APPENDIX.                                         441
have now no advocate on the floor of Congress. These people
have emigrated to the remote region they now inhabit under
many disadvantages.
They have not been attracted thither by the glitter of in-
exhaustible gold mines, but with the same spirit which has actu-
ated all our pioneers of civilization. They have gone there
to labor with' the axe, the anvil, and the plow. They have
elected a delegate with the full assurance that they had a right
so to do, and he presents himself here for admission. Sir,
was this a question in which the consequences would be con-
fined to me personally, the honorable members of this house
would not find me here, day after day, wearying their patience
by long appeals and explanations. But, believing as I do, be-
fore God, that my case, and the question whether there is any
law in the Territory of Wisconsin, are intimately and indis-
solubly blended together, I trust that the house of representa-
tives will, by its decision of the claim before it, establish the
principle, which shall be as a landmark in all coming time,
that citizens of this mighty republic, upon whom the rights
and immunities of a civil government have been once be-
stowed by an act of Congress, shall not be deprived of these
without fault or agency of their own, unless under circum-
stances of grave and imperious necessity, involving the safety
and well being of the whole country.