United States is such as will fully justify us on the score of legal right as well as of expediency in forming a government for ourselves. It is true that the boy is under the legal control of his father, who is bound to provide for his wants and entitled to exact obedience; yet, when the father turns him adrift and denies him food and shelter the lad may well regard it as a hint that he must look out for himself. This is precisely the state of affairs between the United States and our territory. Congress refuses to support their own government over us, and, so far as they can by their own enactments, they refuse to let us support it for them.

Congress, in the exercise of the absolute and unlimited powers of sovereignty over the territories as conferred by the constitution, recognized by such commentators as Kent and Story, and sanctioned by the highest judicial tribunals, enact that no session of our legislature shall be held till they have made an appropriation to defray its expenses. Now suppose Congress should refuse to make any appropriation whatever for this object? What would be our condition? If their authority over us and our legislature is indeed supreme, as the courts declare that it is, and as Congress in the case of Michigan repeatedly declared that it was, we could have no legislation; our territorial legislature, for all practical purposes, would be annihilated. Their acts, if they should attempt to legislate, would be of no binding force; for the prohibition is not merely that they shall not legislate at the expense of the United States, but is absolute and unconditional. "No session of the legislature of a Territory shall be held until the appropriation for its expenses shall have been made." These are the words of the act of the twenty-ninth of August, 1842, and, in the absence of an appropriation, its effect must be the same as if no legislative department had been provided for by the organic act and we had been left in the first place to be governed by the governor and judges alone. Congress has not as yet wholly refused the yearly appropriations for this object, but the appropriations have become so much reduced that it amounts

to precisely the same thing. The legislative department of our government has within the last. four years received stab after stab from the general government through the lying influence of Whiggery and Tylerism at home, until it has scarcely the breath of life left. While millions of the public revenue have been squandered upon worthless objects, the legitimate and necessary expenses of sustaining the territorial governments, especially of Wisconsin and Iowa, have been dealt out with a spirit of grudging parsimoniousness as if the existence of the Republic depended upon saving a few thousand dollars.

We have not had the full legislative session of seventyfive days to which we are entitled by our organic law since 1841-42. Our last year's appropriation was so small that our legislature, with the utmost diligence, could accomplish nothing without trenching largely upon the succeeding appropriation for the coming session. This, by a most singular freak of Congressional economy, turned out to be about one-third less than the previous one; and if the legislature, with the funds provided for the approaching session, succeed in accomplishing anything which will be of any public utility, they will be deserving of much credit.

If, then, in the language of the declaration of our national independence, the legislative power is incapable of annihilation, it may well be considered in our case as having returned to the people at large for its exercise; and whatever difficulties we may meet with, we ought not, we cannot, as freemen, consent to be governed exclusively by men appointed by a power in the exercise of which we do not participate and with which we have so little influence.

WILL CONGRESS MAKE AN ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATION FOR THE COMING SESSION OF OUR TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE

[December 2, 1845]

This is a question frequently proposed by the citizens of the territory, and it is expected that our delegate, Mr. Martin, will make a strenuous effort to accomplish this object early in the session in order that we may be apprised of it in season for our legislature to continue its session until they can dispose of some of the most important business that may come before them; and we cannot but believe that if the members of our national legislature but properly understood our circumstances and wants, they would immediately grant us that relief which we need.

The expenses of the approaching session were estimated by the Governor of the territory and [the] Secretary of the Treasury at something over $22,000. As we believe, from an entire misapprehension of our peculiar circumstances, the committee of ways and means reduced the estimate to $13,700. The appropriation for the last session was $17,250. With an active session of only fifty days the legislature found, on making up their appropriation bill, that they had exceeded the appropriation made by Congress about $2,000 and there was no alternative but to authorize the Secretary of the territory to pay the deficit out of the next appropriation. In addition to this, the printing of the laws and journals of the session was not provided for, which will amount to say $2,000 more-and must also come out of the present appropriation, leaving not to exceed $9,700 of available funds to meet the expenses of the session to commence on the fifth of next month. It would be gross injustice to charge the members with idling away their time or indulging in extravagant expenses. It is not so. We do not believe that there was last winter a legislative body in the

whole Union that labored with greater assiduity by day and by night, or that practiced more rigid economy in regard to their expenses than did the legislature of Wisconsin; and yet with all their diligence they left much important business unfinished. What, then, can they be expected to accomplish with only $9,000 to meet the expenses of the session? This does not exceed the amount which was usually appropriated to defray the expenses of the territorial legislature of Michigan which consisted of but one house of only thirteen members-but one-third of the number which constitutes the legislative assembly of Wisconsin.

Congress has, indeed, given us a liberal government, but it is none too liberal for a republican people, and if it is, it is not our fault. The United States have established over us such a government as they pleased and from it we cannot escape without their consent. This government they have promised to support. If they have established it on a more liberal scale than they can support it would seem more reasonable that they should remodel it and give us a form of government which they can support efficiently, rather than deprive us of the benefits of government altogether. The machinery of our government is somewhat extensive, it is true, but it must all move together or not move at all. Members of Congress who have not examined attentively the relations subsisting between us and the United States may suppose that if we want legislation beyond the means provided by Congress we should procure it at our own expense. But by reference to the acts of Congress it will be seen that we are wholly debarred even from this privilege. The act of Congress of the twenty-ninth of August, 1842 provides that no session of the legislature of a territory shall be held until the appropriation to defray its expenses shall have been made. Another act provides that the legislature of a territory shall in no case, and under no pretext whatever, exceed the amount appropriated by Congress to defray its expenses. These laws are regarded by our legislators as of supreme authority and they do not intentionally violate them. They

consider themselves to be absolutely prohibited from taxing the people for this object.

Members of Congress are liable to imbibe the impression that to legislate for a handful of people in a territory need occupy but a few days in a year, and that a session of twenty or thirty days is all-sufficient. But they do not understand our peculiar circumstances. Our population, though small, is scattered over a larger extent of country than that of any state in the Union; the country is new and thinly settled; the extreme settlements are separated by several hundred miles of comparative wilderness; their wants and interests are greatly diversified; they cannot communicate with each other or with their representatives with that dispatch which is attained in older states, where means of communication and mail facilities have been perfected, and consequently our legislature must work entirely in the dark and wholly independent of the popular will, or they must take time to ascertain it. In a small state which has settled down upon a fixed sysem it may be very different; but even under the most favorable circumstances, as everyone at all acquainted with legislative proceedings must know, it is a rare thing for a legislative body to accomplish more than barely to mark out its work during the first twenty days of a session.

In our case a session of twenty or twenty-five days (which is all the appropriation will admit of) will be of little or no service to the country. There will be propositions to divide counties and to establish new ones and to set off new towns. The laws relating to justices' courts need a thorough revision. They have been amended in a hurry till they have become perfectly unintelligible. Our school laws are in a similar condition, and to endure them through a two or three years' campaign in getting into the Union will be intolerable. Measures will also be proposed preparatory to forming a state government, but there will scarcely be time for this one measure to receive that consideration which it demands. We have been informed that many members of Congress are under the impression that if the United States