tice if I can." The monarchial glare that has surrounded the administration of justice should be dissipated under our new constitution, but the question arises how or in what manner shall the courts be made to assume a natural aspect? It is not to be wondered at that our fathers who framed the great charter of our national liberties should have fallen into the old mode of judicial dispensation practiced by the governments of the Old World from which they sprung. They looked upon any innovation upon the old mode of administration of justice as little less than sacrilege, and the bench as ministering at a holy shrine. We hold to the old-fashioned doctrine that all men are equal, and that courts and their attendant evils are no more sacred to the probe of our examination than the errors that have grown up under the unequal practices of banking or of tariffs, and, honestly believing the present mysterious system of organizing courts to be adverse to the interests if not to the rights of the great body of the people, we most cordially invoke a change. We would ask our unprofessional friends whether it should of necessity be required that all the special pleading of the lawyer must be retained to recover a judgment upon a plain promissory note, or upon a mortgage to which there is and can be no defense? Yet such is the arrangement under the rules and practices of courts, counsel must be employed to recover that which the defendant or mortgagor does not in any way resist-and the poor defendant finds the original debt incumbered with the additional charges of fees and costs, which have been made contrary to the wishes of both parties. Can no way be devised to remedy this? Why should not the plaintiff or mortgagee have the privilege (as he naturally has the right) to produce to the court himself the evidence of the other's indebtedness, upon a simple exhibition of the note or mortgage as the case may be? Can common sense justify the everyday practice of courts that throws the party out of court and endangers by delay the real administration of justice, in consequence of some trivial technicality of counsel? Every prudent business man knows

that a reference to two or three common-sense men, of any controverted case is far preferable to the tedious "uncertainties of the law." As a far lesser evil and which in the main would obviate many of the objections to the present system, we should be inclined to favor "courts of conciliation," as recommended by the Southport Telegraph, the creation of which is now meeting with the warmest support from many members of the New York constitutional convention. We look with great anxiety to the deliberations of that convention upon that subject as we know of no one thing that calls more loudly for alteration than the present expensive and irrational mode of administering both law and equity. We propose giving this subject further consideration.

OUR STATE LEGISLATURE

[October 3, 1846]

The organization of our legislature must of necessity form one of the most important subjects that the convention will be called upon to consider. The nearer the power is kept in the hands of the people, so, we believe, their interests and rights will be best secured, and in the formation of our state government the house of representatives may justly be regarded as the most important branch. By its numbers and the frequency of elections it has been made in other states. the immediate representative body of the people, and is considered as the peculiar guardian of their political rights.

It has, therefore, become an axiom of the democracy of the freest states that this body should be composed of the largest number of members compatible with the convenient and proper transaction of business; and be elected from the smallest political districts into which the state is divided, so as to secure an intimate and perfect knowledge of the abilities and character of [his] representative by the elector, which under the present territorial system cannot be said

to be the case. It is at least admitted by all that one such a popular body should exist in every republican government.

We propose, therefore, for the consideration of the delegates to the state convention (and only propose, that they themselves may give the subject the consideration that may be its due) that, following the example in some respects of the New England states, the constitution shall provide that a representative be elected annually in this state by the inhabitants of each organized or incorporated town.

That each town containing-say-200 voters elect one representative.

That every incorporated town containing-say- 400 voters may elect two representatives.

And every such town containing-say-800 voters may elect three representatives, and for every 400 voters which each town may contain above 800, such town may elect one representative.

That the voters of each town at the annual election shall by a vote determine whether they will elect one or more representatives for such town according to the above ratio.

And that each town shall pay its own members at the town treasury by a tax to be levied by such town, and no member shall receive any other compensation for his services as such, or hold any other office during the term for which he is elected.

Under such an organization it rests entirely with the people whether they will send a full delegation or not, as they alone are to pay the expenses of their representatives, and in default of electing any representative they alone are to be injured. Give the people the right to a full representation, even though they may not use it, and while they keep the purse strings in their own hands the system will scarcely be more expensive than the one adopted under our territorial government. In Massachusetts, where a nearly similar system prevails, the sessions of the legislature are not unnecessarily extended, and, with the moderate per diem that they receive, we do not think on the mere score of economy that

tney are much the sufferers. Our wish is that the great body of the taxpayers be represented, and, let taxation really travel hand in hand with representation, whatever mode, even different from the one we have suggested, that will give us a well represented people, we will be found to favor it, as we humbly believe that after a body exceeds one hundred in number it makes it but little less objectionable in consequence of mere numerical inconvenience, to extend it three times as large, if the additional expense can be in some way reduced.

Under our proposition many of the towns would fail to be represented, so that the expense to the great body of the whole people in making a moderate per diem allowance to those that do attend would not, probably, exceed a body of one hundred members drawn together under the old mode and paid a larger per diem out of the state treasury.

THE RECENT ELECTION

[October 3, 1846]

The Milwaukee Sentinel copies a couple of paragraphs from this paper-one in regard to the vote at the English settlement in Iowa County, and the other to that of the Norwegian settlement in this county-and makes them the text for a long lecture upon the subject of deceiving the poor foreigners into the support of the "Loco Foco" ticket.15 To those who know how it was done, and are also acquainted with the character and course of the Sentinel editor, there is something irresistibly rich and droll in this complaint, and it smacks strongly of irony upon his own party for not following his example and "playing it finer." No man in the territory has made more appeals to foreign-born citizens as a class, attempted more "blarney" and cajolery,

15 For the Sentinel article here referred to, see ante, 202.

than this same editor. It was the "generous Irish" and the "honest German" before election, but now if he dared use such expressions to express his real feelings, it would be the "d―d Irish" and the "black Dutch." In this county, among the foreigners, the Whigs had the field almost entirely to themselves, and used every appliance which could be brought to bear to win their suffrages. The Whig candidates quartered upon them-slept and ate with them (for particulars ask our friend Botkin), had their "Declaration of Principles" translated and placed in the hands of every Norwegian in the county accompanied by suitable personal admonition, furnished means of conveyance to the polls-but all to no purpose. They couldn't win, and hence the cry, "There's cheating round the board." We believe that there has been rascality practiced, but we know that we did not do it. The great mistake of the Whigs has been that they underrated the intelligence of this portion of our population, and after trying in vain all sorts of expedients to cajole them instead of doing them the justice to acknowledge that they thought and acted for themselves independently, they have invariably come to the conclusion that the Democrats, by some hocus-pocus which they have never been able to explain, have outwitted them. With the editor of the Sentinel we deprecate any action having a tendency to create distinct classes for political effect among us, and if this is the case with some of our foreign-born citizens, the Democratic party is not responsible for it. But it might be well to ask if the course of Whig editors generally would not naturally lead to such a result-courting them as a class before elections, and as a class abusing them afterwards. We would have all citizens equal in the enjoyment of all political rights, and bearing all the burdens of government, and this has ever been the doctrine of our party.