USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895 > Part 16
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sus, and Milwaukee's representation in the Legisla- tive assembly was increased, while that of some of the western counties was reduced. When the Legislative assembly came together in 1843, George HI. Walker was elected speaker of the house.
The county election in 1843 was the first at which justices of the peace were chosen by the people. They had formerly been appointed by the governor. At the election for sheriff and judge of probate, which came off in May, E. D. Holton was chosen to the former office, his unsuc- cessful competitor being William A. Barstow, af- terward governor. Mr. Holton ran as an inde- dependent, Barstow being the candidate of the Democracy. Even at that time Holton was known as an Abolitionist. He was also a staunch teetotaler. These idiosyncrasies would have handi- capped him politically under ordinary circum- stances, but in this instance they were more than offset by an uprising of Democrats against Bar- stow on the ground that he had packed the caucus which gave him his nomination. The charge is interesting in view of the high-handed methods by which, more than a decade later, the support- ers of Barstow undertook to prolong his hold upon the governorship. The election of the delegate to Congress this year was conducted on party lines so far as arguments were concerned, though the Milwaukee Whigs do not seem to have exerted themselves. The conventions of both parties were held at Madison. The Democrats renomi- nated Dodge, while the nominee of the Whigs was Gen. George W. Hickcox. Dodge was re- elected by a majority of fifteen hundred. Mil- waukee county gave nine hundred and thirty votes for Dodge, three hundred and fifty-one for Hickcox and one hundred and fifteen for Jonathan Spooner. Not long after his re-election, Gen. Dodge proved his title to the confidence of Mil- waukeeans by securing the insertion in the con- gressional river and harbor bill, of a twenty thou- sand dollar appropriation for the improvement of the harbor at Milwaukee.
At the county election in 1844 the whole Demo- cratic ticket was elected, with the exception of John White, the candidate for sheriff, who was defeated by Owen Aldrich. The result was a sur- prise to White, and was greatly resented by his friends, who charged it to prejudice against his nationality. In the following year, Charles H.
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
Larkin, the Democratic candidate for register of deeds, was the victim of a similar unpleasant sur- prise, his successful opponent being William A. Rice.
There was a very active contest for the Demo- cratic nomination for representative in congress to succeed Henry Dodge. The convention was held at Madison in June, 1845. Six avowed candidates were in the field, one of them being Don A. J. Upham, who on the first seven ballots received more votes than any one else, though not sufficient to constitute a choice. On the eighteenth ballot the nomination went to Morgan L. Martin of Green Bay. The Whig convention, held in the following month, nominated James Collins of Iowa county, while the standard-bearer of the Free- soilers, who this year denominated themselves the Liberty party, was E. D. Holton of Milwaukee. Martin was elected by a plurality in the territory of one thousand one hundred votes, the whole number cast for Holton being seven hundred and ninety.
An important question for Milwaukee was decided by popular vote on the 5th of January, 1846, namely, whether or not the growing town should assume the full dignity of a municipality. The weight of public sentiment on the East side was against the step, but the West and South sides were almost unanimously in favor of it. In all, nine hundred and seventy-five votes were cast, the majority in favor of the adoption of the city char- ter being three hundred and eleven. At the elec- tion under the new charter held in the following April, Solomon Juneau was elected the first mayor of Milwaukee. A vote preparatory to the calling of a convention to frame a state constitution was also taken at this election.
In the beginning of the agitation for the ad- mission of Wisconsin as a state of the Union, Milwaukee was opposed to the project. When, at the instance of Governor Doty, an election to determine the will of the people regarding the matter was held in September, 1842, the general sentiment of the inhabitants of the territory seems to have been that of languid indifference, but Milwaukee put in a decided negative, her vote being only ninety-five "for " and six hundred and thirty-four "against." Gradually more interest developed in the subject. A mass meeting of foreign-born residents was held in Milwaukee on the 22d of December, 1843, in which Doctor Francis Huebschmann and John White were lead-
ing spirits. It urged upon the Legislative as- sembly the passage of an act authorizing all free white male inhabitants to vote for delegates to the constitutional convention, and to vote "on the question of the expediency of the formation of said constitution, when that question shall be submitted to the people." The legislative act un- der which the question of framing a constitution came before the people at the polls in 1846, pro- vided that every white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who had resided in the territory for six months next preceding the day of election, and who was a citizen of the United States, or had filed his declaration of intention to become such, according to the laws of the United States on the subject of naturalization, should be authorized to vote for or against the formation of a state government. Every county in the terri- tory except Grant county voted in the affirm- ative when the question was submitted to the people at the April election, and on the first Monday in September following, the people elected delegates to what is now remem- bered as the first constitutional convention.
