hout any intention of censuring the official conduct of the
officers in whose hands the administration of our infant Territory has
been intrusted . . . . your memorialists would respectfully represent,
that the western portion of Wisconsin, with a population of
twenty-five thousand souls, reaps but a small portion of the benefits
and advantages of the fostering care and protection of the mother
Government. Your memorialists would further represent, that the
population of Wisconsin is increasing with a rapidity unparalleled in
the history of the settlement of our country; that, by a division of
the Territory, and the formation of a separate Territorial Government
west of the Mississippi river, your honorable body would greatly
advance the political and individual interests of her citizens."

By January 1, 1838, the people had expressed their views. They had
formulated their convictions into a definite request which called for
immediate division of the Territory. The scene of debate and discussion
now shifts from the prairies to the halls of Congress. Here on February
6, 1838, the Committee on the Territories, to whom had been referred the
memorials of the Territorial Convention and Legislative Assembly along
with petitions from sundry citizens, and who by a resolution of December
14, 1837, had been instructed "to inquire into the expediency of
establishing a separate Territorial Government for that section of the
present Territory of Wisconsin which lies west of the Mississippi river
and north of the State of Missouri," reported a bill to divide the
Territory of Wisconsin, and establish the Territorial government of
Iowa.

In the report which accompanied this bill the Committee stated that they
had become "satisfied that the present Territory of Wisconsin is
altogether too large and unwieldy for the perfect and prompt
administration of justice or for the convenient administration of the
civil government thereof." They were more specific in saying that "the
judges of the Territory, as it now is, and also the Governor, district
attorney, and marshal, are entirely unable to perform their respective
duties in all parts of the Territory." They also pointed out that of the
fifty thousand inhabitants in the Territory more than half resided west
of the Mississippi river, that the population was rapidly increasing,
that the natural line of division was the Mississippi river, that
the Capital would soon be removed to eastern Wisc