Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/267



“Western Wisconsin came into possession of our government in June, 1833. Settlements were made and crops grown during the same season; and at that early day was the impulse given to the mighty throng of immigration that has subsequently filled our lovely and desirable country with people of intelligence, wealth and enterprise. In a little over four years, what has been the condition of western Wisconsin? Literally and practically a large portion of the time without a government. With a population of thousands she has remained ungoverned, and has been left by the parent government to take care of herself without the privilege on the one hand to provide a government of her own, and without any existing authority on the other to govern her. From June, 1833, to June, 1834, there was not even the shadow of government or law in all western Wisconsin.

“In June, 1834, Congress attached her to the then existing Territory of Michigan, of which Territory she nominally continued a part until July, 1836, a period of a little more than two years. During this time the whole country west, sufficient of itself for a respectable State, was included in two counties, Dubuque and Des Moines. In each of these two counties there were holden during this time of two years two terms of a county court of inferior jurisdiction, as the only sources of judicial relief, up to the passage of the Act of Congress creating the Territory of Wisconsin. That act took effect the 3rd of July, 1830, and the first judicial relief afforded under that act, was at the April term following, 1837, a period of nine months after its passage; subsequently to which time there had been a court holden in one solitary county of western Wisconsin only. This your memorialists are aware has recently been owing to the unfortunate indisposition of the esteemed judge of our district; but they are also aware of the fact that had western Wisconsin existed under a separate organization, we should have found relief in the service of other members of the judiciary, who are at present in consequence of the great extent of our Territory and the small number of judges dispersed at too great a distance, and too constantly engaged in the discharge of the duties of their own district, to be able to afford relief to other portions of the Territory. Thus with a population now of not less than twenty-five thousand, and of near half that number at the organization of the Territory, it will appear that we have existed as a portion of an organized Territory for sixteen months with but one term of court.

“Your memorialists look upon these evils as growing exclusively out of the immense extent of country included within the present boundaries of the Territory, and express their belief that nothing would so effectually remedy the evil as the organization of western Wisconsin into a separate territorial government. To this your memorialists consider themselves entitled by right, and the same obligation that rests upon their present government to protect them in the enjoyment of their rights until such