The delegation from Milwaukee county con- sisted of Don A. J. Upham, John H. Tweedy, Asa Kinney, Garrett Vliet, James Magone, Doctor Francis Huebschmann, Wallace W. Graham, Gar- rett M. Fitzgerald, John Crawford, John Cooper, Charles E. Browne and Horace Chase. The only Whig in the delegation was Mr. Tweedy. Mr. Upham was chosen president of the convention. Doctor Huebschmann was influential in securing the provision granting the privilege of suffrage to foreigners who had formally declared their inten- tion of becoming citizens of the United States. Mr. Tweedy served on the committee on the con- stitution and organization of the legislature, and also took a conspicuous part in the general pro- ceedings of the convention. The convention closed its labors on the 16th of December, 1846, after a session of seventy-three days.
The period intervening between the adjourn- ment of this body and the first Tuesday in April, 1847, the date of the spring clection, when the constitution was to be submitted to a vote of the people for ratification or rejection, was one of great excitement, particularly in Milwaukee. The foreign-born citizens were especially attracted to the proposed constitution by the liberal provision on the subject of suffrage. Many people in strug-
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THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL PARTIES.
gling financial circumstances were inclined to re- gard with favor the clause relating to exemptions from executions for debt, which, though less lib- eral than the law in existence at the present time, was then an innovation. The clause providing that a wife might hold property separate from the estate of her husband, was another innovation. There was heated argument for and against the adoption of the constitution, which expended itself ' chiefly on these provisions. But the practical ob- jection to the constitution, which aroused the strongest opposition against it, and was most in- fluential in bringing about its defeat, was no doubt its anti-banking article.
There had been among the people of the terri- tory an extreme antipathy to banks and issues of paper money, growing out of bitter experiences with the wild-cat currency that caused the disas- trous crash of 1837, which bad so seriously re- tarded the development of all new settlements in the west. Independently of this, the masses of the Democracy were inimical to banks for emo- tional reasons associated with the remembrance of President Jackson's fierce and finally success- ful struggle against the Bank of the United States at Philadelphia.
The territorial legislature had spent much of its time fighting banking enterprises. Even the solid institution conducted in Milwaukee by Alexander Mitchell was the object of its unceas- ing suspicion. So fearful was the Legislative assembly that any attempt at corporate organ- ization, however innoccent of such intention on its face, might cloak a banking enterprise, that when in 1845 it passed an act permitting the in- corporation of the " First Congregational society in Milwaukee "-Plymouth Church-it was care- ful to include a proviso that "nothing herein con- tained shall be so construed as to give to said soci- ety banking powers." If bankers were wolves, and the people sheep, what could be wiser than erecting as part of the fundamental law of the new state, a fence which should for all time pro- tect the sheep from the wolves ? The proposed constitution provided that there should be no bank of issue within the state of Wisconsin, and that the legislature should have no power to au- thorize or incorporate any bank or other institu- tion having banking powers, or to confer on any person or persons any banking power or privi- lege ; and that it should be " unlawful for any cor-
poration under any pretense or authority to exer- cise the business of receiving deposits of money, making discounts, or buying or selling bills of ex- exchange, or to do any other banking business whatever." It further provided that after the year 1849, it should not be lawful to circulate within the state "any paper money, or any evidence of debt intended to circulate as money, issued with- out the state, of any denomination less than twenty dollars."
