circuit judgeship on purpose to be a candidate for United States Senator; (3) that for the same reason he joined the Republican party; (4) that he was not in accord with the Supreme Court of the State upon the Fugitive Slave Act, and (5) that he was a too recent convert from the Democratic party. Doolittle wrote a long letter to the members of the Legislature defining his position on the State rights question, then a hot subject of dispute, and which had rent the Republican party in twain, in which he spun some fine theories upon the subject, and left the question about where he found it. He took good care not to offend cither faction, but to mistify, if not please, both. His position was very much like the Maine politician's attitude on the Maine liquor law. He said that he was in favor of the Maine law, but was opposed to its enforcement! Doolittle's chief competitor was Timothy O. Howe, whose opinion of the State rights doctrine of the Supreme Court was not at all obscure. He was decidedly and unequivocally opposed to it from everlasting to everlasting. Of course all such radical sheets as The Janesville Gazette, Kenosha Telegraph, Grant County Herald and Fond du Lac Commonwealth, pitched into Howe unmercifully. Those editors all lived to support Howe with the same zeal that characterized their former opposition. The other dark horses in the race were Holton, J. Allen Barber, M. M. Jackson, Wyman Spooner, and others of less repute. The Republican caucus to nominate a candidate for Senator was held January 21, when Doolittle was nominated on the sixth ballot. The last ballot stood, Doolittle, 41; Howe, 29, and the rest scattering. Whole number of votes cast, 81; necessary to a choice, 41. In the joint convention the vote stood James R. Doolittle, 79; Charles Dunn, 36, and two scattering. At this joint convention the Lieutenant-Governor, Arthur McArthur, presided, and at his side sat Wyman Spooner, the Speaker of the Assembly. When the vote was cast Mr. McArthur immediately pronounced the vote for Doolittle void on account of the constitutional prohibition already noted, and declared that there had been no choice. From this decision an appeal was taken and the ruling of the chair reversed, thus confirming the election of Judge Doolittle. Speaker Spooner also declined to vote for Doolittle or to sign his certificate

of election, for the same reason that had influenced Mr. McArthur. It is needless to add that Judge Doolittle was readily admitted to his seat in the United States Senate, that body having esablished a precedent in the case of Judge Trumbull of Illinois. The election of Judge Doolittle to one of the most desirable and honorable offices in the gift of the party, so soon after his joining it, gave rise to a clever bon mot by Mortimer M. Jackson, who was himself an aspirant for senatorial honors, who said in disgust: "The Republican party is prompt pay, sir; prompt pay, sir!"

The importance of one vote has been strikingly illustrated in some of the senatorial contests in Wisconsin. For example, Charles Durkee was elected by a majority of one vote in the joint convention. Mr. Doolittle was nominated in the Republican caucus by one vote, and twelve years later, in 1869, after Mr. Doolittle had served two terms in the Senate, his successor, Matt. H. Carpenter was nominated in the Republican caucus by a majority of one vote!

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Note-One member of the firm of Madison printers and newspaper publishers wrote cheeringly to his absent partner about their prospects of getting the State printing contract. The bids were, under the statute, to be sent in to the Secretary of State, and opened and passed upon by that officer, the State Treasurer and the Attorney-General. The printer, who was a friend of the administration, assured his colleagues that he had made arrangements for inside knowledge of the bidding, adding: "We must get a good bid. ** Even if we have to buy up Barstow and the balance”—meaning, by the "balance," the other State officials engaged in the letting. It was among the things unknowable whether the Secretary was or was not rightly judged by the ambitious printer; but the indiscreet letter was found, and promptly published in a rival journal (The Madison Democrat, Oct. 5, 1850), so that ever after that the faction in power was derisively known as "Barstow and the Balance"-a '—a taking catch-phrase for the opposition.-Thwaites' "Story of Wisconsin."

CHAPTER XII.

MANEUVERING FOR THE GERMAN VOTE.

The Republican party had a serious set-back in the fall of 1857, when the splendid majority of 13,000 for Fremont in 1856 was cut down to less than 200 for Governor Randall, and the defeat of over half of the candidates for State officers on the ticket with him. Randall canvassed the State in his own behalf, while his Democratic competitor, James B. Cross, made no effort to secure votes by stump speaking. Cross settled in Milwaukee in 1841; he had no success at the bar but he made some headway as a candidate for office. He was elected a justice of the peace in 1846, and judge of probate for Milwaukee County in 1848. He served three terms in the State Legislature with credit to himself, and was City Attorney for Milwaukee in 1850. He was only 454 votes behind A. W. Randall in the race for Governor in the fall of 1857. "He had a fine personal appearance," says one of his admirers, "and possessed many elements of popularity, and was fitted to adorn with grace and credit any position in life."

At the conclusion of Governor Bashford's term nobody expected and few desired that he would be renominated, and if he wished for a second term, he had no expectation of getting it, after all that had happened to his discredit.

And yet Mr. Bashford was not entirely destitute of friends. He had asked the Legislature to make an investigation into the charges of corruption which had been made against him in the newspapers in the railroad land grant affair, and he declared that he stood ready to purge himself of each and every charge made against him. Accordingly, a committee of five was appointed by the Legislature, which reported in due season that they had made the investigation touching the disposition of said land grant and of the charges brought against Governor Bashford, "and that