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to the course that liberty men are advised to take to secure the framing of a just constitution, our readers will find the wisdom of the convention embodied in the following resolution:

We advise all the friends of liberty in Wisconsin, in the contingency of a convention to frame a constitution being determined on by the people, to stand wholly aloof from the Whig and Democratic parties, and to put up and support for delegates to that convention men of tried and wellknown character in favor of the rights of man; and if we then fail of success, it will be for want of power and not of will.

STATE GOVERNMENT-No. 2

[March 21, 1846]

A correspondent, who writes himself "a Whig, but not a strict party man," informs us that he shall vote against a state government at the ensuing April election. His reasons for so doing are in brief:

First. He deems it a matter of the most deep and abiding importance that, when we adopt a constitution for the state of Wisconsin, it should be a safe, judicious, and practical instrument, and he thinks we have not the men now in the territory to whom we could with confidence entrust the work of framing such a one.

Second. State government is not a measure of the people but of the office seekers.

Third. If a majority of the people vote for a state government, we are of course to be precipitated at once upon an election for delegates, in which party appliances, fictitious representations of party gain, and pride of party victory will be made use of to push men into the convention in whose fitness not even a majority of their political friends have confidence, by which means it will turn out that a dozen little whippersnappers who manage the party wires will, in fact, choose such delegates as may seem to them most likely

to advance their own selfish ends even at the expense of interests vital to the prosperity of the territory.

And fourth and finally, our correspondent fears that we shall at once, on becoming a state, plunge into a career of extravagance which will load the government with debt and tarnish the honor and fetter the young energies of the state for years.

These are the points of our friend's objections, which he has drawn out to a much greater length. We believe we have put them fairly. To reply as briefly, if possible, as we have stated them:

First. We deem the character of our constitution, in respect to safety, soundness, and practicability, and moreequality—of as high importance, and the matter of choosing delegates to frame it, as wholly aloof from mere party differences and the interests of politicians, as our correspondent possibly can. As to our ability to get up the right kind of a constitution now-if the people will look out men for the work merely on the recommendation of qualifications for the discharge of the duty, we have enough already in our midst; if the responsibility of delegate is to be considered of the rewards to be distributed by party on the ground of party service rendered or expected, it would not avail us a whit to colonize into the territory all the talent, wisdom, and experience of the Union.

We deem the present a most opportune time to set about the task of framing our organic law, especially, as we have the discussions which are going on in New York pending the revisal of the constitution of that state, which discussions are employing the attention and wisdom of many of the clearest intellects and purest statesmen of the Empire State to light us on our way.

Second. We submit that there are political and pecuniary considerations depending on the decision of the state government question of sufficient importance to win for the measure a warm popular favor. As to the interests or wishes of office seekers, that class are not certainly to grow

less clamorous or less dangerous as their number increases, which is doing every day.

Third. We do not see why the common sense of the people may not be as confidently relied upon to make an independent selection of delegates to a constitutional convention now as at any future time. Party lines are being drawn more and more tight every year in the territory, and we cannot see how the influence of "party appliances" is to be weakened by a longer drilling to party discipline.

Fifth. In our humble opinion the people of Wisconsin are fully competent to assume the responsibilities of governing themselves to deny their competency is, essentially, to deny the foundation principle of republicanism. We, moreover, deem the present a more favorable time for procuring some check on the facility of contracting debts inserted in our constitution than a future period of wild speculation and reckless extravagance, to which we think the signs of the present time but too truly point.

To conclude: There seems to be a class of men who have great faith in the corrective power of delay; but, unfortunately, while they constantly put off action on every subject to a more opportune season, the very mischief which they are waiting to see die out keeps growing and strengthening.

COLLECTION LAWS

[March 28, 1846]

We have no disposition to bandy gibes with our neighbor of the Telegraph over the abolition of laws for the collection of debts. The subject is one of grave importance, and demands careful examination, if not from its intrinsic claims, certainly when "numbers, ability, and goodness" can be claimed to the party who believe such laws "entirely unnecessary," and are laboring to convince the people that the present system imposes upon them "intolerable burdens."

We believe compelling the performance of pecuniary obligations to be a part of that protection to the rights of property which society should afford to its individual members. So in a certain sense, we presume, do the anti-collection-law "reformers"; but the substitutes which they propose to make for the imposition of law (i. e., the convenience and benefits of doing right, and the coercive influence of public sentiment) would, it seems to us, be just as effectual as substitutes for any or for all laws. For were public sentiment unerringly acute in detecting, and prompt to reprobate all wrong doing, there would be little need of legislation. And were every individual far-sighted enough to discern his true interest in dealing honestly and justly by his fellow men, the penalties of law or the restraints of public opinion would never be called into exercise. But, as the world goes, a common sense of necessity has shown mankind need enough of law for the protection of individual rights. To talk more pertinently to the matter in hand, were all laws compelling the fulfillment of pecuniary obligations abrogated, there would be found those whose integrity would show no necessity of law to make them honest (such feel no "intolerable burden" from the present system)-but others, also, who would obtain confidence only to abuse and betray it, and between these extremes would be seen those practicing every degree of delay, evasion, excuse, and fraud. It is vain to say that the value of a reputation for honesty, or the advantage of a character for promptness, or the power of a sensitive public opinion (all of which it is claimed will result from the abolition of all legal coercion) would afford a sufficient basis for confidence or an effective correction for abuses of credit. It is an easy matter even for a knave to practice honesty for a time, if the reputation thus obtained will afford him the very facilities requisite to accomplish a grand and gainful scheme of fraud. And in the absence of all law to compel him to perform the promises by which he gets hold of the property of his creditors, when once resolved to exchange his character for the profits of fraud, the operator

upon public credulity has nothing to do but brave public opinion, and he may rattle his ill-gotten gains in his pocket and talk as "boldly" as a Mississippi repudiator of "what he will do and what he will not do." There would then be no remedy in society but mob redress, and that is surely more fearful than the most stringent of collection laws. Even this, moreover, he has small reason to fear, for observation teaches that the possessor of money, little matter how obtained, can find countenance and support. There are sycophants enough who can be brought to call dishonesty by a softer name, and to invent excuses and even feel admiration for successful fraud, as easily as party sympathies make our neighbor an apologist and an admirer of the bold dishonesty of a state that borrows money and then refuses to pay.

It may be our error, as the Telegraph man insinuates, that we have "too mean an opinion of mankind"; but, as it is a habit of ours to deduce our opinions from facts, we naturally place more confidence in them than in the crude notions of those with whom fancy appears to answer all the uses of judgment. That the mere reputation of honesty is not sufficient to make men honest, we have convincing example in the instances of those who were exempted from all legal liability for their debts, by the operation of the late general bankrupt law. No one will deny but that, in the case of thousands, the moral or the honorable duty to pay as fast as he could obtain the means was as binding upon the debtor as before he was released from the legal obligation. Yet how few are the instances in which such obligations have weighed a feather. Here and there we hear of an example, like that of Mr. Read of Boston, where native integrity prompted the payment of the creditors to the uttermost farthing of their just dues; but, while that man is presented with a service of a plate as a token of admiration for his remarkable virtue and his praise is sounded through the length and breadth of the land, how few are found ambitious of his

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