USA > Wisconsin > A political history of Wisconsin > Part 5
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
J. Allen Barber, Warren Chase, A. E. Elmore, John Il. Tweedy and others. Many of these gentlemen held high official positions after the State was admitted. They were chief justices. governors, State officers, members of Congress, and some of them were the unsuccessful candidates of their party for the highest offices in the gift of the people. That the work of these able and conscientious men should have been rejected by the people by the decisive vote of 20,232 nays to 14,119 aves, will astonish the reader more and more as he investigates the subject. Many things conspired to . defeat the constitution. Although party lines were not drawn in the selection of delegates, nevertheless, as all the territorial offices had been filled by Democrats, and they were very much in evidence everywhere, the new constitution was generally looked upon by the Whigs as a Democratic affair, for which that party was responsible. The Whigs contended that the doctrines of the National Democracy had been incorporated. in the new constitu- tion to some extent, especially in regard to banks and banking. and they did not like it. Many of the leading Democrats opposed the adoption of the constitution because they disliked some of its provisions. Marshall M. Strong, one of the leading men in the convention, resigned his seat and went home with the obvious intent of opposing it. It has been charged that D. A. J. Upham. the president of the convention, looked upon its rejection with Christian resignation. Some thought it was too radical; others thought it was not liberal enough.
There is no doubt that it was defeated at the polls because it had not the cordial support of all those who had helped to make it. In the newspapers and on the stump the points raised against it were generally stated to be: (!) The clause in relation to the rights of married women; (2) the article on exemption of property from forced sale for debt; (3) the articles on banks and banking: (4) as to the number of senators and members of the Assembly: (5) the elective judiciary; and (6) the omission of an article on corporations. These were considered its obvious defects, and against these articles the guns of the opposition were leveled. The result was fatal; the instrument was rejected by a decided majority . and another convention was called to try again.
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A POLITICAL. HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The citizens of Milwaukee took an active part in deciding the fate of the first constitution. Such men as Byron Kilbourn, H. N. Wells, James Holliday, Moses Knecland, Rufus King, Solomon Juneau, John H. Tweedy and Jonathan E. Arnold opposed its adoption, while Isaac P. Walker, George II. Walker, W. K. Wilson and E. G. Ryan worked industriously for it. The vote of the city stood 1, 148 for the constitution and 1,437 against it.
The next convention was composed of new men almost entirely, many of the members of the first refusing to go back to the second. Only six of the old delegates were reelected to the second. These were Messrs. Beal, Chase, Fitzgerald, Judd, Lovell and Prentiss. Again the Democrats took the lead. Mor- gan L. Martin, ex-delegate to Congress, was elected president of the convention. Many new faces appeared. If the absence of many well-known citizens was noted, so was the presence of other delegates, eminent as lawyers, judges and professional men, made welcome. Among them were to be found such distinguished per- . sons as Edward V. Whiton, Orsamus Cole and Charles Dunn, all of them afterward chief justices of the Supreme Court; James T. Lewis and L. P. Harvey, afterward governors of the State; Harrison Reed, afterward governor of Florida; Morgan L. Mar- tin and Charles H. Larrabee, members of Congress; Byron Kilbourn, John H. Rountree, S. W. Beal, Horace T. Saunders and Rufus King, capable citizens and men of affairs. Compar- ing the two conventions in point of ability, and considering what each of the members of both afterward achieved for himself and for the State, there is little to choose between them. The work of the last convention met the approval of the people by a vote of 16,799 for, to 6.384 against it. The present constitution received only 2,680 more votes than the first one. While 34.351 electors went to the polls to vote for or against the first constitu- tion, only 23, 183 went to the polls to vote the second time. The . credit of framing the present constitution is given to the second convention, but the fact remains that it availed itself of the work done by its predecessor, as any one can plainly see who will com- pare the two instruments. Not only that, but the wisdom of the
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Mineb. Bower
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
first convention has been justified by the action of the State Legislatures since; for most of the things in the first constitution that were obnoxious, and led to its rejection by the voters, have been incorporated into our statutes, and made part and parcel of our laws. For example, the rights of married women are much better protected now in Wisconsin than the first constitution pro- posed to do it; and as for exemption from debt, the first constitu- tion proposed to fix it at $1.000 as the value of the homestead, while under the present constitution a city house and lot may be held under the law that is worth $50,000. And as for an elective judiciary system, which was voted down so decidedly in 1846, it has been proved to be eminently wise, conservative and satis- factory after fifty years of trial. Even the late Chief Justice Ryan, who, as a member of the first convention, could see nothing but disaster to the ends of justice in an elective judiciary and whose angry voice was often heard in bitter denunciation of the proposed scheme, lived long enough to be pleased with the custom, and to enjoy its benefits in his own person to the extent of being elected to . the highest judicial office in the State, for a full term of ten years, by the free suffrages of a people, a large majority of whom held opposite political views from himself. . So times change and men change with them. So in the onward march of progressive peoples, the conservatives of to-day are found to be camping on the same ground which the radicals occupied only yesterday!
