into the Union contrary to our sense of honor and justice. They can keep us out as long as they will, in spite of us, and we can stay out as long as we will, in spite of them. But in either case they must either support their own government over us, or allow us to have and maintain our own; so that if they refuse to do us justice, we can, on a pinch, stand it as long as they can.

Many believe that we have been dismembered of territory which fairly belongs to us on our southern and northeastern borders; and now they have not only split us plumb in two, but require us to relinquish most important and admitted rights for a most paltry consideration.

For one, we should be sorry to see anything intervene unnecessarily to prevent our speedy admission into the Union; but whether or no these terms should be acceded to, will, we apprehend, engage the serious consideration of the convention, and of the people of the territory generally.

LET IT BE TOLD!

[October 6, 1846]

We have been credibly informed that, shortly previous to the late election, a Whig candidate for the convention in this county went to an influential Norwegian who was supposed to be a Democrat and offered him fifteen dollars if he would go round among his people and electioneer for the Whig ticket. The man promptly declined, and the candidate raised his bid, which was again declined. Again and again was the bid raised, and again and again declined, until it reached the nice little sum of two hundred dollars, when, Ole standing out still as firm as his native mountain, the candidate gave him up as a tough stick and sloped for softer timber. Now we would ask the Sentinel and Gazette if this Whig did not misrepresent his own party as to the means which

should be used in elections, and whether this misrepresentation may not have thickened the defeat of his party?

This incident, whatever may be said of the moral on one side, suggests an important one on the other, viz: that foreign immigrants, however "ignorant of our laws and language," possess a degree of political virtue which may astonish many of the natives, even in high places.

AN ACCOUNT OF WHIG INIQUITIES

[October 6, 1846]

The Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, in alluding to the late election, remarks:

In almost every county the whole aim and effort of the Loco Foco leaders and presses was to induce the emigrants to band together as Germans, Irishmen, or Englishmen and vote in mass for what they were told was the Democratic ticket. Of course, in order to effect such a result it became necessary for the leaders to misrepresent the principles and malign the motives of the Whig party; but as this necessity involved no unusual, or unaccustomed breach of truth, it neither troubled the consciences, nor taxed the invention of those with whom deception has become habitual and whose creed teaches that "all is fair in politics."

Such a paragraph from a Whig paper will not read very well in this region.

Instead of our misrepresenting Whig principles to gain the votes of adopted citizens, the Whigs misrepresented their own principles, were caught at it, and so were defeated worse than they would have been if they had been honest and tried to put the best face upon their own principles.

For instance, they pretended that the Whigs were the free suffrage party, in favor of the most liberal extension of the elective franchise to foreign immigrants.

Well, it was only necessary to refer to the journals of the legislature to prove that this was purely a catch-vote humbug, every Whig in the legislature having voted against the

existing free suffrage law; and these immigrants wisely concluded that what Whigs had done they might do again.

Again, they represented that their party was the antibank, specie currency party. This was proven with equal ease to be a humbug of the same character by the whole course of the Whig party for the last half century, and it was frankly acknowledged by individual Whigs and the Whig organ at this place that their party was and always had been in favor of banks, and deprecated a specie currency as one of the greatest evils that could befall the country; and the Sentinel and Gazette abounds with articles condemning the Democratic policy of withdrawing the government funds from the safe keeping of these indispensable conveniences called banks. The hypocrisy of these pretensions being thus easily exposed, and foreign immigrants being disgusted with our miserable ragged currency, they naturally fell into the Democratic ranks on this question also, and so the Whigs were beaten.

In exposing in our paper a short time before the election these two prominent humbugs, we remarked at the close of the article that we expected in about four years more the Whig party would claim to be the free trade party, and that they always had been. A day or two after, we visited the English settlement on Black Earth Creek, when we found that our remark was history rather than prophecy-that we were actually four years and some days behind the times. Some of the Whig candidates for the convention had been through the settlement proclaiming that the Whigs of the United States were the free trade party, and that the Locos were the tariff party, answering to the Tory party of England; and many who had but recently come among us and paid but little attention to American politics had been made to believe the story. While in the settlement we attended a meeting of the voters of Gorstville, in Dane, and Reevesville, in Iowa, and being well provided with extracts from Whig papers, which we had taken along for the purpose of

showing the difference between Whigs and Democrats, it was an easy task to satisfy every man present which was the free trade party. After the meeting, some of the voters of Reevesville remarked that they could do nothing for us in Dane, as they were out of our county, but that they would do their best for the Democratic ticket in Iowa. They were as good as their word, every vote cast in that precinct being Democratic.

We mention this incident merely to assure the Sentinel and Gazette that the foreign vote, so called, was not carried by the Democrats in this region by a misrepresentation of Whig principles, but by a true exposure of their real sentiments, supported by the most satisfactory proof-their own leading and well accredited journals, the Sentinel and Gazette for one, and their actual doings when in power. In this quarter at least, all the misrepresentation was on the other side. Is it not gross misrepresentation to pretend that the Whig party is favorable to free suffrage, free trade, and a metallic currency? As well might the autocrat of Russia pretend to be in favor of establishing republican institutions in his own dominions. There are individual exceptions we know, but these are only Democrats who have blundered into the wrong box and do not know how to get out.

The truth is that the Whig policy is in the main identical with that against which the foreign immigrant has long done battle in his native land, and it needs no misrepresenting to secure his unqualified disapprobation. Whigs may marvel at this truth, but truth it is, and they may charge corruption and misrepresentation upon their opponents till doomsday, -they can never themselves cook up their own real sentiments so that they will not, to an European immigrant, savor strongly of aristocracy. Poor fellows! Their policy is radically wrong and they cannot see it themselves as "ithers" see it. This is the real difficulty with you, boys-it is, upon our word.

SELECTIONS FROM THE SOUTHPORT AMERICAN

ADVICE TO THE LEGISLATURE

[December 6, 1845]

But by far the most important question upon which the action of the legislature this winter is anticipated is that of state government. We believe that we rightly interpret the opinions on this subject of the great majority of the people of the territory, and we are confident that we express an almost unanimous public sentiment in this immediate section when we say that such action on the part of the legislature as will bring about our admission to the Union as speedily as is consistent with perfecting the forms of admission is both expected and demanded by their constituents. The people of this territory are now, as we believe, fully convinced that they are old enough, and rich enough, and strong enough to take care of themselves, and this position attained, what earthly reason can there be for our remaining longer in a state of vassalage-beggars at the national treasury for the poor pittance of appropriation for the expenses of the government, so grudgingly bestowedand forgoing, for the sake of it, the right and all the advantages of electing our executive officers, framing our own judiciary, and being really represented, and by the number of votes to which we are entitled, in the national councils.