involved no unusual or unaccustomed breach of truth, it neither troubled the consciences nor taxed the invention of those with whom deception has become habitual and whose creed teaches that "all's fair in politics." Thus the newlyarrived immigrants were assured that the Whig party were opposed to their acquiring any of the rights or privileges of citizenship; that they were in favor of building up a privileged aristocracy; that their policy favored the rich at the expense of the poor; and that the party which, lacking the substance, is prodigal of the show of "democracy" was the only one in whose keeping their interests would be safe, or at whose hands they could ever expect any favors.

These and similar appeals were industriously addressed to the thousands of English, Irish, and German immigrants who have settled in Wisconsin within the last two years; and it can excite no surprise that they were so far successful as to induce these classes of our population to vote for those whom they were taught to regard as their only reliable friends. It would, indeed, have been a matter of astonishment if, with such lights as were before them, they had acted any differently. But now that the election is over, it may well become those whose suffrages have determined the result to reflect seriously and dispassionately upon the consequences of their peculiar action; nor will it be out of place for us to consider whether this political division of our citizens is likely to be a permanent one and what, if so, will be its effect upon our social, political, and business relations. It can hardly be necessary for us to say to the readers of the Sentinel and Gazette that we have no sympathy with the Native American party. From the day it first drew breath in Tammany Hall, New York, to the hour of its temporary triumph in the Democratic districts of Philadelphia, we have regarded its spirit as evil; its motives, illiberal; its tendency, injurious; and its object, anti-republican, ungenerous, and unjust. Satisfied that the end would be to array the native against the adopted citizens, and to infuse into our political contests, already sufficiently earnest and heated, the bitter

ness of sectarian strife and the violence of national prejudices, we regretted its rise, mourned over its progress, and rejoiced at its fall. But if we have contended against those who strove to band together the native against the adopted citizens, equally must we condemn those who seek to array the adopted against the native. If we have depreciated the formation of an American party to war upon the foreignborn portion of our population, we must denounce every attempt to organize and embody the latter class to act, in mass, against the former.

We can conceive, indeed, of no more unfortunate state of things in our territory than the introduction of such a spirit of clanship among either our native, or our adopted citizens. It would be drawing a line between these two classes of our population which no true patriot could wish to see established. It would engender bitter feelings and lasting feuds in our midst; transmit the prejudices of one generation to the next, and postpone, if not wholly prevent, the fusion of all the different compounds which go to make up the population of our territory into one homogeneous whole. Are these desirable results? Can any man who has really at heart the prosperity and welfare of Wisconsin wish to see such distinctions perpetuated among us? Are there any of our citizens, except the sordid place-hunters or selfish demagogues, who can lend their countenance or approval to political appliances fraught with so much mischief to the best interests of our future state? We appeal to our adopted citizens, themselves, to say whether those who would have them associate and act together at the polls as foreigners and not as Americans are what they so loudly profess to be, their true friends? Are these disinterested, reliable, patriotic advisers, who counsel them to keep up, in the country of their adoption, a political fellowship founded upon the place of their birth? Is it not clearly their interest, and as clearly their duty, to distrust these insidious counsels, to disregard these unworthy and selfish appeals and to divide, on all the political questions of the day, as native-born citizens do,

without regard to sect or birthplace, and according to the dictates of reason and the promptings of patriotism? Such, at least, do we conceive to be their duty, and it is upon these principles and in this spirit that we exhort them, henceforth, to guide their political action, however loudly professing friends and practised electioneerers may appeal to them, as Germans or as Irishmen, to stand by the "Democratic" party and support the "regular ticket."

CAPITAL AND CURRENCY

[October 7, 1846]

In some remarks, a few days since, upon the probable course of our convention, we expressed the belief that upon two subjects only, the judiciary and the currency, would there be any great disparity of views among the members. We have already adverted to some of the differences of opinion which are likely to prevail in regard to the former question, and it remains to speak of those which are to be looked for relative to the latter. And by way of preface it may not be inappropriate to glance at some peculiar features in our condition as a people. We are in want of capital for our ordinary business purposes and labor under the disadvantages incident to a new country for the lack of the means to develop its resources. Of the thousands and tens of thousands who are flocking to our territory, few possess more than barely enough to provide themselves with a homestead, or to start in the business in which they propose to embark. The introduction of capital into a new country is proverbially a slow process, partly because of the instability and uncertainty of our laws, and partly because much less regard is usually paid to the obligation of contracts than in older communities. If to these ordinary obstacles be superadded those arising from restrictive and illconsidered legislation, a long time must elapse before suffi