The Yankee and the Teuton in WisconsinSchafer, Joseph
History
The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin
Schafer, Joseph
Germans -- Wisconsin; Wisconsin -- Social life and customs
In Milwaukee County the Democrats nominated eight candidates for
delegates. Dr. Franz Huebschmann was the sole German named. The
_Wisconsin Banner_, while remarking that Germans constituting one-third
of the population were to have but a single delegate, urged Germans to
vote as one man for him. He was needed, said the editor, especially
to contend for equality in the voting privilege, for which he had
striven manfully during the past three years. In the neighbor county
of Washington, Germans were urged to support two Irish candidates who
favored equality of the voting privilege and whom the Whigs (so it was
asserted) were trying to defeat by the same wiles they employed against
Huebschmann. The moral of the _Banner_ editorials was: “Don’t trust the
Whigs. They have always opposed the rights of the foreign born.”[60] In
preparation for the vote on delegates, Milwaukee Germans who had not
declared their intention were given every direction for completing that
formality, and the indications are that a large number of voters were
newly made for the occasion.
Dr. Huebschmann, in the first convention, was a powerful advocate of
equality, giving as the chief ground in favor of the principle that
it would tend to bring Americans and foreigners into more harmonious
relations with one another. “The more distinctions you make between
them politically,” he said, “the more you delay this great end
[amalgamation], which is so essential to the future welfare of this
state. And, in fact, I regard only one measure equally important as the
political equality which I ask for, and that is a good common school
system.... Political equality and good schools will make the people of
Wisconsin an enlightened and happy people. They will make them one
people.”[61]
On the educational question Huebschmann found the Yankee majority
of the convention eager to welcome his coöperation. On the subject
of suffrage their unity was less complete. While party lines were
not strictly drawn, the chief contenders for equality were leading
Democrats and the chief opponents leading Whigs. But both conventions
adopted the principle, the first not quite frankly, and with the
admission of Wisconsin into the union all foreign born persons who had
resided in the state one year prior to any election had the right to
vote, provided they had declared their intention to become citizens of
the United States.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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