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Congress, by an act approved May 29. 1848, enacted as fol- lows: "That the State of Wisconsin be, and is hereby, admitted to be one of the United States of America, and is hereby admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, with the boundaries prescribed by the act of Congress, approved August 6, 1846, entitled, 'An act to enable the people of Wisconsin territory to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union.'"
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The anti-slavery mien of Wisconsin kept up a sort of guerrilla warfare without any efficient leaders until the State was admitted into the Union, when Sherman M. Booth made his appearance here just ten days before Wisconsin had achieved the. dignity of statehood, so he made no disturbance in territorial times! He
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
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arrived in Milwaukee May 19, 1848. He was in some respects a remarkable man and has left the imprint of his genius upon the laws and history of the State. He was graduated from Yale Col- lege, and for seven years before he came West he was engaged by the Liberty party of Connecticut to lecture in every town in that State on slavery, and he spoke from one to six times in every village and city. He was a platform orator of no mean attainments and he was an able, forcible and eloquent writer. He was also a reformer, an iconoclast, and an agitator, who lacked the patience, tact, discretion, and judgment essential to the suc- cessful political leader. He had no faculty for organization, and depended too much upon his ability to speak and write. He was a poor judge of human nature. He thought men could be chased into the kingdom of Heaven with a whip of scorpions, and when he took editorial charge of The American Freeman, then the only distinctive out-and-out Abolition organ in the State, he soon had as many controversies on his hands with the Whig and Demo- cratic papers as he could attend to. He was a fanatic on the temperance question, and in a State like Wisconsin that increased his unpopularity, especially with the German element, which was otherwise inclined to sympathize with his anti-slavery teachings.
In an address delivered before the Wisconsin Editorial Asso- . ciation March 11, 1897, Mr. Booth tells of his advent into Wis- consin in the following truthful paragraph: "At first mine was the only distinctive anti-slavery paper in the State devoted to building up the Liberty party. I stood alone: and like the architects in rebuilding Jerusalem, I had to build with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. I was not a perfect master-builder, and doubtless sometimes used pretty hard. rough brick, or made a misfit in placing them. But I was hopeful, earnest, industrious, aggressive and fearless, believed in the Divine command to Israel at the Red sea-'Go forward'-and did the best I could with the tools at hand. I was bound to sce the walls of Freedom's temple go up!"
Mr. Booth might have added, without a serious departure from the truth, that he used the sword much more frequently than he did the trowel, and that it was much more congenial to his
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
feelings to do so. He was a natural born fighter, and it is only just to say that he always preferred to fight on the right side. As Macaulay said of the elder Pitt, "he chose his side like a fanatic and defended it like a philosopher." His mental outfit included a conscience, and his enemies gave him the credit of intending to do right.
