We consider

the "greatest good to the greatest number." it a question of political life or death. If the principles advocated by the Whigs, as set forth in the proceedings of the mass meeting which nominated delegates to the convention, are left to go by the board, if they are betrayed and deserted in the house of their friends, who will answer for such criminal neglect? If they are sustained-if the people come to their rescue, the country will rejoice and prosper in their success. If not, we must remain as we are, hirelings and slaves to executive dictation!

I believe the fact is undisputed that the Locofoco party opposes Whig principles-that it lives and has a being for no other purpose under the sun. We are warranted in coming to this conclusion by long experience of the fact; and it matters not how salutary the measure of reform, if the Whig seal is placed upon it opposition is the cry and the watchword.

The country has long seen and felt the evils of a landed aristocracy. New York has suffered from it, and she still suffers. Other states in the Union feel it a clog upon their prosperity, paralyzing the energy and crippling the industry of their yeomanry. If the people of Dane County are indifferent to their interests and the interests of our new state they, too, may reap the bitter fruits of a powerful yet legalized aristocracy. The Whigs are opposed to its existence, and ask that it never shall be allowed to breathe the free air of Wisconsin!

The Whigs ask that the people may be allowed to elect their own civil officers. They are met with opposition. They are told that corruption and intrigue will be resorted to in obtaining office, that the bench will be corrupted, that the ballot box will be polluted, that the people are not supreme, that their "agents" alone are capable to appoint them, and that life tenures are preferable to short ones. The Whigs advocate an elective judiciary, and insist upon short tenures in office!

Nor do they stop here. Every principle which ennobles and gives dignity and sobriety and character to human na

ture calls loudly upon us, now that we have the power, to secure to each family in our wide country the means of subsistence to secure to the farmer, mechanic, and laborer a competence when he has once obtained it; to protect him from the avaricious grasp of the merciless creditor; to make him what God designed he should be, a free man-an independent, virtuous citizen. Strange as it may seem, the Whig principle that the homestead of the citizen shall be exempt from sale under an execution is met with opposition—simply, I suppose, because it is Whig doctrine!

The Whigs hold that we are all members of the same family-all bound to the same irrevocable destiny. It is for this that they would extend free suffrage to the foreigner-welcome him to all the rights, immunities, and privileges of citizenship. If the self-styled Democratic party adhere to this principle, why have they not asserted it?

In this county we have opposition candidates to the state convention. One set is avowedly, fearlessly, and fully in favor of these measures; and if silence, as still as the deep caverns of the earth, has meaning, the other is avowedly hostile to them.

Under these circumstances they are before you. The one with their principles openly promulgated-the other, with none at all.

The packed convention which nominated one set was fighting only for men; the other, which was composed of the people in council, was contending for principle.

Such was the Locofoco-and such was the Whig convention! Draw the contrast, and then judge for yourselves.

Farmers! Mechanics! Laborers! Citizens of Dane County, can you be long in deciding what course to pursue? Look at the "no-principle party," and then inquire if this is the way in which your great interests shall be treated, in which you all have the most important questions that have ever occurred! Will you be satisfied with such a representation as they have presented for your support? You are

soon to determine the question-a question, I repeat, of political life or death. Your interests are at stake, and upon you the consequences must fall.

A WHIG.

WHO IS THE ARISTOCRAT?

[August 25, 1846]

The man who is for making the rich richer, and the poor poorer. Who is for robbing the poor man of the little pittance of worldly goods which would enable him to give bread to a starving family and [for] giving it to a rich and lordly creditor to swell his already overgrown wealth. How, you ask, is this done in a country of laws? It is done by law. Twothirds of the laws upon the statute books are made to enable the rich to collect their debts. But are they not as much for the benefit of the poor? No; the poor man cannot, if he dare, go to law; and if he dare to, he will soon wish himself out. There are but few poor men who can spare their fives, their tens, or their fifties to be placed upon the checkerboard of the law, though they may be certain of the prize. The rich [man] speculates upon the poor man's inability to meet the expenses of the law: five dollars may pay his way into a justice's court, but that is only the beginning; ten must go to the lawyer in the court above, fifty to the lawyer in the court above that, and so on from court to court, till the poor suitor finds that he is beat for want of funds to go on, or that he has spent a hundred for every dollar gained. What mockery, then, to tell the poor man that the halls of justice are open alike to all. Here, then, is a system which cannot force the rich man to pay his debts, where the poor man is the suitor. Does it force the poor man? Aye, does it; and sometimes twice over. The same causes which prevent the poor man from prosecuting will prevent his defending. How often has the lordling's curse been heard-"I'll beggar that man and his family, forever." A few years will tell the tale;

the law screw is applied a few times, and all is gone-the little pittance which would enable the poor devil to subsist himself and family, and call himself a man,—his log hut, his last cow, his last bed are gone-and himself, wife, and children are in the streets. Where next do you find them? The toiling, drudging slaves of some lordling-perhaps of the very man who has ruined them. How, you ask, is this to be remedied? Exempt to the poorer class from the merciless graspings of the rich enough to keep them from utter destitution and want: that, though poor, they may still be free. Exempt to every man from his creditor's grasp the clothes which cover his nakedness, the house that covers his head, and his necessary furniture, the tools and implements of his trade or calling, a sufficiency of land on which to dig a living, and enough of its products to live upon. And then, though poor, he may be as free and independent as the millionaire.

It is the policy of every republic to keep all its citizens as nearly equal as it is possible for them to be; to give to all equal political privileges-for that is power; to give to all free access to common schools-for knowledge is power; and to prevent wealth from accumulating in the hands of the few -for wealth is power.

How necessary, then, is it in adopting a state constitution, that there should be provisions to protect the poorer and weaker classes of the community against the rich and powerful. Some men will tell you that they are in favor of all this, but, they say, put no such things in the constitution— that it will lumber it up too much, and that it is best to leave such things for the legislature. Men who talk thus are aristocrats. They know that such provisions in the constitution are permanent, but that an act of the legislature is subject to repeal whenever the wealth of the state may demand it. And that they will demand it is as certain as that the big fish will devour the little ones.

FREE SUFFRAGE

[August 25, 1846]

The Argus of last week has a long article in reply to our interrogatories relative to Whig opposition to universal suffrage. The Argus asserts and attempts to prove that the Whig party has made such opposition, but its effort is about as bungling and unsuccessful as was that of the Democrat. The editor first cites as proof a Native American movement in the city of New York, and misrepresents it as having been "a great demonstration got up by the Whigs"; and then in order to make the Whigs appear responsible for that movement he quotes a paragraph from the Albany Daily Citizen and declares that Native organ to be "a rank Whig, high tariff paper!" The editor very well knew the demonstration he speaks of to have been a Native American and not a Whig demonstration, and also that the Albany Daily Citizen was a thorough-going Native American paper. Hence this paltry trick of his to saddle the responsibility of the acts of a political squad, consisting largely of Locofoco dissenters, upon the Whig party, is seen to be destitute of facts to sustain it. It is rather too stale a joke to be told to people of intelligence and discernment.

The Argus next endeavors to show that the Whigs opposed the principle of free suffrage by refusing to aid the Locofocos in 1843-4 in making a radical change in the established method of choosing public officers. This change was proposed, not from any motive of benefiting the mass of [the] community-not from a disinterested desire on the part of its abettors to redress a public grievance-but it was designed solely as a temporary expedient to be used on a particular occasion for the exclusive benefit of Locofoco officeseeking demagogues. If a portion of the Whigs opposed the measure, it was only because they considered it a delusive. scheme intended to subserve sinister purposes, and calcu