The Election of 181+9. 
97 
had passed a joint resolution calling upon him to resign, because 
he had worked for the admission of California to the Union with 
a- constitution which did not prohibit slavery. The Free Soil 
movement had made large headway among the people, and there 
was a disposition, irrespective of party, to resent the arrogant 
attitude of the South. The measure that submitted the negro 
suffrage problem anew to the arbitrament of the people con. 
tained ambiguities in its phraseology which occasioned a mis¬ 
understanding that lasted for many years. It may be worth 
while, therefore, to very particularly examine the text of this 
act. The first section contained these directions: 
“A separate ballot may be given at the ensuing general elec¬ 
tion by every person having a right to vote, to be deposited in 
a separate box, upon the question of the adoption as a law of 
section 2 of this act. Upon the ballots given for the adoption 
of section 2 of this act shall be written or printed, or partly 
written and partly printed, the words, ‘Equal suffrage to col¬ 
ored persons. Yes.’ And upon the ballots given against the 
adoption of section 2, in a like manner, the words, ‘ Equal suf¬ 
frage to colored persons. No.’ And said ballot shall be so 
folded that the words ‘ Equal suffrage ’ shall appear on the out¬ 
side. If at the said election a majority of all the votes cast at 
such election shall be given in favor of equal suffrage to colored 
persons, then said section 2 of this act shall become a law. ” 
The second section of the act provided that “every male col¬ 
ored inhabitant of the age of twenty-one years or upwards who 
shall have resided in this state for one year next preceding any 
election, shall be deemed a qualified elector at such election and 
eligible to hold any office in the state,” subject, of course, to the 
regulations applying to other classes of voters. 
At the general election held on the 7th of November, 1849, 
there were duly cast in the State of Wisconsin 5,265 votes in 
favor of this law and 4,075 against it. The total vote on 
the suffrage amendment being less than 10,000, while the vote 
for governor at the same election amounted to 30,000, it was 
tacitly assumed that the suffrage law had been defeated. Gen. 
Rufus King, the editor of the Sentinel, had been one of the advo- 
7 
