questions propounded. I am willing you should know my opinions for the above purpose and for no other.

Question 1. I would inform you that I am a birthright member of the Democratic family, and have acted with them for fifteen years as a voter— seven years in Dane County. The whole of this time I have been opposed to banks or monopolies of any kind.

Question 2. In answer to this question-I am in favor of no restrictions upon the right of suffrage of white male citizens, further than that they should reside in the state six months; and in relation to foreigners, that they should be entitled to all the privileges of citizens, after becoming naturalized.

Question 3. I am in favor of restricting the legislature to a limited

extent.

Question 4. I am in favor of the election of every officer by the people, and for short terms.

Question 5. I am in favor of exempting from execution for debt a certain amount of real estate; and, if elected, would use my influence to exempt as much as possible.

As it is the prerogative of the people to give instructions to their servants, I should, if elected, in all cases feel in duty bound to abide by their instructions, whether they correspond with my views or not.

Your most obedient servant,

ABEL DUNNING.

To Benjamin Holt, Darwin Clark, J. G. Knapp, Chester Bushnell, B. Brown, Committee.

THE REPLY OF JOHN Y. SMITH

The above letter [of the committee] was duly received by us, and without stopping to inquire into the authority of this committee, either on behalf of the convention which honored us with a nomination, or that from which they derived their appointment, to catechise the candidates nominated by the other convention, and passing over everything dogmatical in the questions and mandatory and menacing in the style of their letter, and most respectfully differing with the committee in the opinion that our success will depend entirely upon our doing precisely as they may direct, we avail ourself of their indulgence in "allowing the candidates to ex

press their own sentiments on them (the questions) in their own language.'

The committee may not be aware that the delegate nominating convention took into consideration the propriety of instructing the delegates upon the same or similar questions, and after deliberation, deemed it advisable to leave the candidates they had selected to the guidance of established party principles, and upon all new questions, to ascertain the sentiments and wishes of the people, with the expectation that as good Democrats they would at all times hold themselves open to instructions and in readiness to obey them.

So far as relates to the bank question, the recognized principles of the party are such that, by accepting a Democratic nomination to the state convention, we consider ourself pledged to use our endeavors to place an effectual barrier in the constitution to the existence of banks of any kind within the state of Wisconsin.

Upon the question of suffrage, the triumphant manner in which the present law of the territory has been enacted and sustained by the Democratic party, allowing all white male inhabitants over twenty-one years of age who have resided six months within the territory to vote for delegates to form a state constitution, we regard as a decisive indication that substantially the same provisions should be inserted in the constitution for the guidance of all elections under the state organization.

A restriction upon the debt contracting propensity of legislatures is a provision so obviously necessary and so strongly recommended by the experience of all new states that there can be no doubt but the people of Wisconsin expect it and will approve of it by acclamation.

We also regard it as a well-settled Democratic principle, that all officers should be elective so far as is consistent with the stability and efficiency of the government; but whether stability and efficiency would best be secured by the extension of the elective principle to the judicial department is a

question upon which not only individual Democrats amongst us, but Democratic communities and states differ widely. Upon this question the nominating convention did not attempt to give law to the party, nor do we believe that they expected the candidates would take upon themselves a responsibility which they distinctly declined.

Upon this question, we consider ourself under instructions from the convention to ascertain the wishes of the people, and to follow rather than to give instructions. We are daily engaged in this our business, and thus far we are free to say that the sentiment predominates in favor of an elective judiciary.

To release men from paying their honest debts cannot fairly be claimed as a Democratic principle. Upon this question the Whigs have the ground in the universal bankrupt law of 1841. Still we are in favor of exemption laws for the benefit of the poor debtors, and we believe they should be as liberal in their character as is consistent with justice to poor creditors. Guided by this rule, we regard as a matter of indifference whether the exemption consists of real estate or personal property, or both. But whether any exemption law should be incorporated in the constitution is a question which we think admits of some doubt. We should remember that the object of framing a constitution is not to frame a code of laws, but simply to create the several departments of government, and define and limit their powers. Wisconsin Argus.

THE EXEMPTION

[August 22, 1846]

The principle of exemption, which is now being discussed to a considerable extent among us, seems to be misunderstood by some and either wilfully or ignorantly misrepresented by others. The exemption of a home from execution for debt was, we believe, first presented to the consideration

of the public in Wisconsin by this paper, and the sentiment was approved by every Democratic paper in the territory with one exception. We therefore claim the right to explain what is, and what is not intended by the measure. "To release men from paying their honest debts" is no part of the plan proposed. On the contrary, it is intended to secure to them the facilities for raising the means to meet their obligations, instead of turning them and their families naked into the street without the means of subsistence, perhaps to become a public charge, merely to gratify some Shylock whose exact sense of justice demands the fulfillment of "the bond." We would withhold from the creditor no property which of right belongs to him. We but ask that sickness or misfortune, or even the prodigality of the debtor, shall not deprive his family of the tenement, humble though it may be, which shelters them from the storm, of the little piece of land from which by their labor they draw their subsistence, and of the proper implements necessary to pursue their labor. Is there anything unjust or unreasonable in this? Allow the relentless creditor to rob them of these necessaries of existence, and are the ends of justice any better secured? Either benevolent individuals or the public must furnish them with the shelter and sustenance of which they have been deprived, and thus, year after year, is pauperism and crime increased under the fostering care of our wholesome laws for the protection of capital.

Nine-tenths of our national and state legislation is for the encouragement and security of commerce and trade, for the protection of manufacturers, and for the benefit of capital in every way in which the labor of the many is made to supply the luxuries and increase the wealth of the few, and it is considered legitimate legislation. But, let any measure be proposed to ameliorate the condition of the producers of the country and relieve them in any degree from their slavery to wealth, immediately some "old croaker" who has succeeded, God knows how, in emptying the pockets of others into his own to a considerable amount, fearful that he shall

lose some of the powers which wealth has heretofore possessed, raises the cry of "agrarianism," "demagogueism," etc., in order to blind the people to their own interests.

Thank God for the progressive spirit of the age; the time will come has come when other rights than those alone which money gives will be respected.

LEGAL REFORM

[September 26, 1846]

Mind and matter must alike have a vent. The compressing band of so-called olden experiences can no more control the one than a toy fountain can extinguish the flame of earth's Vesuvius. The people, most fortunately, can and will think, and, notwithstanding all the halo of prejudice that Old Hunkerism is prepared to throw around any of its obnoxious theories, yet the fog must be dispelled and the smoke that surrounds it evaporated before the searching analysis of thought. We rejoice that we live in the day that everything that may be urged tending to the real enfranchisement of man can now be advocated with a sure confidence, and that nothing is per se too artificially sacred to resist the examination of mental scrutiny. New theories are necessarily innovations upon olden practices; but if "the light that burns within us" proves their injurious consequence and fallacy, we hold that all such subtle deceptions should be exposed and the false glare that surrounds them at once dispelled. As one of the "progressive democracy" we recognize this rule of conduct, that if a correct principle invokes a change, either as affecting our government or the natural rights of its citizens, we will not sanction the evil nor fear to combat the error as it may have heretofore existed. The sentiment of the purest of reformers, the lamented Leggett, meets with our fullest confirmation: "Satisfy me that a principle is right in the abstract, and I will reduce it to prac