cratic principles. ''15 The resulting constitution was defeated because of the double weight of Whig opposition to a Democratic document, and the obnoxious boundary which Congress was trying to force upon Iowa.

The second Iowa convention sat in 1846. It, too, was strongly Democratic, and its constitution reëmbodied the ideals of Jasksonianism. In the canvass for ratification the Whigs continued in opposition, but the boundary question had been eliminated through surrender of Congress, and the constitution was adopted. Two months after its adoption the rest of the upriver region, Wisconsin, took up the similar task of framing a Democratic constitution for a frontier state, and assembled in convention in the village of Madison.

The movement for statehood in Wisconsin, as in Iowa, began earlier among the politicians than among the citizens at large. The force of pioneer conditions was to make the average cititzen somewhat indifferent to formal law and legal institutions. The official, however, was not only professionally interested in the creation of jobs, but was in a position to see the inadequacy of territorial machinery and the need for more definite institutions. Some of the officials tended to grow out of Democratic mold and become what their fellow citizens regarded as too autocratic. When Arthur St. Clair wrangled with the Jeffersonian Democrats in Ohio there was no surprise, for St. Clair was an old school Federalist. But in Iowa in 1839 the Democratic territorial house resolved that its Democratic governor, Robert Lucas, was "unfit to be the ruler of free people. '16 This same Lucas talked statehood for Iowa long before the people accepted the notion. Henry Dodge did the same across the river in Wisconsin.

As early as 1838 Governor Henry Dodge recommended that a vote on statehood be taken in Wisconsin territory.

15 Iowa Capital Reporter, quoted in B. F. Shambaugh, Fragments of Debates of the Iowa Constitutional Conventions of 1844 and 1846 (Iowa City, 1900), 178.

16 Shambaugh, History of the Constitutions of Iowa, 140.

He continued in this belief, but not until 1841 would the legislature consider the matter seriously; in that year a referendum on the subject polled only 591 votes, of which 499 were adverse.17 In 1843 and again in 1844 later referendums were taken, and statehood was each time defeated. Only in 1846 did a feeling for autonomy spread widely through the territory. Early in this year the legislature provided for holding a constitutional convention, while Congress coöperated, in June, by passing an enabling act. Like other sections of the old Northwest, Wisconsin did not feel the need of an enabling act as a condition precedent to constitutional construction. It relied upon the general pledge of the Ordinance of 1787 as sufficient authority. The people of the territory ratified the call for a convention by an overwhelming vote in April, 1846. The census taken that summer revealed a population of about 155,000 in the territory, as against 18,000 in 1838.18

The Wisconsin convention that met on October 5, 1846, was a Democratic body performing a public task in the spirit of a party platform.19 Like both Iowa conventions, like the Louisiana convention of 1844-45, and the Texas convention of 1845, it believed that its party interests were the interests of society. Its model was the work of the New York convention that sat in the summer of 1846. Prosperity was again upon the country and men looked forward to a long period of development under the safeguards of democratic principles. "The day of 'depression' has gone by. The last year witnessed a great and increasing improvement in the general

"F. L. Holmes, "First Constitutional Convention in Wisconsin, 1846." In Wisconsin Historical Society, Proceedings, 1905, pp. 227-251, with an excellent bibliography.

18 Census Enumeration of the State of Wisconsin, 1905, p. vi; see Census Enumeration of the State of Wisconsin, 1895, pp. vii, x, xi, for shaded population maps; cf. R. G. Thwaites, "The First Census of Wisconsin Territory," in Wisconsin Historical Collections, 13, 247-270. In 1846 the population was 153,277, with three counties unreported. Proclamation of Governor Henry Dodge, August 1, 1846, in Wisconsin Democrat, August 1, 1846.

"There is no stenographic report of the debates, but there is a Journal of the Convention to Form a Constitution for the State of Wisconsin (Madison, 1847).

business of the country, and the cry of 'hard times' is no more heard in the land.""20 In the resulting Wisconsin constitution are preserved records of the hard times and the prosperity, the influx of immigrants and the southern antecedents of southwest Wisconsin, the spirit of the frontier, and the temper of the Democratic party.21

"Most of the members of the convention are Locos [Locofocos or Democrats] of the radical stamp, ''22 wrote a neighboring editor a week after the body assembled. It was a sound judgment, for although the body included "the Retrograding Democracy, the Progressive Democracy, and the Whigs''23 it was under the control of the progressive, young democracy wing, whose members were derided as "Tadpoles" and "Barnburners," and who frankly differentiated themselves from the "Rip Van Winkles of Old Hunkerism.''2 The "striking dissimilarity between the habits and customs of the people of the Mississippi Valley and the old Eastern States, "25 was reflected in the sections of Wisconsin, and a clear tendency existed among Wisconsonians of southern antecedents to oppose the aims of conservative Democrats. The southwesterners were unable to elect their nominee, Moses M. Strong, of Mineral Point, as president of the convention, but they succeeded in obtaining a man of their own opinions, Don A. J. Upham, of Milwaukee, for that office. Upham was opposed to banks, and had the support throughout the convention of a journal started in Madison early in 1846 to advance the interests of the radicals, the Wisconsin Democrat.26 "A "Tadpole' as we understand it,

20 Baltimore Sun, January 2, 1845.

21 A valuable guide to the materials upon the convention is Florence E. Baker, "A Bibliographical Account of the Wisconsin Constitutional Conventions," in Wisconsin Historical Society, Proceedings, 1897, 123-159.

