membered that a reserved mineral tract is not the subject of a preemption right. Sufficient on this subject may be this single view. If we come into the Union now we may demand that all public lands be the subject of public sale; that the character of landlord shall cease, although that of owner may be preserved to its proper extent. Our advantage now is, that we may ask for this measure with reasonable prospects of success; we may not do so, if Wisconsin enters the Union alone.

We may reasonably ask for a cession of public lands to the state of Wisconsin for public purposes, for the promotion of education, the foundation and endowment of colleges and seats of learning, the internal improvement of the state in roads, canals, bridges, and all works of public benefit, and the immediate disposal of all public lands whatsoever under proper restrictions, so as to encourage the settlement of the country by an agricultural and mineral producing population, which inevitably must result in the establishment of manufactures, and the extension of commerce. Doubts have been entertained by wise statesmen of the right of the general government being continued over public lands within the limits of an independent state, except under proper legal and defined restrictions, and for a definite period of time. It is not necessary now to debate this question; we allude to it only for the purpose of giving it as an additional reason for taking this propitious moment of going into state government, in order to have this question in some measure settled.

Wisconsin has been harshly treated in respect to her territorial boundaries in several instances by the general government, because she was helpless and alone. She had no senators or representatives of her own to watch over and vote for her rights, her properties, and her sacred immunities; she has been despoiled of her territory, and the metes and bounds of the state of Wisconsin, as laid down and solemnly designated by the original compact between Virginia and the United States, have been disregarded and set aside

by one of the parties to that contract, in contravention of law, justice, and the sacred obligations of a stipulated agreement. Illinois has been enriched with territory at the expense of Wisconsin; the state of Michigan compromised her rights to the territory lying north of a line drawn through the southern bend of Lake Michigan in consideration of receiving from the general government a large and valuable mineral region south of Lake Superior, at the expense of Wisconsin; and to crown the whole system of cutting and carving the territorial rights of the state of Wisconsin, Mr. Webster, in his famous Ashburton Treaty, has not only stripped the United States of a great portion of her integral territory at Pigeon River and the Kamenistiquia, but has done so at the expense of the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin has been known and designated as a state for more than half a century in the political history of our Government.

What remuneration shall we demand for all these wrongs, when we come into the Union? Remuneration do I say? The compensation for inflicted injury cannot be computed by the general meaning of remuneration. Restoration of the abstracted rights might of right and propriety be demanded -wherever the impracticability of such proceeding is manifest, the demands of the injured from the injuring party may well be considered as imperative, when compromise may be proposed and accepted. Wisconsin has much to ask for from the general government as restoration of her own or adequate compensation for inflicted injury; time is to determine in what manner the demand may be made, and the terms on which the compromise, if any be proposed, may be effected; but now is the period when Wisconsin may stand on her acknowledged claims, and boldy ask admission into the Union on terms honorable to herself and the legal extent of her claims. She will have the aid at this time in coming into the confederacy which she may in vain look for, if hereafter she stands alone.

S.

SELECTIONS FROM THE MADISON WISCONSIN DEMOCRAT

AN EXEMPTION LAW PROPOSED

[January 10, 1846]

In view of the many dangers and privations that every new settler is compelled to undergo, in consideration of the labor necessarily expended in opening roads, bridging streams, and improving the marshes, incident to a new country, and all this, and ofttimes more, on his part cheerfully bestowed without a sufficient, if any, remuneration, we do conceive that it should be the duty of the whole people, in every possible means within their power, to favor and protect the interests and property of those who have thus labored for the public weal.

The first settlers in every new portion of the territory are generally poor; their resources are small, though the work by them to be performed in opening the way through the wilderness from the older settlements to their new homes is inordinately great. Every settler in this territory will acknowledge this, and it is for the protection of this poor class of settlers, and in their behalf we are now writing.

Under the Texas constitution we find that a liberal exemption law has been passed to protect the settlers in that state, and we think that justice, good policy, and humanity will sanction such a provision.

After a poor man by dint of the closest economy and prudence has succeeded in securing to himself a forty acre lot of land, we want it engrafted upon our constitution that whatever reverses may come, whatever havoc sickness or death may make within his household, in fine, come what may, we want that land, that homestead, secure from the grasping avarice of any creditor. If we all know that that property