Men with large views regarding the speedy development of empire in the West, and with a practical understanding of the financial require- ments of the time, even if they subscribed in a large measure to the popular denunciation of wild-cat money, would naturally regard such dra- conian intolerance as this with profound alarm and disfavor. The Whigs as a rule were opposed to the adoption of the proposed constitution. Many of them disliked the laxity of the article on suffrage, and nearly all of them, on economic grounds as well as from political predilections, were antagonistic to the sweeping provisions of the article on banks. Democrats like Byron Kil- bourn were as eager to defeat the ratification of the instrument as any of the Whigs.
On the 19th of January, 1847, friends of the constitution took part in a torchlight procession. Ten days later a meeting arranged by one hun- dred and twenty Democrats opposed to the con- stitution, who had joined in signing their names to a call, was held at the council chamber on Spring street. This gathering was attended by many not in sympathy with its purpose, and its proceedings were marked by disorder. Don A. J. Upham and A. D. Smith spoke in support of the constitution. Byron Kilbourn spoke at some length, setting forth the defects of the instrument in a strong light, and a resolution offered by James Holliday, ealling upon the legislature to authorize the holding of a new convention, was adopted. On the 18th of February a grand rally for the constitution was held at the court house. Marching clubs from the several wards met at the Milwaukee House, where they formed in procession and moved to the place of gen- eral assemblage, headed by torch-bearers and a military band. W. P. Lynde called the meet- ing to order, and John P. Helfenstein was chosen as presiding officer. Speeches were made by A. D. Smith and Isaac P. Walker, and resolutions,
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
drafted by a committee appointed for the purpose and heartily endorsing the constitution, were adopted amid great enthusiasm. The committee which drew up the resolutions was composed of A. D. Smith, Levi Hubbell, John A. Brown, M. Walsh and Moritz Schoeffler. The tenor of the resolutions, which were six in number, can be sufficiently indicated by citing one of them, as . and other speakers.
follows:
" Resolved, that we hail the great leading features of the proposed constitution as presenting the surest, soundest and broadest platform of civil and religious liberty ever yet laid before the world, and we deem their preservation inestimably more precious than the correction of a few alleged defects, which time and trial may yet improve, or which the people can alter, amend or eradicate in their own time and way."
On the 2nd of March the court house was the place of meeting of an assemblage of anti-consti- tutionalists. The call for the gathering contained no less than eight hundred names. Solomon Juneau was president. The vice-presidents were George Abert, Moses Kneeland, John Furlong and S. H. Martin. Powerful addresses, advising the rejection of the constitution were delivered by Byron Kilbourn and Marshall M. Strong. An over-flow meeting listened to speeches in the open air by H. N. Wells, James Holliday and others.
General Rufus King was among the most active opponents of the constitution, not only attacking it in his paper, but organizing the opposition throughout the eastern portion of the territory. It was for the purpose of this work that he secured the establishment of a new German newspaper, the Volksfreund, the editor of whom, Frederick Frat- ney, was brought on from New York by his invitation. This was a very effective piece of strategy on the part of General King, as the supporters of the constitution made most of their capital, not by defending the banking article, but by appealing to the fears of foreign-born residents and seeking to make them believe that the chief cause of the opposition to the constitution was " nativistic" prejudice against foreigners. Among other influential opponents of the proposed consti- tution were John H. Tweedy and Jonathan E. Arnold.
On the 15th of March the supporters of the constitution held two meetings-one at the court house, which was addressed in English by George H. Walker, W. K. Wilson and E. G. Ryan; and the other at Military hall, where Doctor Huebsch- mann, and Messrs. Haertel, Liebhaber, Hasse
and Gruenhagen spoke in German. Demonstra- tions and counter-demonstrations followed in rapid succession till the eve of election. A torch- light procession by the "Anti's" on the evening of April 3d, marched to the Milwaukee House, in front of which a bon-fire was built, in whose light addresses were delivered by Governor Tallmadge
The issue at the municipal election that year was "Constitution or No Constitution." Horatio N. Wells, who stood as the representative of the opponents of the constitution, was elected to the mayoralty over George H. Walker, an ardent sup- porter of the constitution, by a vote of nine hun- dred and seventy-four to six hundred and twenty- one. Milwaukee's vote on the constitution was one thousand, one hundred and forty-eight "for" and one thousand four hundred and thirty-seven "against," the "Anti's" having a majority of three hundred and three. The constitution was defeated in the territory at large by a vote of twenty- thousand two hundred and thirty-two, to fourteen thousand one hundred and nineteen.
