Box 14, Folder 4: Climate

and from the state of Illinois on the south to the Lake Superior on the north. It is further provided by law of Congress that Wisconsin shall have concurrent jurisdiction with other States and Territories on all lakes and rivers forming any part of her boundary : these are Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake of the Desert, Green Bay, the Mississippi St Croix, St Louis, Montreal, Brule' and Menomonee rivers. The state extends from latitude forty = two degrees and thirty minutes to forty seven degrees and five minutes ^north; and from longitude eighty seven degrees to ninety =two degrees and twenty five minutes west from Greenwich ; being about four and a half degrees of latitude and three five and a half of longitude.

By the adoption of the state constitution these boundaries are agreed to on behalf of the people of

the state, and hence all claims for a greater extent of territory are abandoned. We thus surrender to Illinois the finest portion of her lands, that lying north of a line due west from "the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan"; and to the State of Michigan the country lying along the south shore of Lake Superior, embracing the copper region ; and also to Minnesota so much of the late Territory of Wisconsin as lies west of the St Croix river.

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But these boundaries were not adopted in the Convention delegated with authority to form the constitution without much discussion ; various lines were proposed ^& advocated as the north western boundary by several of the delegates and advocated by them. The propriety of so large a state was questioned, and many argument presented which remain unanswered, to show that a smaller, more compact state would have ^been better. The very natural pride for having a large state a grasping disposition to embrace all that was worth having seems to have outweighed all the arguments presented on the other side.

By the adoption of the smaller size our state would have been more compact, not only in ^size, and the form of its outline, but by keeping together only those whose interests and feelings may be concentrated and blended together, would & thus avoid much local jealousies and sectional feelings. This is a point

too much neglected in fixing the boundaries of several of the United States of this Union ; and it would perhaps have been well in Wisconsin had been more willing to profit by their experience. As it should be the object of every good citizen to endeavor to heal all difficulties arising from the local interest of different parts of a state; to unite, rather than to separate the different portions ; so it is equally the duty of those who have the power to set limits to states, to set them in such manner as to exclude if possible all that cannot be united in one common interest for the general good government of the whole.

It may be deemed unfortunate that the convention should insist upon uniting the inhabitants of the country bordering on Lake Superior and of the valleys of the Chippewa and St. Croix rivers, against their consent, with those of southern and Eastern Wisconsin. It is not only unfortunate for the people who asked to be excluded, but it is equally so for the remainder of the state. Their trade and commerce, their business connections, the nature of their business, and even their habits and feelings must to some extent be always different. There will always be ^continual a jarring of interest and feeling that will keep the state in perpetual trouble and difficulty: and this difficulty will increase with the increasing population ; so that it is difficult to foresee what may be the disastrous results of