ting in Milwaukee County, and that circumstance would pre vent many who might be willing to come from attending, being prevented as attorneys, suitors, and witnesses in court. Mr. Phelps could not vote for the amendment on any consideration, because he perceived it had been fixed in the bill purposely to accommodate the county of Milwaukee. And since Milwaukee was the territory, and its interests alone to be looked after, he should support the bill as it stood. Mr. Crawford should vote against the amendment, but not for the reason given by the gentleman, his colleague, for while he conceded that there were some very good lawyers in that county, he did not believe any of them would be sent here to attend the convention. He was in favor of the bill as it now stands. On motion of Mr. Magone the bill was amended in the eighteenth section so as to make the pay of members of the convention $2 per day. And then the committee and the house adjourned. DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The morning business being gone through with, this bill [on statehood] came up in its order, when Mr. Phelps withdrew his motion to amend the bill by striking out "secretary" and inserting "auditor." Mr. Mooers moved an additional section, which provides for the performance of the duties of the officers specified in the act by others the governor may appoint on their refusal to act, which prevailed. Mr. Brown moved to amend the fourteenth section of the bill so that none but citizens of the United States should be eligible to the convention. The report of the debate is taken from the Madison Argus, February 3, Mr. Burnett, though not in favor of that portion of the bill which allows foreigners not citizens to vote, because he thought in common with the vast majority of the people of Grant County, at the same time could but believe that it was no more than right that those who were voters should be eligible to the office voted for. He knew only of the exception of the president and senators of the United States, where the dignity and importance of the station demanded some such exception. The delegates to this convention did not in his opinion form such an exception. Mr. Brown withdrew his amendment. Mr. Brawley moved to strike out the word "white" wherever it occurred in the bill. His object was to enable the half-blooded Indians to vote. They had, as he understood, been rejected in some instances. The amendment was lost-ayes 10, noes 16. Mr. Burnett understood that the bill had now been perfected by its friends, and he took the occasion to explain the position he should himself occupy, and the vote he should give on the question of its passage. Thus far gentlemen must concede to him that he had made no improper objection to any portion of the bill. What amendments he had proposed he had, in making them, been influenced only by motives of friendship, and a desire to perfect and carry out the design of the bill. The people of the county of which he was a representative were opposed to state government, and more opposed to that portion of the bill which extends the right of suffrage to foreigners not citizens. His own opinion was to submit the question to the people of the territory at the next election, after which the legislature could act understandingly. Some members of the committee on this subject were in favor of immediate action, so as to get into the Union at the next session. This to him appeared untimely, if not impossible. There was in the committee a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but few agreeing; at last, however, the majority settled down on the bill as it then stood. To that he was opposed, and desired to record his name against its passage. Mr. Brawley then proposed to amend the bill so as to let half-blood Indians vote; and said that there had some question risen in his portion of the country in relation to the right of this class of citizens to vote. He was not in favor of letting the negroes have the same privileges. Mr. Morrow was in favor of the amendment if his colleague thereby meant to include the Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians. As to the half-bloods, who had adopted the habits and customs of the whites, he was not aware of any question ever having arisen in his or any portion of the territory. Were there any doubts in any portion of the territory, he was willing that doubt should be removed. Mr. Burnett [said] the rule of law on this point was, he believed, fully settled, that the children were considered as belonging to the nation of the father, and not of the mother. It had come before the chief justice at the Crawford circuit a few years since, in a case of murder of a half-blood by a Winnebago, in which His Honor decided that the case was clearly within the acts of Congress, and that the murdered man was a white man. His own opinion was that the adoption of this amendment would be to create confusion rather than uniformity. Mr. Morrow agreed with the gentleman just up; lest there might be some question in relation to the classes of men he had mentioned, he would move to amend the amendment so as to permit Indians, citizens of the United States, to vote on the question. This amendment was lost-ayes 12, noes 14-the position being taken that only negroes were excluded by the bill. Mr. Morrow then rose and spoke at some length against the bill. He said before the proclamation is made by the vote of this house of the final passage of the bill now under consideration, he desired the indulgence of the house for a few minutes, for the purpose of offering a few brief remarks explanatory of the vote he should give upon the same. This indulgence he presumed would be extended the more freely to him and the other members of the house occupying the same position with himself upon the subject under the necessity which exists of offering suitable apology for recording his vote in opposition to the bill. The same necessity or propriety for such explanation does not apply toward the majority upon this as upon other subjects. Their views are generally expressed in their proceedings, and by their acts are shadowed forth to the public their reasons for the same, but which on the part of the minority, in the absence of explanation, sometimes may be effectually suppressed or misconceived. Therefore, he hoped the patience and courtesy of the house would not be withheld from any member of the minority, and it was most obvious from the rapidity with which this bill had been matured and rolled through both branches of the legislature to its present stage, that those members who were desirous of placing themselves in a proper position upon the same before the public, and who would assign some cause for their want of comprehension of the reasons which address themselves so irresistibly to the minds of others, and for being found so far in the rear of the lights of experience, the spirit of the age, and public opinion upon this important question [should be granted opportunity to do so]. He asked permission further to qualify his action by the distinct avowal that did no other interests than his own enter into the adoption of the measure, was there no endeavor on his part to consult the views and wishes of others, and a disposition to be governed thereby, the house would have been relieved of the necessity which now impelled him to claim its attention. And though some features were not such as to meet his entire approbation, yet individually these, however objectionable, could have been acquiesced in, and his vote upon the same not placed in the minority. At the annual election of 1844 when this subject was presented to the people for their acceptance or rejection, as is now contemplated under the operations of the present bill, his vote was then given in favor of the same, as it shall be again when it is submitted to the same tribunal on the first Tuesday of April next. He would then have resumed his original character, in which capacity it will be his right, like that of every other independent citizen of the community, and in the exercise of which he will feel justifiable, guided by the dictates of his own conscience and acting in obedience to the direction of his own judgment, to vote uninfluenced by the shackles which sometimes trammel the representatives of the people. But this he was not now authorized to do. When a retrospective view is taken of this whole subject, from which it is shown that less than sixteen months have elapsed since the same issue was had thereon, as is now intended, and a recurrence [made] to its result the inquiry forces itself upon us: What other evidence has been afforded us to act with a view of adapting ourselves to public opinion in a representative capacity, and without seeking to originate and direct that opinion upon this important subject than what was then expressed? And this inquiry to his mind was sufficient to create doubt, and that doubt hesitation, which, until the same were removed by other and as good evidence to the contrary, he felt would justify him in witholding his vote from this bill. On that occasion, which has been too recent for the result not to be familiar to us all, the vote in favor of this subject was so largely in the minority as hardly to appear respectable; and in the district which with others he wished faithfully to represent here, there was scarcely one in twenty if one in fifty in favor of the same. He did not wish to impugn the motives which influenced others upon this subject but was free to concede to every member of the house the same honesty of purpose which he had for himself; for their action they may have good and sufficient reasons, substantial evidence for moving with as much precipitation in this matter. In these districts they may have witnessed demonstrations on the part of the people in their primary character in favor of this subject; and for his part he had no such evidence; he had received no such posi |