reputation at the expense of even less sacrifices than it cost him to win it.

But, insist our opponents, character will become so valuable, when we have it so that a man is trusted only on his honor and his reputation for punctuality, [that] that alone will make all men honorable and punctual. Hold a moment! Such men as are honest and punctual only because it is profitable to be so will surely turn dishonest the very moment the latter course promises an immediate advantage greater than the more remote gains of upright dealing.

In fine, we believe that the abolition of collection laws would operate hardly against the laborer and all men of limited means to whom credit is often an almost necessary assistance (for the misfortunes or disappointments of such are generally pronounced upon with harshness by those who hold the keys of credit), but would render all classes of society more completely the prey of that class of wholesale swindlers technically termed "financiers." In other words, we believe that the era of no-collection laws would witness all the curses of credit without any of its benefits.

The measure of exempting a certain quantity of land or the home and tools of the mechanic from attachment or sale on execution for debts, which is countenanced by many of the opponents of collection laws as an advance toward their darling reform, we regard as promising quite different results. With our present light on this subject, we are inclined to favor such an exemption, with suitable restrictions; but then we want stringent laws for compelling the payment of debts to the extent of all means beyond the property protected. Of this subject, however, at another time.

THE QUESTION OF STATE GOVERNMENT

[April 4, 1846]

Will be decided on Tuesday next. All who believe that the people of this territory are equal to the duties, cost, and responsibilities of governing themselves-all who believe that more is to be hoped from the present action of the people, than from any plan of masterly inactivity in procuring a safe, judicious, and practical constitution-all who rightly appreciate the pecuniary profits of "admission," the blessings of independence, and the political advantages of state sovereignty and equal representation in the national councils, will rally at the polls and vote

"FOR"

a convention, and a state constitution.

All who believe that the people of Wisconsin are too poor to support the expenses of a state government, and deem the yearly diminishing pittance which Congress doles out for our territorial expenses, of greater value than the liberal patrimony which we are to inherit on assuming our majority-all who would rather wait for the whole race of demagogues to die out, and for errors to ripen and decay, than appeal to the common sense of the people to disown the former, and to correct the latter-all who believe colonial vassalage preferable to state independence, and would rather have a delegate to beg, than a representative and senators to demand attention and justice from the national legislature, will either stay at home, or go to the polls and vote

"AGAINST"

a state government but for a continuance of territorial dependence and political imbecility.

THE JUDICIARY

[June 27, 1846]

Unjust laws, so that they are understood, can be avoided in their penalties by circumspection and prudent foresight; but from the weakness or corruption of the judiciary, the citizen is daily at peril in his every interest, without the possibility of foreseeing or avoiding the danger. Hence we regard the adoption of the best system of judiciary, and the mode of selecting judges the least liable to abuse or corruption, as of the first importance in forming our state constitution. In the lengthy arguments which have appeared in several of our territorial exchanges in favor of having judges elected by the people, we have not been able to detect any well-founded objection to the mode of appointment by the executive with confirmation by the senate, or of election by the legislature on joint ballot, one or the other of which methods has been almost uniformly adopted by the other states of the Union.

With the disposition which seems, fortunately, prevalent, to restrict the appointing power of the executive to a very limited number of officers, the first method can scarcely become a part in a system of favoritism, and in the absence of such objection, we humbly conceive that we shall thus be most likely to obtain ability, learning, and integrity upon the bench.

Qualification for the intelligent discharge of the duties of a judge is only attainable at the price of years of patient study and rigid thought. These must beget habits which preclude that familiar acquaintance and general intercourse with the people which might enable them to judge of the fitness of the candidate, or which would acquire for him popularity. With an elective judiciary, then, the duty of selecting candidates for judicial station must devolve more peculiarly than for any other offices upon irresponsible conven

tions. Will not the people be rather losers than gainers in their influence in the choice of this class of officers, by devolving their selection upon delegates of caucuses, instead of upon officers whom they select for the discharge of this among other duties? And, as the best men for ability and integrity may not, from the circumstances that we have mentioned above, be the most "available," that is secure the greatest amount of popularity for the ticket on which they are nominated, will not such be the least likely to be selected in a convention nomination?

We must confess that we fear a wider exposure to corruption than the administration of justice has hitherto known, from making its functionaries directly dependent upon political leaders and party machinery for their continuance in office.

But, as we have not leisure to pursue this subject further, the present week, we subjoin the following extract from an editorial on the mode of selecting judges in the last Wisconsin Argus, a paper frequently endorsed by our neighbor of the Telegraph as good democratic authority.18

AN ELECTIVE JUDICIARY

[July 4, 1846]

We are sorry if the advocates of the mode of electing judges by popular vote can find no better reason in favor of their system than the hope that it will prove a plan for elevating to the bench men eminently ignorant of law, of precedent, and of all that men of strong minds and patient investigation have said, written, and thought in reference to the rights of persons and property. Mediocrity is the highest ability, study is folly, mental cultivation an idle waste of time, and all the maxims of wisdom, wrought out by human

18 The citation omitted here is the last half of the Argus editorial of June 16, 1846 on the "Mode of Selecting Judges," for which see page 450.

experience or left as the fruits of giant intellect, so much! contemptible nonsense, if "common sense," without the aid of culture or discipline, is equal to threading all the labyrinths of wrong, and discriminating justice in all cases between man and man.

We are sorry, too, that such beautiful theorists have no brighter example of the practical workings of their theory than the judiciary system of poor, misgoverned, demagogueridden Mississippi. Is the judiciary of that state at all to be compared in point of ability, dignity, or integrity with that of a score of other states which select judges by other methods? We think not. Then what is the example worth? The celebrated S. S. Prentiss gave, as the experience of several years of successful practice in the courts of Mississippi, that, he cared not how much law opposing counsel might cite against him, if he could get the court to laughing he was sure of his case. This showed his estimate of its dignity.

We implicitly believe that the people are the sole legitimate source of power, and we are ever ready to confide in their integrity of purpose; but there are powers which are better exercised by agents of their appointment, than directly by themselves. Else we have no occasion for elections or officers. Among those powers we reckon the selection of judges and we shall certainly never be convinced that it were better to have them elected by popular vote, by arguments based upon the alleged corruption, or incompetency to this duty, of the executive and legislature, who are chosen by the people. Yet this is precisely the point most frequently and positively insisted upon by our neighbor of the Telegraph.

Through all the multiplication of words which the Telegraph has produced in favor of his mode of choosing judges, we have looked in vain for any solid objection to the practical workings of the system sanctioned by general use in the different states of the Union with but one or two exceptions, and approved by long experiment, or any "show" of important gain to be secured by substituting one more