In 1834 two land offices were opened, and by 1836, 878,014 ac. had been sold to settlers and speculators. In 1836 a special census showed a population of I i,000; in 1840 the- number was about 40,00o. From 1835 to 1845 settlers from the eastern States poured into the south-eastern part of the State, founding Mil waukee and other cities along the lake shore.
Population increased so rapidly that it was not long before a movement for the admission of Wisconsin as a State was taken up in earnest and on Aug. in, 1846, an enabling act for that purpose passed Congress and was approved by Presidtnt Polk. The first Constitution drafted was rejected by the people, how ever, owing to liberal articles relating to the rights of married women, prohibition of banks, the elective judiciasy, etc. A second convention, thought to be more conservative than the first, drafted another Constitution which in 1848 received the approval of both the people and Congress so that the State was admitted. The State governmental officers were sworn into office in June with Nelson Dewey in the governor's chair. In the same year the free public school system was established, and the great stream of German immigration set in. Railway construction began in 1851.
At the time of its admission Wisconsin, still a frontier State, was strongly democratic in spirit. The incoming Germans were likewise of the same sympathies. But Wisconsin was also a strong anti-slavery State and as the Democratic Party affiliated itself more and more completely with the cause of slavery, it lost its hold on Wisconsin. In 1854, one of the first steps in the organization of the Republican Party was taken at Ripon, and in 1856 a Republican governor was elected. In 1854 also the State supreme court rendered a decision which declared the Fugitive Slave Law to be null and void in Wisconsin. In 1860 the State aided in the election of Lincoln and supported his ad ministration during the Civil War. To the Northern armies Wis consin furnished 91,379 troops out of a total population of In 1874 a Democratic liberal reform administration came into office and in the legislative session which followed the Potter Law, one of the first attempts to regulate railway rates, was passed. The Republicans regained control in 1876 and modified
the law. In 1889 the passage of the Bennett Law, providing for the enforcement of the teaching of English in all public and paro chial schools, roused the Germans, both Catholic and Lutheran, usually Republicans, so that they voted the Democratic ticket and installed a Democratic administration from 1890 to 1895 which repealed the law. After 1895 the Republican Party grew more secure. It placed on the statute books a series of progressive i enactments in regard to railway rate legislation, taxation, pub licity of campaign expenditures, civil service, forest conservation, and finally a direct primary law. In all these reforms a leading part was taken by Governor Robert M. La Follette (1901-06), elected to the U.S. Senate in 1905 when the reform movement was at its crest. Opposition to his programme resulted in a serious split in the Republican ranks; the opposition, taking the old name of "Stalwarts," captured the governorship (1915-21). La Follette, however, retained his Senate post until his death in 1925 and carried the State's electoral vote for President in 1924. The progressive tradition has been ably continued by Robert M. La Follette, Jr. in the Senate since 1925 and by his brother Philip, elected governor in 1930 and 1934. These progressive Republi cans supported Roosevelt in 1932, and as Progressives (independ ent of both old parties) again in 1936.