Of course it was a war to the knife and the knife to the hilt as soon as he took charge of The Freeman. He drew the fire of all the Whig and Democratic papers, and paid back their assaults with compound interest. He soon became sole owner of The Freeman, removed it to Milwaukee, changed its name to The Free Democrat upon the breaking out of the Free Soil party, and in due time he issued a daily edition of his paper. Political parties had already begun to disintegrate, the anti- slavery sentiment was increasing, the seed sown by the Liberty men began to grow, the annexation of Texas began to bear fruit and the end of the war with Mexico had given us some new ter- ritory that was to be quarreled over on the subject of slavery. When we acquired Florida from Spain and Louisiana from France, and had "gobbled" Texas and whipped Mexico, and made her pay for it, slavery already existed in all those provinces; but Mexico had abolished slavery in all her dominions twenty years before, and all we got of her was free territory! Was this free territory now to be converted into slave States? or was it to remain free? The dispute commenced in earnest as soon as peace was declared between the United States and Mexico, and our title to California and New Mexico was made good. When the bill appropriating $2.000.000 to be used by President Polk in settling with Mexico, was under consideration in the House of Representatives. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania. offered the following proviso, which has ever since borne his name:
"Provided, That as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty that may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."
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A POLITIC.IL. HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
This proviso was adopted in Committee of the Whole House by So ayes to 64 noes, but an angry and protracted debate sprang up and the session came to an end before it could be passed, so that it went over until the next term. This proviso was the inspi- ration of the Free Soil party in the North and the cause of the defeat of Gen. Lewis Cass, the Democratic candidate .for the presidency in 1848. Booth and his followers in the old Liberty party in Wisconsin hesitated some time before joining in the popu- lar cry of. "Free Soil, Free Speech and Free Men," but they . thought they saw a chance of winning under that shibboleth and so they reluctantly fell in with the procession. They could at least help to defeat Cass, and, as one of Milton's devils said:
-"Which, if not victory, Is yet revenge!"
Cass had not only been warmly in favor of the annexation of Texas, which had been very distasteful to many life-long Demo- crats in the North like David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, Preston King. George Rathbun and Martin Grover of New York and Salmon P. Chase and Jacob Brinkerhoff of Ohio, but he was opposed to the Wilmot proviso, and inclined to adopt the new theory of John C. Calhoun, namely, that the Federal Constitution was held to carry slavery into every rod of federal territory whence it was not excluded by positive law! Cass was also wedded to the Democratic doctrine of that day that it was unconstitutional for the government to adopt a system of internal improvements. a subject of great interest to a new State like Wisconsin, lying between Lake Michigan, with harbors to improve, and the Mis- sissippi river, and being drained by several supposed navigable rivers. True, the Whig party had nominated Gen. Zachary Tay- lor against Cass, who was a slaveholler, but as the Whig party had been so overwhelmingly defeated in 1844. it was thought that Taylor had no chance whatever of an election. The Buffalo con- vention, at which the Liberty party was merged into the Free Soil party, was attended by twenty-five delegates from Wisconsin, and the list included such stalwart Abolitionists as Booth, Codding, Durkee and Gen. James H. Paine, who would be the last men to unite with any party unless it represented their principles. To
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I. W. Cook
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
the idle charge that they sold out the old Liberty party or made unwarrantable concessions to the new party Mr. Booth made reply in the words that follow:
"I pursued a straightforward course in regard to the Free Soil movement from first to last. I was a delegate to the convention- rather to the two conventions, for there was both a mass and a delegate convention, the latter consisting of a number equalmg the number of presidential electors from each State. Before the convention met Salmon P. Chase, Ichabod Codding and S. M. Booth had a conference, at which we formulated the basis of the union of the Liberty party with the proposed Free Soil party. It was this: "No more slave States, no more slave territory and the abolition of slavery in all territory under exclusive federal juris- diction.' And these three planks were the only live oak timbers in the Buffalo platform. Chase was president and I was chief sec- retary of the delegate-not the mass-convention that built the platform and named the candidates. The precise anti-slavery creed which Wisconsin and Ohio had demanded, was adopted as the faith of the new party. The old Liberty party men had not abated one jot or tittle of their fealty to freedom. They had taken in a great many new members on probation, some of whom dropped out before six months had expired."
