Consolidation. 
367 
sion of March 2, under suspension of rules, it was read the third 
time and passed, together icith over thirty other bills .' In the Senate 
it was referred to the committee on corporations, reported favor¬ 
ably, and passed by a vote of 15 to 6. 1 One of the surviving 
members of this Senate has written to the author that he had 
not been aware that such a bill had been passed until Senator 
Davis introduced a bill repealing it during the following ses¬ 
sion. The facts seem to indicate that there was much truth in 
the assertion of the enemies of consolidation that “ the railroad 
managers of Milwaukee and Chicago got slipped through the 
legislature at the close of the session, when both houses were 
much hurried and a critical examination of bills was incon¬ 
venient and almost impossible, ... a bill which gave all 
the railroads in the state the right to consolidate and make just 
about such arrangements as they pleased with each other in re¬ 
lation to a combination of their stock and capital. ” It seems 
that during the following summer the Secretary of State (later, 
Governor Harvey) detected “ this fraud upon the people, ” and 
early during the following session of the legislature Senator 
Davis from Columbia county introduced a bill repealing it. “ The 
bill passed both houses by nearly a unanimous vote, received 
the sanction of Governor Randall, and was placed on file in the 
office of the Secretary of State. Last winter [1862-3] it was 
discovered that it had been stolen from the files in the Secre¬ 
tary’s office, and that it was doubtful whether the statute had 
been complied with as regards its publication. This left it an 
open question whether the power to consolidate under the orig¬ 
inal bill had been taken away from the railroads by the repeal¬ 
ing act or not. Some of the best jurists in the state are of the 
opinion that a consolidation entered into with a full knowledge 
of the fraud practiced on the state in stealing the repealing act 
from the public files, would be void. ” 2 Matt. H. Carpenter, 
1 Vote in the Assembly not recorded. 
2 Quoted from a three-column article which appeared in the Daily Life 
(Milwaukee), June 27,1863; Wisconsin State Register (Portage), July 4, 
1863; Kenosha Telegraphy July 22, 1863; Waukesha Democrat , June 30, 
1863; bound in Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien Railroad Reports, 1861-66, 
No. 8. 
