This disposition on the part of Germans to “hang together” was promptly discovered by American politicians and exploited for partisan and personal ends. The outstanding fact of the political history of the period under review is the attachment of the immigrant Germans to the Democratic party. That relation was all but absolute and universal during the 1840’s, though a gradual change took place in the last half of the next decade. There was nothing mysterious about it. Germans found the country, on their arrival, living under a Democratic administration, to which they looked for favors and usually not in vain. The Democratic party was liberal in the bestowal of lands; it contended manfully against the principle of monopoly, especially in banking and other corporate activities; and it emphasized the doctrine of the equality of all men. The Germans, like the Irish and, in fact, all immigrants, were strongly attracted by the principles professed in Democratic platforms. The very word “democracy,” had its winning appeal. “Democracy,” wrote the editor of the _Banner_ in 1850, “is a glorious word. There are few other words, in any language, which can be compared to it. To the poor man it is peculiarly precious since he is aware that he owes to it his escape from the serfdom in which his oppressors held him, and can now look up into heaven and thank his God that he has ceased to be a serf. Democracy knows no distinctions between man and man. She sets all upon the broad foundation of equality.”[59] The enormous prestige gained by the Democratic party under Jackson’s leadership easily floated the administrations of Van Buren and Polk. But, as an influence toward captivating the foreign element in Wisconsin, no other Democratic principle had quite the efficacy of the liberal suffrage provision which the party in power adopted at the beginning of our history as a state. In Michigan the makers of the state constitution had granted the voting privilege to all aliens who were _bona fide_ residents and who had declared their intention to become citizens. That clause in her organic law drew the criticism of Whig members of Congress, but she was admitted to the union in spite of their opposition, and thus was established the principle that men might be voters without being citizens. When, in 1846, the territorial legislature of Wisconsin provided by law for the holding of a constitutional convention, a similar proviso was made to govern the election of delegates to the convention.