98 
Gregory—Negro Suffrage in Wisconsin. 
cates of the ratification of the law. But the Sentinel, comment¬ 
ing on the returns of the election, said: 
“ If the true construction be, as we presume it is, that a 
majority of all the persons voting at the election must vote for 
free suffrage, in order to its adoption, the effect is to count 
every blank vote on the question as a negative one. Thus, in 
this city, though there is a majority of the votes cast on the 
question in favor of free suffrage, there is not 1 a majority of all 
the votes cast at the election.’ And so, we think, it will be 
found throughout the state. ” 
The state board of canvassers construed the law in accordance 
with this assumption, and no one came forward to dispute the 
correctness of the assumption until 1865. In the meantime, in 
the belief that the law of 1849 was invalid, the question of negro 
suffrage had been twice submitted for the vote of the people. In 
1857, when the state was so nearly divided between the Demo¬ 
crats and the Republicans that Alexander Randall, the Republi¬ 
can candidate for governor, went in by a bare majority of 454, in 
a total vote of nearly 89,000, the number of votes cast on the 
suffrage amendment was only 60,000, and there was a majority 
of 12,000 against it. The fullest direct expression of the people 
on the subject of negro suffrage occurred at the general election 
of 1865. On the governorship the number of ballots cast in the 
election of that year was 105,181, while the vote on the suffrage 
amendment was 100,555. Gen. Fairchild, the Republican can¬ 
didate for governor, was elected by a majority of 9,097, but the 
opponents of negro suffrage were successful by a majority of 
8,059. 
The Milwaukee Wisconsin on the day after this election 
observed: 
“Yesterday the right of suffrage to colored men was un¬ 
doubtedly defeated. We had hoped this question might be settled 
at this election; but both Union men and Copperheads determined 
that equal rights should not prevail in Wisconsin. ” 
Yet at this very moment, when friends of negro suffrage were 
disheartened, the first steps had been taken in a proceeding 
which was to demonstrate that negro suffrage was already pro¬ 
vided for by law. 
