He said, among other things: "Governor Dodge told us that our great father [the President] was very strong, and owned all the country; and that no one would dare to trouble us, or do us wrong, as he would protect us. He told us, too, that whenever we got into difficulty or anything happened we did not like, to call on our great father and he would see justice done. And now we come to you to remind our great father, through your paper, of his promise, and to ask him to fulfil it.... We thought our child safe in the jail in the care of the officers; that none could get the child away from them unless the law gave them the right. We cannot but think it must have been an evil spirit that got into the jail and took away our child. We thought the white man's law strong, and are sorry to find it so weak." Upon the conclusion of his visit, Oshkosh and his friends returned to their reservation, determined never again to mingle with the deceitful and grasping whites. Upon their way home to Keshena, Oshkosh stopped at the thriving little city which had been christened for him, and expressed pride at having so large a namesake. It was his first and only visit. Three years later he died in a drunken brawl, aged sixty-three years. He was a good Indian, as savages go, his chief vice being one borrowed from the whites, who forced themselves upon his lands and contaminated him and his people. A FIGHT FOR THE GOVERNORSHIP Between the time when Wisconsin became a state (1848), and the opening of the War of Secession (1861), party feeling ran high within the new commonwealth. Charges of corruption against public officials were freely made; many men sought office for the plunder supposed to be obtained by those "inside the ring"; newspaper editors appeared to be chiefly engaged in savage attacks on the reputations of those who differed from them, and general political demoralization was prevalent. When, however, important issues arose out of the discussions of the strained relations between North and South, a higher and more patriotic tone was at once evident, and this has ever since been maintained in Wisconsin politics. The most striking event of the years of petty partisan strife which preceded the war, was the fight for the governorship of the State, between William A. Barstow and Coles Bashford.