tney are much the sufferers. Our wish is that the great body of the taxpayers be represented, and, let taxation really travel hand in hand with representation, what

ever mode, even different from the one we have suggested, that will give us a well represented people, we will be found to favor it, as we humbly believe that after a body exceeds one hundred in number it makes it but little less objectionable in consequence of mere numerical inconvenience, to extend it three times as large, if the additional expense can be in some way reduced.

Under our proposition many of the towns would fail to be represented, so that the expense to the great body of the whole people in making a moderate per diem allowance to those that do attend would not, probably, exceed a body of one hundred members drawn together under the old mode and paid a larger per diem out of the state treasury.

THE RECENT ELECTION

[October 3, 1846]

The Milwaukee Sentinel copies a couple of paragraphs from this paper-one in regard to the vote at the English settlement in Iowa County, and the other to that of the Norwegian settlement in this county-and makes them the text for a long lecture upon the subject of deceiving the poor foreigners into the support of the "Loco Foco" ticket.15 To those who know how it was done, and are also acquainted with the character and course of the Sentinel editor, there is something irresistibly rich and droll in this complaint, and it smacks strongly of irony upon his own party for not following his example and "playing it finer." No man in the territory has made more appeals to foreign-born citizens as a class, attempted more "blarney" and cajolery,

15 For the Sentinel article here referred to, see ante, 202.

than this same editor. It was the "generous Irish" and the "honest German" before election, but now if he dared use such expressions to express his real feelings, it would be the "dd Irish" and the "black Dutch." In this county, among the foreigners, the Whigs had the field almost entirely to themselves, and used every appliance which could be brought to bear to win their suffrages. The Whig candidates quartered upon them-slept and ate with them (for particulars ask our friend Botkin), had their "Declaration of Principles" translated and placed in the hands of every Norwegian in the county accompanied by suitable personal admonition, furnished means of conveyance to the polls—but all to no purpose. They couldn't win, and hence the cry, "There's cheating round the board." We believe that there has been rascality practiced, but we know that we did not do it. The great mistake of the Whigs has been that they underrated the intelligence of this portion of our population, and after trying in vain all sorts of expedients to cajole them instead of doing them the justice to acknowledge that they thought and acted for themselves independently, they have invariably come to the conclusion that the Democrats, by some hocus-pocus which they have never been able to explain, have outwitted them. With the editor of the Sentinel we deprecate any action having a tendency to create distinct classes for political effect among us, and if this is the case with some of our foreign-born citizens, the Democratic party is not responsible for it. But it might be well to ask if the course of Whig editors generally would not naturally lead to such a result-courting them as a class before elections, and as a class abusing them afterwards. We would have all citizens equal in the enjoyment of all political rights, and bearing all the burdens of government, and this has ever been the doctrine of our party.

SELECTIONS FROM THE MADISON WISCONSIN

ARGUS

THE “ALIEN LAW”

[October 14, 1845]

Whigs seem to regard this law as an extension of the right of suffrage.16 In this respect they give us too much credit. It is rather an act to restrict the right of suffrage. The law as it now stands makes a residence of six months in the territory a necessary qualification for a voter for delegate to form a state constitution. Without some such law every male resident of mature age, wherever born, or however short a time he may have been in the territory, would be entitled to vote. The reason is that, in the formation of a new government by the people, which is to be for certain purposes and to a certain extent absolutely sovereign and independent, society is, to precisely the same extent, thrown back into its original elements and left entirely, absolutely, and necessarily without law; for, so far as they are bound by law in the formation of their government, so far their government is already formed and beyond their cotrol.

Now, to what extent and for what purposes is the proposed state to be sovereign and independent? Without enumerating further, we must put down the right to define the qualifications of her voters as one of the absolute powers of state sovereignty-a power which no other state nor all the others together in their federal capacity can interfere with. The Whigs, it is true, have labored to identify the right of suffrage with citizenship, and, in respect to foreigners, with the naturalization laws; but those who have at

For an account of this law and of the whole subject of alien suffrage in this period see Louise P. Kellogg, "The Alien Suffrage Provision in the Constitution of 1846," in Wisconsin Magazine of History for June, 1918.