354 Meyer—Early Railroad Legislation in Wisconsin. 
IV. PUBLIC AID—HISTORICAL. 
Strong reasons can be advanced why the order of treatment 
here pursued should be reversed. The historical account should 
precede an analysis of legal and constitutional controversies, 
which grew out of the events presented in such an account. It 
is not my purpose to give an external history of that long series 
of legislative acts, passed both by the state and subordinate 
legislative bodies, which authorized certain towns, counties, 
villages, and cities to extend aid to certain railroads; nor is it 
my purpose to chronicle in detail the numerous factional 
struggles to which these acts gave rise, or the means employed 
in securing their passage. Of these things I shall give what 
appears to me sufficient to bring before us the men and their 
methods. Whether the man’s .name was A or B, whether he 
operated at N or O, whether the same man or different men 
attempted the same thing in other localities — these facts are 
devoid of life, and have perhaps an interest only for the anti¬ 
quary. The preceding section has given us a mirror in which 
we can see reflected, in bold outlines, all the important facts 
which would naturally be presented in this section. All I 
shall attempt here is to furnish material by means of which we 
may clothe that abstract image with a garb of reality. 
Milwaukee took the initiative in granting aid to railroads. A 
meeting of “citizens of Milwaukee,” held at the Court House in 
February, 1849, adopted a bill and a series of resolutions “with 
great enthusiasm and unanimity. 1 ” The resolutions exhorted 
counties, towns, and villages along the route of the proposed 
railroad to co-operate with Milwaukee, and to memorialize the 
legislature to pass laws authorizing towns, cities, and counties 
to subscribe. The bill drawn up by the Milwaukee meeting, and 
which also was recommended for indorsement by other “ meetings 
of citizens,” authorized the city council to subscribe one 
hundred thousand dollars of stock in the Milwaukee and 
Waukesha railroad, with the privilege of increasing it to two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In order to provide for the 
payment of the stock, the council was authorized to borrow 
1 Sentinel and Gazette , February 14, 1849. 