Milwaukee's delegation to the second constitu- tional convention consisted of Byron Kilbourn, Rufus King, Charles H. Larkin, John L. Doran, Garrett M. Fitzgerald, Moritz Schoeffler and Albert Fowler. The first convention had con- sisted of one hundred and twenty-four mem- bers. The second was a less unwieldy body, having a membership of sixty-nine. Garrett Fitz- gerald was one of the only two men who were members of both conventions. Byron Kilbourn was chairman of the committee on general pro- visions and took an influential part in the proceed- ings of the convention. General King was the only Whig in the Milwaukee delegation. He was a member of the committee on executive, legisla- tive and administrative provisions, and also served on several special committees. Mr. Schoeffler drafted the provision on the elective franchise. Mr. Larkin suggested the banking article which, with some amendments, was finally adopted. The convention finished its labors in forty-eight days.
The new constitution was ratified by the people at a special election held on Monday, March 13, 1848, the city of Milwaukee casting one thousand five hundred and three votes in its favor, and only one hundred and forty-seven against it.
The vote in Milwaukee county on the first con- stitution was : " For," one thousand six hundred
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THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL PARTIES.
and seventy-eight; "against," one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six. Milwaukee county's vote on the second constitution was: "For," two thousand and eight; "against," two hundred and three. It will be observed that the total vote on the rejected constitution was three thousand six hundred and seventy-four, while that on the rati- fied constitution was only two thousand two hun- dred and eleven. The proportion throughout the territory was about the same, indicating an utter absence of the excitement which had character- ized the former election.
The counties of Iowa, LaFayette and Richland gave a small majority for the first constitution. Washington county cast one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight votes for the constitution and only three hundred and fifty-three against it. Brown and Manitowoc counties also voted in favor of the first constitution. Every other county in the territory voted against it. The only county which gave a majority against the ratification of the second constitution was Racine. The financial interests had no objection to the banking article of the new constitution, while the people of foreign birth evidently concluded that their liberties would be safe under the provision defining the sufirage.
While the adoption of a new constitution was pending, and while the successful opponents of the rejected instrument were still aglow with the en- thusiasm of victory, a congressional campaign was fought. The candidate of the Democrats was Moses M. Strong of Mineral Point, while the Whigs nominated John H. Tweedy of Milwaukee, and the Abolitionists nominated Charles Durkee of Kenosha. Mr. Strong had been a vigorous de- fender of the rejected constitution, Mr. Tweedy had been conspicuous among its opponents. It was not remarkable that under the circumstances this consideration should influence voters. Tweedy beat Strong in Milwaukee county by two votes, and was elected, receiving ten thousand six hun- dred and seventy votes in the territory at large, against nine thousand six hundred and forty- eight for Strong, and nine hundred and seventy- three for Durkee. He served a short term as the last representative of the territory of Wisconsin in Congress.
In the spring of 1848 the Democratic city ticket
was headed by Byron Kilbourn, while the Whigs nominated a ticket headed by General Rufus King. Kilbourn was elected mayor by two hun- dred and twenty-two majority. On the 8th of May the election of state officers took place. Mr. Tweedy was the Whig candidate for governor, but was defeated by the Democratic nominee, Nelson Dewey. In Milwaukee, Tweedy received one thousand one hundred and ninety-four votes, against two thousand two hundred and one for Dewey. It was in August of this year that Horace Chase resigned his seat in the Legislative assembly, because that body had passed a law authorizing the city of Milwaukee to raise a tax for the straight-cut entrance to the harbor, without making provision for the payment of damages suffered by property owners inter- ested in the maintainance of the old harbor en- trance at the mouth of the river. Of the two senators elected at the first meeting of the state legislature, one was a Milwaukeean, Isaac P. Walker.
