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 construction 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.

It closes as follows:

"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 responDisfranchised 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

sible.

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

who had resigned, in place of whom JONATHAN E. ARNOLD and DON A. J. UPHAM were elected.

In the House of Representatives, however, there was almost an entire change in the personnel of its members, elected under the new apportionment made at the previous August session, but three of the members of the previous House having been elected to this. These were, Messrs. DEWEY of Grant, RAY of Milwaukee, and WHITON of Rock. The new House of Representatives consisted of the following members:

Brown, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Portage, and Sheboygan-WILLIAM H. BRUCE (whose seat was successfully contested by ALBERT G. ELLIS), MASON C. DARLING, and DAVID GIDDINGS.

Crawford and St. Croix-JOSEPH R. BROWN and ALFRED BRUNSON.

Dane, Dodge, Green, Jefferson, and Sauk-LUCIUS I. BARBER and JAMES SUTHERLAND.

Grant-DANIEL R. BURT, NELSON DEWEY, and NEELEY

GRAY.

Iowa-FRANCIS J. DUNN (who resigned on the last day but one of the session), EPHRAIM F. OGDEN, DAVID NEWLAND, and DANIEL M. PARKINSON.

Milwaukee and Washington - JOSEPH BOND, JACOB BRAZELTON, ADAM E. RAY, JOHN S. ROCKWELL, and WILLIAM F. SHEPHARD.

Racine - GEORGE BATCHELDER, REUBEN H. DEMING, and THOMAS E. PARMELEE.

Rock and Walworth; JOHN HACKETT, HUGH LONG, JESSE C. MILLS and EDWARD V. WHITON.

In the Council, Hon. JAMES MAXWELL of Walworth county was elected President on the third ballot, and GEORGE BEATTY of Iowa county, was unanimously re-elected Secretary.

In the House of Representatives, Hon. DAVID NEWLAND of Iowa county was on the first ballot elected Speaker and JOHN CATLIN of Dane county was unanimously re-elected Clerk.

On the second day of the session Governor DODGE delivered his annual message to the two houses jointly assembled in the Representatives' hall.

The Governor renewed the recommendation of his mes

sage of 1838, of memorializing Congress to amend the organic law so that the members of the Council be elected every second year, and members of the House annually, and also recommended that Congress be asked so to amend the organic law as to permit the qualified electors in each county, to elect all their county officers, civil and military, which, as provided by that law, were appointable by the Governor.

The attention of the Legislative Assembly was again called to the dangers threatened by the course pursued in the management of its affairs by the Bank of Mineral Point, especially in its issue of what were denominated post-notes, payable at a future day.

He said:

"This is a violation of all judicious banking; it is certainly a dangerous power to be exercised by any banking institution. The time of redeeming her notes might be extended to twelve or eighteen months as well as for three or four months. If a bank is permitted to leave her legitimate business and enter the field of speculation by dealing in the staple commodity of the country, her capital will always enable her to prostrate individual enterprise, to the great injury of the people. Banks are created for the benefit of the people and should be confined to the legitimate purposes for which they were chartered."

The Governor recommended the enactment of so much of the New York Safety Fund law as provided for the appointment of bank-commissioners, with the power of examination and the other powers conferred by that law, the charter of the bank containing a provision that it should be subject so far to be amended as to make it conform to such a safety fund system.

The opinion was expressed that corporations of a private nature ought not to be increased.

It was recommended that Congress be asked to extend the right of pre-emption to the settlers on the even-numbered sections of land reserved by Congress in the act making appropriations for the Milwaukee and Rock River canal.

Also to grant the miners pre-emption rights to their mineral lots, where they were held by discovery or purchase, under permission of the Superintendent of the United States lead mines, as well as to extend the right of pre-emption to actual settlers who are located on reservations made by the superintendent for smelting purposes, and also to settlers on lands located for the half-breed Winnebagoes under the treaty of 1829.

The message stated that in conformity with a resolution