continues to support their government over us we will never come into the Union. This is an entire mistake, and what reason they can have for such an opinion we cannot conceive.

The first settlement of the country otherwise than for the purposes of Indian trade dates back but ten years. Can it be expected by intelligent members of Congress, even in this age of lightning and steam, that a country larger than all New England can be reclaimed from a savage wilderness and arrive at the wealth and dignity of a sovereign state in a shorter period than ten years?

The people of the territory are and have been disposed to adopt a state government so soon as it could be done without imposing upon themselves intolerable burdens and endangering the future prosperity of the state; but they have not been disposed to be hurried into this measure prematurely and involved in the same difficulties and embarrassments which have ruined the prospects of other states, merely to please the would-be senators, judges, etc., who are wistfully looking towards these posts of honor, and it is not strange that members of Congress should have been influenced by the misrepresentations of such men. The expense of sustaining a state government, though it would be onerous even now, has not, we believe, been the greatest objection in the minds of the people to hasty measures for a state organization, nor the cause which has prostrated the new states. The people are strangers to each other. They have not found out their men. They know not whom to trust with the important powers of a state government, and those who think they do know cannot depend upon securing their services. Such we believe has been, if it is not now, the general sentiment. A stranger in the territory is about as likely as anyone else to be elected to the legislature, for half his neighbors are strangers also. He has come, probably, from an old and wealthy state where a public debt of four or five millions is considered as a trifling affair. He thinks a state is a state anyhow, and in his new sphere he overlooks entirely the great disparity in point of wealth between

an old state and a new one. A few such men in a legislature, especially if they are men of commanding abilities, will influence others of more experience and draw them into some project of internal improvement which the state is illy able to undertake, and one scheme begets another and that another until, without any dishonest intention, perhaps, the new state is hopelessly involved in bankruptcy. These are the very causes which have ruined most of the new states.

Now is it wise, politic, or honorable for Congress, by a course of oppressive treatment, to force the people of Wisconsin into responsibilities the premature assumption of which has ruined all our neighbors, sooner than their sober, unprovoked judgment would dictate? The motives between state sovereignty and territorial dependence are well balanced by the constitutional relations which subsist between the United States and their territories, without adding oppression to the other inducements to escape from our present condition. Why, then, should Congress deprive us of legislation? Why virtually repeal the legislative powers which they have once guaranteed to us? Why deprive us of the right to make our own laws? "A right inestimable to us, and formidable to tyrants only." Wherein have we offended our great Uncle, that we should be put on short allowance of bread and water? Have we not grown finely? Have we not paid him millions for his lands? Has he, as in the case of Florida, expended thirty millions in defending us from a savage foe, or rather in supporting an army amongst us to wait on the princely estate of their commanders? Not at all. When we were involved in the same difficulties one of our own citizens mounted his horse, rallied his fellow citizens, and in a few weeks put an end to a war which under the guidance of major generals and the auspices of Congress would have cost the country more money than it would to support our territorial government efficiently for one thousand years! And yet when this same citizen of Wisconsin, as the representative of the people of the territory, stood up in the last Congress and asked for a reasonable appropriation to defray

the expenses of the government which they had established over the very country which he and his constituents had bravely defended, his demand was regarded as unreasonable and extravagant and he was voted down without a division!

We can only account for the singular treatment we have received at the hands of Congress by supposing that, in the multitude of business, our wants have not been duly considered and that they have lost sight of the relations which subsist between the United States and their territorial dependencies. We cannot believe that the United States will deliberately and knowingly adopt and pursue the same course of policy which the Continental Congress charged upon George the Third, and appealed to Heaven in support of their right to resist it unto blood. Though we are subjected to similar wrongs, yet we cannot resort to similar means for redress. We can only remonstrate, and then quietly suffer whatever cannot thus be remedied.

STATE GOVERNMENT—No. 2

[December 9, 1845]

The expediency-indeed the necessity-of Wisconsin's adopting a state form of government is beginning not only to be seen, but [to be] felt by the people (the Democratic portion of them at least) of this part of the territory. The question has assumed a new aspect since the vote was taken a year or two ago; and were the matter to be submitted to the people again, we think we hazard nothing in saying that southern Wisconsin would cast an unequivocal majority in favor of state government. With the Democratic party the sentiment is every day becoming more generally diffused that the time has arrived when there should be renewed action on this important question; and we believe the members in both branches of the legislative assembly from this county fully participate of that sentiment, and will feel it incumbent on them to endeavor to procure such legislative action on the subject at the next session as will bring the question tangibly before the people at the general election in September of next year. Should the vote then be, as we confidently anticipate that it will, for state government, the succeeding legislature could authorize

the calling of a convention of the people to form a constitution in the summer of 1847; which would enable Wisconsin to obtain admission into the Union as a state early in 1848-in good time to vote for a Democratic president of the United States, who will have to be elected in November of that year. We ought not to precipitate this question-it is a grave matter, and should be calmly discussed and deliberately determined on; and the spring of 1848 is early enough for us to come into the full sisterhood of the Union. Racine Advocate.

The above is, in our opinion, a very sensible and dispassionate view of the subject. The measures suggested may be regarded by some as over cautious and tardy, but we are inclined to think they will meet with general approbation. The formation of a state government is, indeed, as the editor of the Advocate well remarks, a grave matter and should not be precipitated. While we are, under all the circumstances, in favor of taking preparatory steps of some sort, we do not wish to produce the impression upon the minds of our readers that there is nothing but sunshine and fields of roses ahead, that their taxes will not be materially increased, or that there is no danger to be apprehended from our new and unsettled state as a community should we now assume the prerogatives and responsibilities of state sovereignty! Nor would we wish to persuade them out of their own convictions on the subject.

We would rather say to them, "There are dangers to be apprehended, difficulties to be overcome, and burdens to be borne; ponder the matter well, make up your minds deliberately, and be prepared to hold yourselves responsible for the conclusion at which you may arrive."

ELIGIBILITY OF MINISTERS

[December 9, 1845]

A few weeks ago we copied a paragraph from the Southport Telegraph disapproving of that provision in the constitution of Texas which declares ministers of the gospel ineligible to seats in the state legislature. As many among us are in favor of embodying a similar restriction in our constitution it would seem to be a proper subject for discussion. Many whose opinions we highly respect are in favor of instituting such a disqualification, while others are strenuously opposed to it. For our own part, we agree entirely with the Telegraph so far as it goes; and we are happy to say that we agree with those on the opposite side also in respect to the religious impropriety of a minister neglecting the duties of his sacred calling and encumbering his mind with the affairs of the state. We would never wish to see a minister of the gospel occupying a seat in a legislative body, and nothing short of a great scarcity of suitable timber would ever induce us to vote for one who might be a candidate. But this is only our individual sentiment, and it is strictly a religious one, and consequently we have no right to force it upon others, either theoretically or practically. Our neighbor may think differently, and so may the clergyman himself; or, if he should agree with us in the religious impropriety of his becoming a member of the legislature and voluntarily avoid it, as most clergymen in the United States do, still he might justly charge us with an invasion of his rights as a citizen the moment we should attempt to say that he should not be eligible to that or any other office on account of his profession.

We are aware that this restriction has been adopted not only by Texas but by the state of New York and perhaps by some other states. But we care not who or how many may have adopted it; we are satisfied that the principle is a