Many of the Democratic papers in Wisconsin refused to place the name of Gen. Cass at the head of their columns, and Demo- cratic meetings were held in many counties at which strong Wil- mot Proviso resolutions were passed. Booth started a campaign paper called "The Barnburner." taking the name of a faction in New York headed by the eloquent John Van Buren, which sup- ported his father for the presidency. Accessions to the Free Soil- ers came in rapidly from all quarters. It was a political Day of Pentecost. The Democrats became alarmed. and The Daily Wis- consin, then an ardent supporter of Gen. Cass and everything that was regularly Democratic, was violent in its denunciations of the "traitor," Van Buren, whom it had formerly supported through evil and good report. It tried hard to convince the voters that the Wisconsin Democracy was more Free Soil than the Free Soil- ers themselves, while at some of the Democratic meetings "Cass (6)
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
and Free Soil" was the motto. W. P. Lynde. then in Congress from the First district. declared at a public meeting held in Mil- waukee, that it was incredible of belief that Lewis Cass, a West- ern man who had explored Wisconsin in carly times, was not a Free Soil man. Lynde was a candidate for reelection, but was beaten by Charles Durkee of Kenosha, who was supported by the Free Soilers. The Whig candidate was Asahel Finch, the law partner of Lynde. The vote was as follows:
State, President. ..
Cass. 15,001
Taylor. 13.747
Van Buren. 10.418
First District, Congressman.
W. P. Lynde. 4.436
A. Finch. 3.621
Charles Durkee. 5.033
A. Hyatt Smith.
Second District, Congressman
5,600
O. Cole. 6.28t
Geo. W. Crabbe. 1.916
J. D.
T.O. Howe.
Stoddard Judd.
Doty.
5,764
3.338
2.330
Third District, Congressman ..
Cass carried the State, but was over 9,000 votes short of the combined vote of Taylor and Van Buren. Each of the three parties secured a Congressman. They were all prominent men- bers of their parties. Durkee had always been active in the anti- slavery ranks, and he was a man of good average ability. He after- wards served one term in the United States Senate, being the first man ever elected to that body on a distinctive anti-slavery issue. He was not gifted with ready speech, and seldom asked the atten- tion of the Senate. Orsames Cole, from the Second district, has been conspicuous as a member of the Supreme Court for thirty- six years. James Duane Doty, from the Third district, formerly delegate in Congress in territorial times and late Governor by appointment of President Tykr, had probably more warm friends and still warmer enemies than any other man who was ever in public life in Wisconsin. Mr. Lynde, who was defeated by Dur- kee, was again elected to Congress in 1874 and again in 1876. and bore a prominent part in the celebrated Electoral Commission which decided the presidential contest between R. B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden.
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CHAPTER VI.
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THE FIRST GOVERNOR.
Wisconsin was admitted into the Union on an equality with the . other States on the 29th of May, 1848. On the 5th day of June, 1848, the new State government was organized with the installa- tion of the State officers: Governor, Nelson Dewey; Lieutenant Governor, John E. Holmes; Secretary of State, Thomas McHugh; State Treasurer, Jarius C. Fairchild: Attorney General, James S. Brown. On the third day of the session ex-Gov. Henry Dodge and Isaac P. Walker were elected to represent the new State in the United States Senate. Walker drew the short term, and it expired on the 4th of March, 1849, when he was reelected for a full term of six years. This first election of United States Sena- tors was not brought about without some of the rivalry, jealousy. strife, heart-burning and disappointment that has characterized every similar election that has been held by the Wisconsin Legis- lature from that day to this. The carly political struggles in Wis- consin were largely personal, and many men were seeking politi- cal advancement as soon as the State was organized. A portion of the Democrats were in favor of Dodge and Marshall M. Strong for Senators, and another large clique supported Judge Dunn and Isaac P. Walker. Doty, as usual, was a candidate on the Doty ticket. He had but a small following, however, on this occasion. The Dunn and Walker combination divided the vote about evenly. as against Dodge and Strong. An agreement was finally made whereby each of the factions got a candidate, the winning ticket being Dodge from the West, and Walker from the East. the latter receiving the support of the lake shore counties, and being greatly aided by his brother, George II. Walker, who was then a lead- ing citizen and politician in Milwaukee. The anti-slavery senti- ment then being much in evidence in the new State, both the Sena-
