[NOTE -- B. H. Fuller was a pioneer of Pawnee county, Nebraska, in which he held different county offices.]

addition of the unquestionably loyal members from Nebraska to its forces in Congress, overlooked the hostility of the people to assumption of the burdens of statehood. The hope of the republicans was the fear of the democrats, and the position of the latter was frankly avowed.
   The vote of Nebraska as a state may be counted to elect Abraham to a second term; and besides, it is admitted there are some who suppose the territory to be republican, and in the event of its so being they begin to look forward to the good time coming when, under the aegis of a constitutional provision, negro equality shall culminate in miscegination, and numberless fat offices shall be bestowed upon the faithful leaders of the party as a reward for services, sufferings, and wear and tear of conscience in singing hallelujahs to an administration the most imbecile, reckless, profligate and corrupt that has ever existed. The democracy will oppose the whole thing from "stem to stern." . . Our taxes are about as high as we can bear, and if we come in they must be ten fold higher . . . It will require $60,000 a year to uphold a state government. Hitherto territories have been admitted after a census has shown a sufficient population to entitle them to a representative in congress. No inquiry as to the number of people, none as to their wishes.
   When the Omaha Republican showed the inconsistency of the democratic organ by pointing out that its editor, Alfred H. Jackson, had himself offered the statehood resolutions and memorial at the late session of the legislature, all he could say in reply was that his resolution was intended to let the people decide whether they wanted a constitutional convention or not, while the act of Congress required them to vote directly on the question of accepting or rejecting the constitution which the convention had been authorized to frame. The democratic press effectively emphasized the objection of increased expense involved in sustaining a state government. It was argued that the present taxes were five mills on the dollar, aggregating $45,163.86; and that the state would have to raise $58,000, now annually paid by congressional appropriation, besides the $45,000 now raised by taxation.

   Dr. George L. Miller was president and J. Sterling Morton chairman of the committee on resolutions of the democratic territorial convention which was held at Plattsmouth, June 22, for the purpose of choosing delegates to the national convention, and of taking action on the question of statehood. The resolutions adopted congratulated the democracy of Nebraska that an overwhelming majority of the members of the constitutional convention stood pledged to adjourn sine die without action, thus saving an expense of $25,000 involved in preparing a constitution; that it had forestalled an election (on the question of adopting the constitution) at which the "money of the administration poured out like water would have been employed upon the corruptible"; that it had forestalled drafts for the army, and that an "iniquity has been emphatically rebuked, which would have made 30,000 people the sovereign equal of New York, Ohio, or Illinois, in order that three electoral votes might be added to the purchase by which a corrupt administration is seeking to perpetuate its power." It was also resolved that the authors of the resolutions have "heard with astonishment that certain federal office-holders in this territory propose to force the burden of a state government upon this people by cunningly devised oaths to be administered to the convention." While the resolutions commended "the independent and truly patriotic members of the republican, and other parties who lent us their aid to thwart these purposes of unequaled infamy, it must be remembered that the plan by which these inestimable benefits are assured to us was conceived, carried forward and accomplished by the democracy of Nebraska." It will be seen that the "threatenings and slaughter" which breathe through these heroics are entirely at outs with the general negative and acquiescent mood and policy heretofore assumed by the democrats during the war, as well as with the action of the leading democratic members of the legislature touching this subject. But whatever we may think of the discretion of the resolutions, they were distinctly Mortonian, and they show that in his youth, as always after, Morton was no fool who would

[NOTE -- Daniel H. Wheeler was a pioneer of Plattesmouth, Nebraska, and prominent in politics]

halt at the stumbling block of consistency. The statesman who has a mind to hesitate before consistency is already lost. Besides, how recently had Morton been for statehood with much less population than at this time. The democratic party was now in such an uncertain condition that it could win nothing but negative victories, and the republicans assisted it in winning this one by timid approval of the statehood proposition which amounted to less than half-heartedness. A party organ, for example, kept its ammunition in store during the whole campaign, and then after it was lost exploded it all at once in the following fashion:

    What have the copperheads, then, succeeded in cajoling their "republican friends" into:
    First, a resistance to the draft; the main argument used was "If we have a state we'll have a draft."
   Second, they have assisted to defeat the constitutional amendment, to pass which the vote of three members of congress from Nebaska (sic) was necessary; . . . which the copperheads style as one of the "president's infamous projects."
   Third, they have virtually said to the government: We are mean enough to force you to support us while we know you need every dollar you can scrape to whip out the rebellion.

   The professed fear by the democrats of cunningly devised oaths" was an insinuation that it was the plan of Secretary Paddock to administer an oath to the members of the convention which would aid them to remain in session until a constitution should be framed.
   The delegates to the national democratic convention, chosen by the Plattsmouth convention, were J. Sterling Morton, Andrew J. Poppleton, Joseph I. Early, Erastus B. Chandler, and John Rickley. The opposition classed all these delegates as "unadulterated Vallandighammers," an imputation which was excused if not fully justified by the inexplicably hostile expression of the democratic press and platforms of the territory against the national administration and its war measures; and which continued unabated from this time on until the amendments to the constitution were adopted.
   The republican territorial committee met February 12, 1864, and by its own act disbanded to go into the new "union" party, and forty of the fifty-two members of the legislature endorsed their action; and afterwards six members of the old organization -- Floris Van Reuth of Dakota county; Eliphus H. Rogers, Dodge; Dr. Gilbert C. Monell, Douglas; Daniel H. Wheeler, Cass; William H. H. Waters, Otoe; David Butler, Pawnee -- met and chose themselves delegates to the Union national convention at Baltimore. The Republican rebelled against this action as usurpation, and the self-appointed delegates afterward submitted to the choice of delegates to a convention.
   At the meeting of the committee, held April 26th, all the members were present by person or proxy except two, and they adopted a "union" platform as follows:

    Resolved, That the only basis of this union organization shall be unquestioned loyalty, and unconditional support of the congress of the United States in their war measures, especially in confiscating the property [of] rebels in arms, unconditional support of the proclamations of President Lincoln, especially his emancipation proclamation, the arming of negroes, or any other constitutional measure deemed necessary by the administration to crush out this wicked rebellion, with the least cost of time, treasure and blood of loyal men.
   And whereas, since the adoption of this platform, the rebel authorities have practiced brutal barbarities upon our colored soldiers, we hereby affirm the duty of this government to afford white and colored soldiers equal protection, and to retaliate strictly upon white rebels any barbarity practiced upon colored soldiers of the union army. A colored man once freed by this government and enlisted as a soldier in its defense, is entitled to its protection in all respects as a free citizen.
   Adjourned, sine die.
G. C. MONELL, Chairman.
D. H. WHEELER, Secretary.

    The adage, "practice makes perfect" had ample opportunity for self-vindication in the making of perfect political citizens in the year 1864, which was even more than commonly a crowded hour of politics. After the legislature came the discussion of statehood, then the conventions relating thereto, and all the

[NOTE -- T. S. Clarkson was at one time postmaster of Omaha and was manager of the Trans-Mississippi exposition, Omaha, Nebraska.]

time there was raging a fierce contest, especially in the now confident republican, or union party, over the nominations for delegate to Congress. The principal republican aspirants were Turner M. Marquett of Cass county; Phineas W. Hitchcock, Gilbert C. Monell, and John I. Redick, of Douglas county; Thomas W. Tipton of Nemaha county; Benjamin F. Lushbaugh of Platte county; and Algernon S. Paddock, secretary of the territory -- of whose candidacy it was irreverently said, "His claims are based upon his extreme politeness . . . The polite, polished, elegant, accomplished, affable, courteous, pleasant, smiling, gracious A. S. Paddock." An estimate of Hitchcock by the same judge was as much more laconic as it was less pleasant and picturesque -- but that was formulated after his nomination.
   The union convention for nominating a delegate to Congress met at Nebraska City, August 17th. Mr. Paddock came within one vote of securing the nomination on the eighth ballot, Tipton within five on the sixth ballot, and Marquett within five on the eleventh ballot. The Nebraskian said of Daily that "if he is no longer king he is king-maker," which should be interpreted to mean, in substance, that the unnatural allegiance to him on the part of the alien North Platte in his last desperate campaign was remembered and paid for in the making of Hitchcock, who was nominated on the thirteenth regular ballot.
   At the democratic territorial convention held at Nebraska City, September 16th, Charles H. Brown of Omaha favored the nomination of William A. Little, of the same place, for delegate to Congress, while John B. Bennett of Otoe county presented the name of Dr. George L. Miller, also of Omaha. Mr. Brown withdrew Mr. Little's name, since, as he said, the democracy outside of Douglas county favored another man, and Dr. Miller was thereupon nominated by acclamation. Thus it appears that at this early time Mr. Brown, a man of very positive opinions, of unswerving purpose, and of dogged pertinacity in forwarding them and in standing against his opponents, had conceived a hostility to Dr. Miller which he cherished, with an important influence on the politics of the commonwealth, to the day of his death.
   In challenging Mr. Hitchcock to a series of joint debates in the canvass, Dr. Miller sought to make the most of the fact that his opponent continued to hold the federal office of United States marshal, and occupied the equivocal position of ostensible candidate of the "union" party, which was in fact the republican party with a pseudonym. Dr. Miller first addressed his opponent by the title of United States marshal, then as republican nominee and United States marshal, and again as nominee of the "union" party and republican United States marshal. But whatever advantage accrued to the democratic candidate by virtue of his ability, prestige, and capacity for public discussion had been yielded by the unwise copperheadism, as it was effectively called, of his platform; and also by the influence of the suicidal national democratic platform of that year --t hough it is likely that any pronounced democrat running on any platform would have been submerged in the tide of general opposition to his party which then ran strongest in the new Northwest. Mr. Hitchcock received a majority of 1,087 over Dr. Miller out of a total vote of 5,885. This bitter bourbonism, which was now adopted by the democrats of the territory to their certain undoing, was in part due to the influence of Vallandigharn and Voorhees on Morton, who had been admired and assisted by them in his contest with Daily in 1861. The baneful reactionary course of these eminent party leaders, which, not at all strangely, influenced the scarcely mature and impressionable young man, would have spent itself ineffectually against the strong individuality and independent judgment of his mature years -- now more strongly developed in the whilom pupil than in his early preceptors. The mature Morton, thirty-five years afterward, strenuously opposed and rebuked a like wayward radicalism on the part of Voorhees in the great struggle over the money question.

   The tenth session of the legislature convened January 5, 1865.
   Mr. Mason was elected temporary president