is not liable for his debts, of course no one will trust the farmer on the strength of the value of that property. We will act understandingly, with our eyes open, and no one need in consequence be the loser with such a constitutional provision. That the law should exempt from execution the household furniture of a settler is very well as far it goes, but what is the use of the furniture if you have no land to stand it upon and no roof to cover the beds which the law kindly permits one to keep. Shall he become a trespasser by placing his property and family on another's land, or must he betake himself to sleep in the highway that runs beside his former house?

Again, let it be but understood, publish it to the world, that in Wisconsin, where Heaven smiles upon a poor man's labor, the beneficent constitution of the state favors the fruit of that toil: that here in Wisconsin every man lives "under his own vine and fig tree," with no creditor to molest him or make him afraid, and it will have the happy effect of raising up a class of people as independent as the world ever saw.

Let this feature in our constitution be but known and honest hearts will seek a welcome in this land of promise; it will give an active impulse to immigration; it will develop the energy of the immigrant; it will enlarge his heart; it will ennoble his soul; it will quicken his enterprise; and, secure in his cabin that holds all that is near and dear to him upon earth, he can then stand forth a proud freeman in its fullest sense.

ELIGIBILITY OF MINISTERS

[January 10, 1846]

I cannot but believe that the readers of the Argus will very much regret the proffer of the use of its columns to correspondents upon the question of the "eligibility of ministers," for the space therein necessarily occupied might be so much more profitably filled with the luminous articles of the editor

upon the subject of the moon, the currency and its evils, plagiarisms from Say's essays, and the wrongs that "an injured territory" has received at the hands of the government in general and Mr. McKay, the chairman of the committee of ways and means, in particular, and I therefore decline sending this communication for the above reasons, as well as for fear of its rejection by the editor as unworthy an association with the opinions of Say and Gouge.

But to the article. The editor acknowledges the gross impropriety of clergymen leaving the sacred desk to enter the exciting arena of party conflict, and agrees with those who favor the restriction that a minister should not encumber his mind with the affairs of state, but while all this is conceded he seriously contends that, however much the whole people may demand it, yet they have not the "abstract right" to engraft this feature upon their state constitution.

This question of "abstract right" may be, to use a westernism, "run into the ground." The law solemnly declares that every man shall be tried by the country, and hence I would innocently suppose that he has the right to select a jury from the whole country, but yet he has not; the law restricts that right by exempting many persons from sitting as jurors, and, among the rest, clergymen; and, by the bye, they in this way possess a privilege not granted to the whole people, and if the legislature of nearly every state conceives that the ministers of the Word should not be brought in contact with jurors who do not acknowledge the obligations of religion, a fortiori, should they not become solicitors for the suffrages of such men.

Again, as an "abstract right" no man should be exempted from military duty, yet we know that whole denominations of Christians, who upon this subject entertain religious scruples, are thus favored by the law, and in this particular every minister of the gospel here enjoys another privilege. As a mere principle of right, the legislature has no authority to exempt churches and other public buildings from taxation, yet this is everywhere done, and there is no one but

properly favors this exemption. As a mere naked "right,” lawyers should have the privilege of being admitted as jurors, but policy suggests that their acting as such might be improper. Hence we see that policy, circumstances, and the good of the whole people sanction restrictions and measures which, perchance, in the "abstract" may not be right. Perhaps as an abstract right Congress has not the power to declare that anyone holding a commission under the United States should be ineligible to an office created by the laws of the territory, yet no one has ever objected to this restriction; and if our people should, through their delegates in convention, declare that no one holding an ecclesiastical office shall be eligible to the civil office of a legislator, will they not be following congressional authority based on good policy? There is a greater incompatibility between the "divine office" of a priest, that has received his commission as he believes from a Higher Power, and the civil office of a state senator than there can be between the office of a justice of the peace and the constable that serves the process of his court; and yet, perhaps, the people, as an abstract right, have the authority to elect one man to fill both offices; but would not the legislature act a proper part by declaring that such offices should not be centered in one person?

From a slight knowledge of the clergy of Wisconsin Territory, I conscientiously believe that the restriction called for would not militate against the interests of half a dozen within our limits; and if they are so unmindful of their proper duty and of the errand upon which they were sent, they, as well as the people and the cause of religion, would be materially benefitted by their being taught their duty, and led to understand that they should hereafter confine themselves to their proper sphere of action. Although we believe ourselves to be a highly moral people, yet we assure those few political shepherds that there is a large field for their labor, and if they work strenuously through all the time allotted them on earth they will then fall far short of their duty; and as our people want all the good they can receive