cent upon the dollar, which perhaps little if any exceeds the revenues of the different counties generally.

By the report of the auditor of the territory it will be seen that from this tax a territorial revenue has been collected of $11,691; and yet is there any member of this house who will so jeopardize his reputation as a legislator as to say that this is one-sixth of the amount which will be required to meet the ordinary and incidental expenses necessary to the maintenance of state sovereignty?

He was opposed to the bill because of the amount proposed to be paid to the members of the convention. He thought that members should receive no more than sufficient to pay their expenses under the most economical style they could adopt. Two dollars a day was certainly too much. To his mind, the honor and credit of being a member of the convention would be a sufficient compensation for attendance.

He would notice one other objection to the bill, and he had done. The bill proposed to take the census in June next. This he thought was uncalled for at present, owing to the vast influx of population to this territory. It could not be denied that in the course of two or three years, at the farthest, a new census would be required to make a just and equal apportionment of members of the legislature of the state. With these views he could not vote for this bill. The bill then passed.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE COUNCIL, JANUARY 16, 18462*

The Council, in committee of the whole, Mr. Reed in the chair, had the bill relating to [statehood] under consideration when, the first section having been read through by the Chair, Mr. Kimball moved to strike out the word "white" and insert the word "free."

"The report of the proceedings is taken from the Madison Express, January 29, 1846.

Mr. Frank proposed to amend the section so as to make it read that all who are now by law allowed to vote on this question may vote, etc.

Moses M. Strong said the committee had taken this matter under consideration, and though the bill was first drawn in accordance with the suggestion of the gentleman, it had been altered because they had come to the conclusion that the law as it now stood was nugatory and unmeaning; therefore this bill was so drawn as to enact in positive terms what was intended to be enacted in that act. The law to which he referred said "no man should vote" who had not certain qualifications, but did not say that all who had those qualifications, but who were not in the exceptions, might vote, thus leaving the matter to be decided by the judges of election. He could not tell what those decisions would be. Some might permit all to vote, and others might be governed by the organic act and allow only citizens to vote.

Marshall M. Strong could not see the law as the gentleman had explained it, and he did not believe the courts would so decide if it were to come before them. The rule of construction was to give a statute such a meaning, where there was ambiguity, as would carry out the intent of the legislators, where such intent was manifest. This act meant something at least and as it is an amendatory act it is plain that it must be taken as an act limiting that act which it amended. He was in favor of the amendment of the gentleman from Racine (Mr. Frank) as it would obviate the necessity of repassing an act that must be more or less agitating in both houses, and he did not entertain the fear the gentleman from Iowa had expressed that judges of election would not construe the law as was intended by the legislature.

Moses M. Strong has put this construction on it and he did not know that others might not do the same thing. He would concede that the gentleman just up was a good lawyer, and he professed to be a tolerable lawyer, and they could not agree on what should be the construction of the statute. Would then, he would ask, judges of election be more likely

to agree? It appeared to him that the gentleman was afraid to discuss this matter, and therefore he would try to evade it. For his part he was ready and willing at all times to meet it; he was for letting all white men vote, and for excluding all black men. He would never suffer under any circumstances, if he could hinder it, a negro to vote, nor would he place the power in the hands of any judge of election to say that this or that white man shall or shall not vote; but he wanted to remove all doubt in relation to the matter.

Mr. Baker looked on this act referred to as an amendatory, not [a] repealing one-an act restraining the first-and believing so he could not think it would be construed as the gentleman just up had supposed it would.

Moses M. Strong: Will not some men put my construction upon it?

Mr. Baker could not say they would not though the thought had never struck him in that light. And he chose to let the law remain untouched.

Mr. Strong had repeatedly met this question, and feared not to meet it again, every day in the year if necessary, and he deemed the present was a sufficient necessity to demand a vote from the Council. He wanted to say now and always that he was opposed to "nigger" voting.

Marshall M. Strong was not afraid to meet the question. at any and every time that there was a necessity for [it] though he was opposed to any unnecessary agitation of the subject. There was one thing he could not allow to pass unnoticed. He alluded to the stigmatizing manner in which the gentleman just up had spoken of a certain class of men, many of whom are truly worthy. He did not like to hear them called by the contemptuous epithet, "niggers. They were in Mr. S's opinion as truly worthy, as deserving of a vote and [the] privileges of freemen as are many of the whites, and more so as a class in this territory than are the Norwegians. He asked the gentleman where he would place the line of demarcation between the white and black race.

Would he exclude the half-bloods of the negro race, or the half-bloods of [the] Indian, or even the full-blooded Indian who was a citizen of the United States? How much of the

African blood shall cut a man off from a vote? As he said before, he was disposed to let this matter alone for the present, as it has been settled by the legislature. The gentleman says there are reasons why these men should not vote. What were those serious reasons? He had, as Mr. S. understood, been raised in Vermont, where negroes were allowed to vote. Was that state less enlightened, less patriotic-were its laws less pure than those of any other state in the Union? The same was the case in the other New England states where they were admitted to the rights of freemen. Why then should they be excluded but for the reasons given by McDuffee that they are not men but only a higher order of the orangoutang, beings without souls? That was a doctrine he could not subscribe to, and he did not believe anyone here would do so. If they were an inferior race of human beings as some others have supposed, then he would let them vote for the purpose of elevating them in the scale of intellect. Thus far he had heard no argument but calling them "niggers," and taunting members of the Council with being afraid of meeting this question; as if there was some great merit in following in the wake of popular opinion. If the gentleman wants to show out as a man regardless of popularity let him show it by resisting the popular current.

Mr. Catlin said that he had it in his mind to call the gentleman to order for scandalizing his constituents, the Norwegians. Those that are settled in this country are very different men from those described by the gentleman as residents of his country, and were not habitants of holes in the ground, and reduced to a single pot as a cooking utensil. He was willing to grant that negroes are men and have souls, as well as others, but at the same time he was opposed to allowing negroes to vote in this territory, on the ground of inexpediency. They are a race of men that cannot live among whites, as experience has abundantly shown; and he

was not disposed to encourage negroes to come into the territory, and if by depriving them of the right of voting he could prevent their emigrating here he chose to do so. He was not disposed to encourage them to come here from the slaveholding states. With these views he could see no objection to the bill as it then stood, being perfectly willing to vote for it, and to record his vote if necessary.

Mr. Frank then withdrew his amendment, and the motion of Mr. Kimball was before the committee to strike out the word "white."

Moses M. Strong said he regretted [that] this discussion. had sprung up, that [but since] allusion had been made so directly at him he must be allowed to say he did not mean to make it a matter of boast that he was not afraid to speak what he thought in relation to negro suffrage. He did not believe that in this matter he was courting the breeze of popular favor, as had been charged upon him. True it was, that in his county negro suffrage was not popular, as was manifest from the vote of the county at the late election for delegate to Congress, when Iowa gave not a single vote for the abolition candidate. But there was one remark he felt called on to make. Whatever he now thought, one thing he would boast of, he had never changed his ground in relation to this subject: he had never been found advocating and voting on both sides of this question, as the journals of the Council would show the gentleman from Racine to have done, if I am [he was] not mistaken. If the gentleman wanted his opinion in relation to this subject, he would give it to him though he had rather not do so. He then would say that he did not believe that the African race was inferior [equal] to the white race of men, and they could not be raised to that elevated position in the intellectual world that the whites were in. He was opposed to the abolition movement and measures, because even if they did believe that the negroes were as elevated or as capable of elevation as are the whites, he was of opinion that this was an improper time to agitate it. He would not as a matter of policy give the South any rea