SELECTIONS FROM THE MADISON EXPRESS

PUBLIC OPINION FAVORS STATEHOOD

[January 1, 1846]

The legislature of the territory convenes on Monday next. We wait with solicitude the result of their deliberations; little inclined, however, to speculate as to their probable action. There are a few questions of a public nature which the legislature will probably act upon, and to which we will barely allude. The first, and most important one, is the forming of a state constitution. In the fall of 1843, it will be remembered, the question was submitted directly to the people, and a decided majority found opposed to the measure. At that time, perhaps, the best plan was pursued; but since that period a great change has taken place in our circumstances, and with the change, a complete revolution in public sentiment. All opposition, so far as we have the means of judging, to admission into the Union as a state has ceased, and it only remains now for the people's representatives to hit upon the most expeditious plan. We are in favor of authorizing the people to elect delegates to a convention clothed with power to draw up a state constitution, which shall be voted upon by the people. This can be done without the least inconvenience, and in a short period of time. If a constitution thus submitted to the people meets with their approval, another year will number "Wisconsin" as one among the states of the Confederacy. The advantages which will accrue to us as a people by taking a position among the states we may speak of hereafter.

VIEWS OF "K"-No. 1

[March 19, 1846]

To My Fellow Citizens: As we are soon to be called upon to establish for ourselves a state constitution, or basis of future government, we cannot spend a portion of our time better than in investigating the principles of government which are the best adapted to the condition and wants of our territory, and which are best suited to the experience and advanced state in which it is our good fortune to be placed. Notwithstanding the spirit of liberty and equality which breathes throughout our laws and institutions as a whole, and the great advancement which, as a nation, we have made in the science of government over the dark and in many instances barbarous institutions and customs of the nations of the Old World, it is not to be denied that there are yet many relics of barbarism still to be found amongst us. It is not strange that this should be so. A long succession of years, and the reverence which the mind naturally and instinctively pays to long-established customs, even though founded in error, tend to make those customs venerable, and to throw around them a sanctity which it seems almost like sacrilege to disturb. The victory which the minds of our Revolutionary patriots obtained over many of these dark errors in government, whose correctness had, till then, remained almost unquestioned-a victory unequalled even by that which the force of their arms obtained over their civil and political foe,-was a bright and glorious achievement, well calculated to dazzle the most comprehensive intellect, and the wonder is, not that they left errors yet existing, but that, at one blow, they succeeded in accomplishing the overthrow of so many. They indeed dug deep and laid the foundation of liberty firm and broad, but left the superstructure to be reared, in a great degree, by their successors. But how would they fail of their noble design, if, instead of following

out their plan, we build this superstructure with materials gathered from the dusty relics of the barbarous and unenlightened nations which have preceded us. An edifice composed of wood, stone, clay, and the other substances which the earth yields, and constructed promiscuously after all the different orders of architecture would not present to the eye of the experienced architect a more painful or incongruous appearance than would a government where civilization and barbarity, liberty and bondage, right and wrong, equality and oppression, were brought in juxtaposition to the mind of the enlightened statesman. Aside from error of opinion on those subjects (and there are many such among us) which do not properly form a basis for legislation, there are many of our laws and institutions which seem to have so little of the spirit of liberty and equal justice in them, and to harmonize so imperfectly even with our crudest notions of right and wrong, that they should be well investigated, and the reasons for their continuance thoroughly scanned, before we adopt them into a permanent form of government.

Among these are the tenure of office of our judges and the mode of their appointment, the infliction of capital punishment, the vast number of offices, both civil and military, either directly or indirectly dependent on executive patronage, the power of the creditor over the unfortunate debtor, the inequality, want of discrimination, and the misdirected object of our criminal laws, the creation of monopolies, the incidental encouragement which is given to political demagogues, a qualification of the elective franchise.

These are some of the evils and abuses to which we have been and are yet subject, and which should be sought to be remedied by all those who believe them to be such. If leisure and inclination should concur, I may take up hereafter one or more of the above-named subjects, with a view to bring[ing] them more distinctly before the mind at a time when we are called to act definitely upon them in their adoption or rejection; and in doing so I have but one wish, which

is that, although my suggestions may have little or no weight in themselves, yet my leisure, thus spent, may be serviceable in turning the attention of others more competent to the subject. K.

VIEWS OF "K"-No. 2

[March 26, 1846]

DEAR SIR: I propose to mention another subject which it strikes me should not be passed by in the formation of a state constitution, to wit: the guarding the people against hasty and inconsiderate enactments by the state legislature. It is a remark full of truth that the tyranny of legislation is one of the most formidable evils, and fraught with the greatest inconveniences and most disastrous consequences to which a free people can be subjected. The more simple the machinery of government is, the less likely is it to become deranged, and the more easily understood; and consequently the more security must follow to the liberties and rights which the laws secure to the subjects of that government. Stability is an absolutely necessary ingredient in the laws of any country to secure to its inhabitants the blessing of prosperity and internal peace. There is no proposition in the world more plain than that laws to be obeyed must be understood. But how can they be properly understood by the great mass of the people when they are constantly undergoing changes-when the laws of last year are no longer the laws of this year, and the laws of next year different again from this or the last? Such constant changes serve in fact but as traps in which the designing may catch the unwary, and in their practical operation are no better than the system adopted by Caligula, the Romn emperor, who wrote his edicts in small letters and placed them so high on the doors of the temple as to be unable to be read. We may draw a most valuable lesson from our own short experience under our territorial government.

I assert it as a fact beyond the fear of contradiction that at no time since the formation of our territorial government has even a tenth part of our population understood, or even had the means of knowing, what were the laws under which they lived. The annual session of the legislature gave to that body the power to change, add to, amend, and repeal the previous enactments, a power of which, experience has shown us, it never failed to avail itself to the fullest extent. Each succeeding legislature seemed to regard itself as sent to play at shuttlecock with the existing laws, knocking them into confusion worse confounded, and at the end of the session leaving them in that state for their successors to play the same game. For the truth of these statements I appeal to the people generally. Our laws are almost always passed to take effect on the day of their passage, and of course on that day become a part of the laws of the land; but it is months after they are passed before they are printed and distributed, until which time, of course, it can be known but to a very few what they are, and the consequence is that the great majority may for months live in the daily violation of law, subjecting themselves to penalties and forfeitures of which they have no means of knowing the existence. If by dint of careful examination and perseverance a man becomes at length acquainted with the laws of former sessions, about the time at which he has accomplished his task there is another session, when the whole system is again changed, old laws repealed, new ones enacted, and general confusion is the consequence. A person who has never made the examination would be astonished, upon taking up the enactments of the different sessions, to find with what recklessness and apparently total want of reason almost the whole system of laws were changed, so as hardly to bear a resemblance to what they were formerly. As an example, the most familiar, I refer to the interminable acts relative to justices of the peace. Let anyone attempt an intelligent synopsis of these acts and he will no longer wonder at the universal complaint which arises from all parts of the territory against them.