The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin

by Joseph Schafer

It is not possible to determine how many of the American born persons represented in the six cases may have belonged to German families, but doubtless some did. At all events, we can assert that in Milwaukee at that time, with its nearly 6000 Germans and nearly 4000 Yankees, not more than six cases can be found of marriages between them. No commentary is needed to establish the fact of the virtual segregation of the two great population groups.[58] If Chevalier, the French philosopher, was right in his conviction that “the Yankee is not a man of promiscuous society,” it is equally true that the German at that time was excessively clannish. His clannishness was due, no doubt, to natural and inevitable causes, but the fact needs to be recognized by the student of history.

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.

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.

The adoption of such a liberal suffrage provision in the teeth of the nativist movement which had affected all parts of the country more or less, was considered a great triumph of Democratic principles. And there is no doubt about the gratitude of adoptive citizens to the party which secured them the boon. To the Germans it seemed thenceforward a simple question of loyalty to support the Democratic party, through thick and thin, through good report and evil report. Inasmuch as the Democratic party also supported the Germans’ views on the subject of temperance (prohibition), soon to become a burning issue,[62] and in their contest with the more serious manifestations of Know-Nothingism, which in this state reached its climax somewhat later, one almost wonders how any of the Germans were able to detach themselves from that party, despite its failure to represent them on the slavery and free-soil issues.

The temperance movement and nativism were the chief grounds of political contention between Germans and Yankees during this period. The first of these broke, in 1853-55, on the rock of German—which meant Democratic—opposition. For, although a referendum vote had gone in favor of the enactment of a “Maine Law,” the Democratic legislature chosen at the same time refused to accept the result as mandatory, and did not pass the law. And when the first Republican legislature did pass such a law, in the early months of the year 1855, Barstow, the Democratic governor, vetoed the bill. Never thereafter did the temperance issue become as acute as it had been during the seven years immediately following statehood, but it is not strange that their record on that question was one of the standing arguments against Republicanism among the German voters.[63]

The Know-Nothing issue, which was supposed to be dying out at the time of the Wisconsin constitutional conventions, 1846-1848, revived after the Mexican War, figured prominently in the defeat of General Scott in 1852, and in this state as well as in some other states rose to dramatic and even tragic interest in 1855. Thereafter it declined, to pass away for the time being with the election of Lincoln and the engulfing of the nation in war.