tution dates from 1879. Texas, admitted in 1846, has had four constitutions, the last one adopted in 1876. The present constitution of Michigan is her third and was adopted in 1908. Minnesota, like Wisconsin, still retains her original constitution but it is nine years younger than that of Wisconsin. Of all the states west of the Alleghenies, the constitutions of Ohio and Indiana, the two oldest states of the Northwest Territory, most closely approach Wisconsin's in point of age. The constitutions of Indiana and Ohio were drafted in 1850-51. Between these and the constitution of Wisconsin there is this marked difference, however. The people of Wisconsin have held no constitutional convention since 1848, and they entertain at the present time no pronounced feeling of dissatisfaction with their constitution. In Ohio constitutional conventions were held in 1873 and 1912, the dissatisfaction of the voters with the existing constitution being registered on the former occasion by a vote of more than two to one, and on the latter by more than ten to one. The constitution drafted in 1874 was rejected at the polls; the work of the convention of 1912 resulted in the adoption by the voters of thirty-four amendments to the old constitution, thus materially modifying its character. Indiana, like Ohio, has long been dissatisfied with her constitution, and in 1916 a new one was drafted by a convention created for this purpose. However, by reason of a supreme court decision invalidating the procedure in accordance with which the convention had been held, the voters were never given an opportunity to pass upon the document.

It is evident, even from the foregoing brief résumé, that Wisconsin's constitution has stood the test of time longer and better than any other in the western three-fourths of the country. No less evident is it that sooner or later it will become outworn and a new framework of government will need to be provided for the state. How soon this will come to pass we make no attempt to predict. When the time shall arrive, a full documentary history of the existing constitution should prove indispensable not only to the mem

bers of the convention charged with the duty of drafting a new constitution, but to the enlightened citizens of the state generally. Quite aside from such a contingency the possession of such a documentary history should be invaluable to students of our history and to both students and administrators of our government.

Such a record, after seventy years of statehood, still awaits compilation. Extravagant in certain respects, our forefathers of seventy years ago were extremely economical in others. To save the expense involved, a paltry sum according to present standards, they gravely abstained from authorizing the making and printing of a report of the debates of the first convention. Consequently the only official record we have of its proceedings is the formal daily journal. The members of the second convention were more extravagant or more far-sighted. In the beginning no report of the debates was authorized; before long, however, such a step was taken, coupled with the direction to the reporters that no record be kept of the words of any member who might indicate his objection thereto. Three members availed themselves of the privilege thus accorded to efface from the printed record their contribution to the deliberations. With this exception, and subject to the difficulty the reporters labored under of constructing a report of debates had prior to the ordering of making such a report, we have for the second convention both the official journal and a report of the debates.

Fortunately for posterity, and for the success of our enterprise, two circumstances combined to make possible the compilation at this late date of a relatively complete documentary record of the origin of our state constitution. The State Historical Society of Wisconsin was organized in 1849. Even several years before this one cultured citizen of the territory, Cyrus Woodman, of Mineral Point, was assiduously collecting newspaper files for its future library, and appealing to others to do likewise. To the present day the Society has never relaxed this zeal, which antedates its

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birth, for the upbuilding of a great newspaper collection. In size it stands second in America, and the collection of files of Wisconsin papers is of course incomparably the best in existence. The newspaper annals of Wisconsin begin with the founding of the Green Bay Intelligencer late in 1833. By 1847 there were some two dozen papers in the territory, and the contemporary files of about half of them, for the period of constitutional origins, are preserved in the State Historical Library. Our relative good fortune in this respect may be seen by comparing Wisconsin with its western neighbor, Iowa. The latter territory was set off from Wisconsin in 1838 and attained statehood in 1846. Like Wisconsin, Iowa had two constitutional conventions, the first in 1844, the second in 1846. From the period of constitutional origins in Iowa but two newspaper files have been preserved, as compared with five or six times as many for Wisconsin.