"Lake County [Ill.] Herald, quoted in Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, October 12, 1846.

23 Madison Wisconsin Democrat, October 10, 1846. 24 Ibid., January 27, 1846.

25 Ibid., November 28, 1846.

"It appeared January 10, 1846, expressing its aim in its first issue; cf. Madison Argus, May 25, 1847; Milwaukee Sentinel, January 22, 1846; Moses M. Strong, History of the Territory of Wisconsin (Madison, 1885), 508.

is a defaulter,"27 said the Madison Argus, with a bitterness increased by its inability to meet the competition of the Democrat.

The early procedure of the convention contained no peculiarities. It appointed standing committees to consider various aspects of the constitution and slipped into regular habits as easily as if constitution-making were a daily practice for its members. Within a few days the committees began to report tentative articles, and real debate was entered upon.

It had been anticipated that the great issues before the convention would be judiciary and finance,28 and the report presented from the committee on banking by Edward G. Ryan, of Racine, precipitated the great debate. Ryan had already determined upon the outlines of his banking section when he was appointed chairman of the committee on October 8, three days after the assembling of the convention.29 The next morning he reported his draft to the convention, without assembling his committee or, apparently, even consulting his associates.30 The recent failure of the Oakland County Bank, of Michigan, "one of the last of the 'wild cat' brood,'' had provided a text for the Democrats who demanded the extinction of all banks. "Let our neighbors of the Sentinel ask the farmers 'Shall we have banks in Wisconsin?' 'No!' will be their united hearty response,' 1932 declared the Milwaukee Courier, adding that throughout the lead region merchants, mechanics, and laborers joined in the repudiation. "Draco, who wrote his code in blood was a mild and humane legislator compared with Mr. E. G. Ryan,'' declared the Sentinel when it read his proposed article, which prohibited the incorporation of banks, the

"Madison Argus, October 5, 1847.

25 Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, September 22, 1846.

2o Journal of the Convention, 1846, p. 24.

20 Ibid., 38; statement of M. S. Gibson, of Fond du Lac.

31 Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, October 17, 1846.

22 Milwaukee Courier, October 14, 1846.

33 Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, October 15, 1846.

issuance of notes as money, and the receiving or passing of bank paper, under heavy and specific penalties.34

With the introduction of the banking section the definitive struggle of the convention was begun. Its opponents offered as alternative a system of free banking under general laws, while John H. Tweedy, of Milwaukee, a young Whig with a growing influence, pressed upon the convention the free system that New York was on the point of adopting in the constitution just framed.35 "How many settlers are there now in our territory," inquired the leading Whig paper, "who have been compelled to borrow the money with which they bought their lands, at 15, 20, 25, aye 50 per cent interest? Do they think that money would command such exorbitant rates if we had good banking institutions here?''36 But the older residents of the territory had too keen a recollection of the depreciation and bankruptcy that followed the panic of 1837 to yield to such appeals. Texas, in 1845, had prohibited banks and the president of its convention had praised Jackson most because "he had the honor of giving the blow which will eventually destroy them [banks] on this continent.''37 The antagonism had spread up the Mississippi Valley. The unratified Missouri constitution of 1845 had flatly forbidden the creation of any bank of issue.38 Iowa, in 1844, had required that no bank charter be issued until approved by popular vote; and in 1846 had gone further, and had forbidden the creation of any bank.3 And Illinois, in 1847, was in the act of restricting the creation of banks to those whose charters had been accepted by popular vote.40

"Journal of the Convention, 1846, p. 27.

39

Ibid., 60; Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, October 9, 22, 1846; C. J. Lincoln, Constitutional History of New York (1906), 2, 196.

36 Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, October 17, 1846.

"Thomas J. Rusk, in Texas Convention Debates, 1845, 461; F. L. Paxson, "The Constitution of Texas, 1845," in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 1915.

38 Missouri Convention Journal, 1845, ap. 52.

"Shambaugh, History of the Constitutions of Iowa, 226, 303.

" Journal of the Convention

altering, amending, or revising the Constitution of the State of Illinois (Springfield, 1847), 565. In 1862 an