At the presidential election in 1848, General Rufus King was an elector on the Whig ticket. So also was his predecessor as editor of the Sen- tinel, Harrison Reed, who was at that time a resi- dent of Winnebago county. Doctor Huebsch- mann of Milwaukee was an elector at large on the Democratic presidential ticket, which was successful in Wisconsin though defeated in the nation. The Free Soil party had tickets in the field, its candidate for sheriff of Milwaukee county being Doctor E. B. Wolcott. The Democrats elected their candidate for Congress in the Mil- waukee district, William Pitt Lynde.
A public meeting was held at the court house on the 15th of February, 1849, to discuss pro- posed amendments to the city charter. John H. Tweedy, Byron Kilbourn, James Kneeland, Doc- tor Lemuel W. Weeks and Alexander Mitchell were appointed a committee to digest a plan, whereby the city might lend its credit to aid in the construction of a railroad to connect Mil- waukee with the Mississippi river. At the city election the Whigs put up only a candidate for mayor, B. H. Edgerton. The Democrats placed in the field a full ticket, headed by Don A. J. Upham, and elected it.
CHAPTER XVII.
POLITICS AND POLITICAL ISSUES BEFORE THE WAR.
BY JOHN G. GREGORY.
A T all the early elections in Milwaukee the issues were wholly personal and local. Problems such as the division of a county, or the location of a county-seat, or of the state capital, are of much more importance in the minds of settlers in a new territory than any ab- stract political principle. The improvement of Milwaukee harbor and the settlement of the Mil- waukee and Rock River canal imbroglio no doubt loomed larger in the imagination of the Milwau- keeans of the early '40's than any social or inter- national controversy then in progress among the law-makers at Washington, or in any other part of the world. There was a semblance of moral issue when the opponents of the re-election of Congress- man Jones denounced him as a duelist, but the effect of this objection was obscured by reason of the other conspicuous argument used against his can- didacy-that he was the friend of the canal pro- ject. When the Whigs and the Democrats first arrayed themselves in separate camps in Milwau- kee, the Whigs had high hopes of acquiring a per- manent ascendancy, but these were gradually dampened. The influx of foreigners changed the character of the population, and between some of the Americans and some of the new arrivals from Europe conflicts of sentiment arose which Demo- cratic leaders were shrewd enough to turn to the account of their own party.
There was a time in the early history of Mil- waukee when the chief body of citizens of Euro- pean birth were from Ireland. Then, as since, the great stronghold of Emerald Islanders was the Third ward. But a tide of German immigration began to roll in during the early '40's. Writing of Milwaukee in 1847, in a book published in Leipsig, Franz Loher said, "Nowhere have the Germans decided so much in politics as here." Out of a population of four thousand eight hundred and seventy-two in the second ward in 1851, two thon- sand seven hundred and fifteen were born in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, four hun-
dred and twenty-four in England, two hundred and eight in Holland, two hundred and seventy- two in other European states, and one thousand four hundred and seventy-one in America. Of those in the last mentioned category, seven hun- dred and seventy-five were born in Wisconsin, and were with few exceptions considerably below the age of suffrage. The Germans brought with them to this country the social customs of their fatherland. They brought also a love of liberty, many of them having emigrated chiefly because they would not submit to political tyranny. They had heard the United States spoken of as the home of freedom, where every man could follow the dictates of his own conscience and inclination, undisturbed so long as he did not encroach upon the freedom of others.
In the fall of 1848 the state senator elected from the district comprising the First and Second wards was John B. Smith. The First ward at that time included all the east side except what is now within the limits of the Third ward. Mr. Smith lived on Van Buren street in what is now the Seventh ward. In February, 1850, largely through the instrumentality of Senator Smith, the legisla- ture passed the most drastic anti-liquor law which has ever been placed upon the statute books of this state. It repealed all laws giving power to the common councils of cities and trustees of vil- lages to grant licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors or drinks, and provided that no person should be allowed to sel! such drinks at retail un- til he had executed a bond with sureties, in the sum of one thousand dollars, to pay all damages that the community or individuals might suffer by reason thereof, "support all paupers, widows and orphans, made or helped to be made by his or her traffic, and pay the expenses of all civil and criminal prosecutions made, growing out of or justly attributing to his or her vending or retail- ing intoxicating liquors or drinks." One of the sections of the law set forth that " On the trial of
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