Moreover, the character of our territorial press was such as to make the files which have thus been preserved of particular value to the student of political developments. The newspaper editor of the forties was poor in news of the world outside his immediate vicinity to a degree difficult of comprehension today; at the same time he was largely oblivious of the news value of the events of his home neighborhood. One passion possessed his soul, apparently, and two staple types of material filled the columns of his paper. His passion was for politics, and political diatribe and disputation comprised the really vital portion of the press of Wisconsin in the forties. For filler he had resort to poetry, fiction, and history, and the mediocrity of this class of material is no less remarkable than the pugnacity and zeal displayed in the political discussions.

Madison, the infant capital, and Milwaukee, the nascent metropolis, were then, as now, the two chief news centers of Wisconsin. From the village of Madison issued three exceedingly self-conscious political "organs," one of the Whig and two of the Democratic faith. Each of the two latter

spoke for a distinct faction of the party, however, and the political vituperation directed by each against the other was bitterer, if possible, than that emitted against their Whig neighbor. At Milwaukee a situation somewhat resembling that at Madison prevailed among the English papers, while the Democratic Banner, Wisconsin's first German newspaper, and its rival, the Volksfreund, displayed no less zeal for politics than did their English neighbors. With two somewhat important qualifications the press of Milwaukee may be said adequately to have represented the political opinion of the entire eastern section of the territory. The Racine Advocate represented much the same social and political constituency (immigrants from New England and New York) as did the Milwaukee English papers, but it is worthy of independent attention by virtue of its having been the ablest-edited paper, probably, in Wisconsin. The Waukesha Freeman was the organ of the abolition element in Wisconsin. Apparently it was ably and vigorously edited, but unfortunately, aside from certain scattering issues, no file of the paper for the period in which we are interested has escaped oblivion. For the population of the lead mine region, sharply differentiated from the lake shore with respect not only to origin and economic interests but also to political ideals and leaders, we have newspaper files for Platteville, Prairie du Chien, Lancaster, Mineral Point, and one or two other places.

A study of these several newspaper files affords a remarkably detailed conception of the political currents and developments of the period of emergence from the territorial status to that of independent statehood. With the suddenness, seemingly, of a western hurricane, there developed, in the latter part of 1845, a demand on the part of the voters for the admission of Wisconsin to the Union. For about a year and a half the storm of political discussion raged without a single lull. During this time the ideas of the voters as to the kind of government desired were formulated, the election of delegates to the first convention (that of 1846)

and the convention itself were held, and the great debate over the question of ratifying the convention's work was fought out. Notwithstanding the electorate and the convention were both overwhelmingly Democratic, in the election of April, 1847 the former rejected the handiwork of the latter by a decisive majority vote. Thereupon, so far at least as the statehood question was concerned, comparative calm seems to have descended upon the troubled political waters. Probably never since then have the people of Wisconsin been absorbed in a political issue to the degree which prevailed from January, 1846 to the election of April, 1847. The decision announced, statehood still lay a year in the future; a new convention must be held, and the framework of government still remained to be drafted. But the subject had been talked out; within broad lines the will of the electorate had been made manifest; if partisan rancor had not been stilled it was at any rate largely diverted to other objects; and it was taken for granted that the second convention would frame a constitution which would harmonize with the desires of the electorate. The newspaper discussion of the statehood question for this latter period, therefore, dwindles to insignificance in comparison with that indulged during the earlier one.

In assuming our editorial task it has seemed wise to limit the work to the immediate period of time in which the constitution of Wisconsin was formulated and admission to statehood gained. There were some discussions, and even several elections, over the question of statehood prior to 1846. With these, the historical introduction aside, the present work does not deal; nor does it take cognizance of constitutional developments which have come about since the admission of Wisconsin to statehood. In any complete history of the state the constitutional developments of both the earlier and the later periods indicated would, of course, require appropriate consideration. From the viewpoint of constitutional origins in Wisconsin, however, they pale to insignificance when compared with the developments of the