We know that some of our best and most radical Democrats are for the let alone system in regard to currency, but we think they sometimes fail to recognize a very obvious distinction between things which should be let alone and those which should not. Whatever is proper to be done by private citizens, the government should leave them to do in their own way, but whatever is not proper to be done by them, the government is competent to prohibit.

It is not proper that a private citizen should coin money, and the government prohibits it. It is not proper that persons should pass counterfeit money, and why? Because it is an aggravated fraud, and the government prohibits it. The law regards a payment made in counterfeit money not only as void, but as highly criminal on the part of him who makes it.

Well, the whole banking system is a fraud "fra end to end." Bank paper is but a mock currency-a species of counterfeit money, and public authority is as competent to inhibit its circulation as it is that of American half dollars made of pewter and zinc. There is really no important difference that we can see.

But whether any such provision should be inserted in the constitution is another question. Our object in framing this instrument should be to establish governmental principles rather than to enact a code of laws, and we should admit nothing into our constitution which has not, in the public estimation, become reduced to a fixed principle, the permanent operation of which we are willing to risk.

On the whole, we think "Rough Hewer's" proposition in this instance somewhat objectionable on account of its doubtful efficiency in debarring paper money from the state, and the litigation which it might induce. If any provision of the kind is inserted in our constitution we think it should be the total outlawing of all bank paper, for such a provision we are confident we should never have occasion to repeal or amend.

THE STATE GOVERNMENT LAND

[September 29, 1846]

The merits of the late act of Congress to enable the people of Wisconsin to form a state government have for the most part been passed over in silence by the territorial press.

This act interests us as a people more than any other which has ever been passed by that body, inasmuch as it not only fixes our state boundaries, but requires us to surrender important rights for a definite consideration.

In the first place, we are bounded north by Lake Superior, the St. Louis and St. Croix rivers, which assigns to the state less than half the present territory of Wisconsin. This we should regard as no great hardship were the provisions of the bill in other respects as liberal as we had a right to expect. Other new states have received large grants of land, some of them as high as 500,000 acres, in addition to the ordinary grants for educational purposes; and one of the strongest arguments in favor of a state organization has been that we would be entitled to 500,000 acres of land on our admission into the Union.

This consideration has entirely failed. No such grant nor any allusion to it is to be found in the act under consideration. The following propositions are submitted to the convention for its acceptance or rejection.

First. Section 16 in every township is granted to the state for the support of schools.

Second. The grant already made of seventy-two sections for the support of a university is confirmed to the state. Third. Ten sections of land are granted to the state to finish the public buildings.

Fourth. All salt springs within the state, not exceeding twelve in number, with six sections of land adjoining, or as contiguous as may be to each, are granted for the use of the state, making seventy-two sections of land, provided we can

find the springs within one year, which we should not fail to do, even if we have to salt a few on purpose to meet the emergency.

Fifth. Five per centum of the net proceeds of the sales of the public lands within the state are granted for purposes of internal improvement.

Instead of our 500,000 acres, we have a grant of 92,160 acres; and in consideration of this magnanimous grant they require the constitutional convention to bind the state, either by a clause in the constitution or an ordinance irrevocable without the consent of the United States, to give up half our territory, not to interfere with the primary disposal of the soil, nor tax the lands belonging to the United States.

Congress admits our right to all the lands within our state limits by requiring us to relinquish that right; and if we will relinquish all, they will give us back a very small portion of them. Indeed, if we are admitted into the Union "on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever," as the Ordinance of 1787 declares we shall be, if admitted at all, we must be admitted with a full title to all the vacant lands within our limits at the time of our admission, for this was a condition of the original compact.

Whether the Ordinance of 1787 imposes any legal obligation upon the present government of the United States under the constitution or not, it certainly does, in our opinion, impose as strong a moral obligation upon it in respect to our rights and interests as would have rested upon the Continental Congress under the confederation, had it continued to this day.

But supposing the right of soil to be conceded to the United States, still Congress admits our right to tax those lands by asking us again to relinquish that right. Indeed, we do not see how the United States can evade this our right, but by arbitrarily keeping us out of the Union and confining us as a territory. This we believe the constitution gives them power to do. But there is one thing which they have not the power to do.

They have not the power to force us

into the Union contrary to our sense of honor and justice. They can keep us out as long as they will, in spite of us, and we can stay out as long as we will, in spite of them. But in either case they must either support their own government over us, or allow us to have and maintain our own; so that if they refuse to do us justice, we can, on a pinch, stand it as long as they can.

Many believe that we have been dismembered of territory which fairly belongs to us on our southern and northeastern borders; and now they have not only split us plumb in two, but require us to relinquish most important and admitted rights for a most paltry consideration.

For one, we should be sorry to see anything intervene unnecessarily to prevent our speedy admission into the Union; but whether or no these terms should be acceded to, will, we apprehend, engage the serious consideration of the convention, and of the people of the territory generally.

LET IT BE TOLD!

[October 6, 1846]

We have been credibly informed that, shortly previous to the late election, a Whig candidate for the convention in this county went to an influential Norwegian who was supposed to be a Democrat and offered him fifteen dollars if he would go round among his people and electioneer for the Whig ticket. The man promptly declined, and the candidate raised his bid, which was again declined. Again and again was the bid raised, and again and again declined, until it reached the nice little sum of two hundred dollars, when, Ole standing out still as firm as his native mountain, the candidate gave him up as a tough stick and sloped for softer timber.

Now we would ask the Sentinel and Gazette if this Whig did not misrepresent his own party as to the means which

should be used in elections, and whether this misrepresentation may not have thickened the defeat of his party?

This incident, whatever may be said of the moral on one side, suggests an important one on the other, viz: that foreign immigrants, however "ignorant of our laws and language," possess a degree of political virtue which may astonish many of the natives, even in high places.

AN ACCOUNT OF WHIG INIQUITIES

[October 6, 1846]

The Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, in alluding to the late election, remarks:

In almost every county the whole aim and effort of the Loco Foco leaders and presses was to induce the emigrants to band together as Germans, Irishmen, or Englishmen and vote in mass for what they were told was the Democratic ticket. Of course, in order to effect such a result it became necessary for the leaders to misrepresent the principles and malign the motives of the Whig party; but as this necessity involved no unusual, or unaccustomed breach of truth, it neither troubled the consciences, nor taxed the invention of those with whom deception has become habitual and whose creed teaches that "all is fair in politics."

Such a paragraph from a Whig paper will not read very well in this region.

Instead of our misrepresenting Whig principles to gain the votes of adopted citizens, the Whigs misrepresented their own principles, were caught at it, and so were defeated worse than they would have been if they had been honest and tried to put the best face upon their own principles.

For instance, they pretended that the Whigs were the free suffrage party, in favor of the most liberal extension of the elective franchise to foreign immigrants.

Well, it was only necessary to refer to the journals of the legislature to prove that this was purely a catch-vote humbug, every Whig in the legislature having voted against the