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STATE GOVERNMENT-No. 2

[April 18, 1846]

Thanks to the independence and self-pride of the freemen of Wisconsin, the convention to prepare a frame of government for our young and growing commonwealth will assemble in October. It is a matter of deep interest to all that we should have wholesome provisions engrafted upon that "bill of rights." By placing them there they will not be subject to the whim or caprice of party, or of rash legislation. It is, therefore, advisable to look about and see what can be fixed in the body of the constitution with propriety. For one, I am extremely anxious to see one of those safeguards introduced into our constitution, concerning which something has already appeared in your columns. I refer to the provision that will always preserve the home of the poor man from the ruthless grasp of an avaricious creditor.

By reserving a home to a man in every vicissitude of life we in truth enable him much better eventually to pay his debts than by allowing the person to whom he may be indebted to drive him out of house and home. There should be no law to break down the buoyant spirit of man. Let him have the "comforts of the family around him, always secure from the assaults of oppression," and our people will never fail to bear up successfully against every other distress that may environ their paths.

A man's little home, in the eye of the law, should in very deed be his castle, a place from which he should never be expelled. If a man will trust another, let it be upon his personal responsibility and not at the expense of the peace, happiness, and comfort of his dear wife and children. I would that a man might keep the value of a forty acre lot and his cabin at every hazard. This arrangement will prevent families from being broken up, and helpless children from being exposed to penury and want. I would request

the electors to turn this matter through their minds, and, when the proper time shall arrive, that they will exercise the trust reposed in them, conscientiously, and for the benefit of the whole people.

Our Wisconsin constitution should be one of the very best that has ever been presented to a free people to pass upon. We have the doings of all former conventions to look at, and we will be able to see how their various provisions have worked since their adoption by the people of other states. We are, in fact, among the very last of the territories to frame a constitution, and are bound to make one upon the most perfect of models. We want the constitution of our Commonwealth so framed as to endear every man to its provisions, and make everyone living under it feel that he is indeed a freeman. There are other objects of public attention that I wish to see constitutionally disposed of, and upon which I will offer some suggestions in a future number.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

[April 25, 1846 ]

In the April number of the Democratic Review we find an article on the "Progress of Constitutional Reform in the United States," in which some valuable suggestions are made. We extract the following, which we believe might properly be considered when our constitution is formed:

We then maintained that in governments where all classes are so fully represented as in the United States of America, where public opinion is so rapid in its formation and circulation and so controlling in its authority, the constitution should be subjected to a thorough revision once at least in the lifetime of every generation, and such repairs made as are clearly and steadfastly demanded by a manifest majority of the voting population for whom it is designed.

If in the great state of New York, with its immense population, intelligence, and experience, an alteration of the con

stitution is absolutely demanded during every generation, how much more should we, just entering upon the threshold of our political existence, provide that future conventions should be held to amend the constitution now so soon to be formed. Untried schemes of political policy, as well as more settled provisions, will doubtless be inserted in it, and how unjust to those who will follow us that they should be constitutionally tied down to what they in their progressive knowledge may know to be far behind the age in which they then may live, and that political as well as all other human knowledge is progressive no one can seriously deny. What severe lessons we have learned in political experience in only the last ten years. But that short time since, the evils of combined wealth in banking were not so clearly manifest nor so plainly understood and repudiated as in this our day, and we question not that many things, which for want of being tested may now meet with our full sanction, will, when they shall be better understood, be entirely exploded. For our own part, we should be pleased to have an opportunity (even if not exercised) of remodeling our state constitution two or three times during our generation. The workings of our political system may be better developed, and the wishes of the great majority of the people in this way better made known, and these we would hold paramount to any objection on the score of mere inconvenience or expense. We have no mode of estimating the future but by the past, and when we reflect upon the many improvements that have been made in the last fifteen or twenty years, is it too much to imagine that there are other reforms to be carried out? However an exalted opinion we may entertain of our superior political knowledge, we do not contend that we have nothing more to learn, and that we have arrived at our ultimatum in political science, and what we would is, whenever any particular principle of policy is determined upon, and when that policy forces itself to the favor of the great majority of the people, then that settled determined policy, whatever it may be, we wish to see it, as another step in our

political advance, embodied upon our constitution, that it may no longer be buffeted about by opposing parties as a mere "wind of doctrine," when its importance and popularity demand that it should be acknowledged as a constitutional "fixed fact." This much gained and firmly secured, we may then look around us for other evils to overcome as they may arise in our "great experiment" of self-government, and thus go on to improve from one convention to another as we may be experimentally taught.

In the article in the Review there is an epitome of several of the new constitutions that have been formed within the last two years, and in speaking of the merits of the different constitutions the writer adds that "the new constitution of Louisiana discovers more political insight and a more absolute reliance upon the principles upon which popular governments are based than appears in the fundamental law of any other state in the Union."

Our readers will see that this praise is just from the following extracts we make from the new constitution of Louisiana:

No corporate body shall be hereafter created, renewed, or extended with banking or discounting privileges.

Fortunately for us in Wisconsin, we need only declare that no corporate body shall be hereafter created-as there are none in existence to be renewed or extended. If, however, the words "renewed or extended" increase in legal contemplation the force of the language of the section, or is [are] necessary to cover the case of the insurance company, then we want these words by all means kept in. We copy another capital provision from this same constitution:

Corporations shall not be created in this state by special laws, except for political or municipal purposes; but the legislature shall provide by general laws for the organization of all other corporations except corporations with banking or discounting privileges, the creation of which is prohibited.

This constitution restricts the legislature from "pledging the faith of the state for the payment of any bonds, bills, or other contracts or obligations for the use of any person or persons corporate or body politic whatever," and also restricts the legislature from contracting debts so as to exceed the sum of $100,000, except in case of war, invasion, or insurrection, "unless the same be authorized by some law for some single object or work, to be distinctly specified therein, which law shall provide ways and means by taxation for the payment of running interest during the whole time for which said debt shall be contracted, and for the full and punctual discharge at maturity of the capital borrowed; and said law shall be irrepealable until principle and interest are fully paid and discharged, and shall not be put into execution until after its enactment by the first legislature returned by a general election after its passage. Although this provision does quite well, yet we would like the more summary one that no debt should be contracted by the legislature except in case of war, etc., unless a majority of the people of the state shall first vote in favor of the debt so to be created by the powers of the state.

Here is another good provision-"No divorce shall be granted by the legislature." We have long been satisfied that the courts alone should determine these matrimonial difficulties.

But we have not room to extract any more as equally salutary provisions in the constitution of Louisiana as those which we have noted. The article from which we have made the above extracts points out many of the beauties of the new constitutions of Missouri and Texas which are both models in many particulars. But we refer our readers to the article itself, and if they are not subscribers to the Democratic Review they ought to be, and close this article with two humane provisions which we find in the constitution of the state of Texas, which we commend to the attention of our readers:

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