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tors were pledged beforehand to the freedom of the new terri- tories. Henry Dodge was already one of the best known and most popular citizens of Wisconsin. but Walker did not come to the territory until 1842. Still he was not a total stranger. Walker was not a college graduate, and had no educational equipment except what he obtained in common schools. He was born in Virginia, and studied law in Danville, Ill. He was elected to the Legislature of Illinois before he was 25 years of age, and was one of the presidential electors in that State on the Van Buren ticket in the great defeat of 1840. He opened a law office in Mil- waukee in 1842, and soon had a large practice. He served two terms in the Territorial Legislature from 1847, and attracted some public attention while a member of that body. He was Speaker of the House in 1847. The same Legislature that elected Mr. Walker adopted a joint resolution on the 8th day of February, 1849, instructing the Senators in Congress and the members of the House of Representatives to oppose any bills for the organi- zation of New Mexico and California, or any other territory acquired from Mexico, unless they contained a clause forever pro- hibiting slavery. On the 31st of March the Legislature felt called upon to pass another joint resolution, to the following effect :
"Whereas, Hon. I. P. Walker, one of the Senators from this State in Congress, in presenting and voting for an amendment to the general appropriation bill, providing for a government in Cali- fornia and New Mexico, west of the Rio Grande, which did not contain a provision forever prohibiting the introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude in said territories, has violated his pledges given before his election on that subject, outraged the feelings of the people, misrepresented those who elected him, and has openly violated the instructions contained in the resolutions passed by this body on the subject of slavery at the present session; he is hereby requested to immediately resign his seat."
Senator Dodge's course was commended. It is needless to . say that Walker did not resign. Dodge always voted to keep slavery out of the territories, and aimed to keep himself in touch with the people. Walker attended the next Democratic State Con- vention at Madison and tried to get himself reinstated in the party
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN. 65
by making a speech in defense of his action in the Senate, but it only made matters worse and when his term had expired he retired to private life. The resolutions of censure, however, which were : adopted March .31, 1849, were rescinded by the Legislature in January, 1851. Mr. Walker died in' Milwaukee, March 28, 1872.
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The vote for Congressmen in 1850 was as follows:
First District ---
A. E. Elmore (Dem.). 5.574
Charles Durkee (Free Soil). 7.512
Second District-
B. C. Eastman (Dem.) 7.262
O. Cole (Whig). 5.852
Third District-
H. C. Hobart (Dem.). 5.371
J. D. Doty (Ind.). 11,159
As to the election of Dodge and Walker to the Senate, the testimony of an eye witness of the contest is of interest. It is given in his own words:
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"The early struggles of Wisconsin among the politicians were largely personal. At that time the Whig party didn't have much . of a pull in Wisconsin. The school of Doty men were a class of men who were poor politicians. The Dodge men were strongly Democratic. When we came to elect United States Senators, there were many men who would have liked the position, and there was a diversity of opinion among leading Democrats as to the best men. Governor Dodge of course was elected as one of the two Senators by all parties. A portion of the Democrats nomi- . nated Dodge and Marshall M. Strong, and another portion were for Dunn and Walker. Doty, as usual, was running as his own candidate. The Noonan side of the question was Dodge and Strong. The Berian Brown or Madison faction was for Dunn and Walker. It only took one night to make the nomination. but it was a hard fight. Dunn and Walker just about divided the vote with Dodge and Strong. but the Milwaukee influence being for Walker, drew off some of the votes from Strong. Finally there was a compromise made by which both factions got a Sena- tor, Dodge from the western portion of the State and Walker
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
from the lake shore. Judge Dunn, had he been chosen. would have made a model Senator. He was always cool, collected and dignified under all circumstances, and at all times. He was emi- nent as a lawyer and as a legislator. He was a man who was very much admired by all who were well acquainted with him. Dunn's opinions were influential in the constitutional convention, but he made no speeches. He was a man who stepped on no one's toes, and allowed no one to step on his. He was one of the pure, high-minded men of those times."
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